On 9/3/19 5:44 PM, john heasley wrote:
Perhaps "a polite and considerate environment," is a more accurate
description of the intention. Respect is different and can not be
commanded nor is it automatic, it must be earned. IMO.
I respectfully disagree.
Respect is an act of will. You can respect a fellow IETF participant
just for participating or just for having their own perspective. True,
they can earn more respect by showing that they're valuable in any way;
or they can earn less respect by showing that they're destructive,
incompetent, or whatever. You can strongly disagree with their goals
or solutions, but you can still find some reason to respect that
person. If you don't respect an IETF participant, it's pretty hard to
find common ground with them or work with them. And in a
consensus-based organization that's a serious handicap. So IMO respect
is essential.
Politeness, on the other hand, consists of arbitrary and often
conflicting social conditions. It's possible to be both perfectly
polite and scathingly disrespectful at the same time. People in my part
of the US have made a fine art of that, and I'm sure that similar things
happen in other cultures.
Of course, being polite - attempting to follow the social conventions of
someone you're working with, even if it's unfamiliar - can be a sign of
respect. But the respect is what is essential; finding a way to convey
that respect in a way that doesn't interfere with work can be discovered.
Social conventions are not always helpful in technical work. For
instance, it's important for IETF participants to be able to express
disagreement with one another on technical issues. It's important that
we be able to interact with one another as peers, without regard to
status. Doing so may seem impolite to people who are otherwise
accustomed. But it should never be done without respect.
Ideally, IETF would establish its own well-defined social conventions,
because normal social conventions are so varied, and sometimes
counterproductive to IETF's work.
Keith
