On 9/3/19 7:02 PM, Stephen Farrell wrote:
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.
Right. I agree that being polite is not really a goal, but rather
being respectful of people as people, (not of people as current
role-players nor of the current organisational structure). Turns
out that being polite (or, even better, nice, friendly) almost
all the time is a fairly good plan for demonstrating respect for
people though.
The big problem I have with the word "polite" as applied to IETF work is
that so many social conventions (which I've already referred to) are
counterproductive to IETF's work, and I'd argue, to technical work in
general.
As it happens, in my locale, swearing is considered punctuation,
so actually being nice while at the same time appearing polite to
people from certain other locales can be tricky:-)
Well, bless your heart. :)
Where I'm from, that can mean anything from a genuine expression of
respect, care, and/or concern, to a withering insult, and sometimes
multiple points on that spectrum. (In this case, though, it's just the
former.)
But having grown up in such a world has made me me realize just how
shallow, and even harmful, politeness can be.
Ideally, IETF would establish its own well-defined social conventions,
Yeah, there I totally disagree. That seems fantastical nonsense.
The IETF is neither a cult nor a centuries old tradition... yet;-)
It might be as simple as making it clear that we're all peers here (at
least for the purpose of technical discussion) and that it's not
disrespectful to disagree. I haven't seen the need for a secret
handshake or initiation ritual.
But I haven't thought of a better way to get past social conventions
that are counterproductive, than to say IETF should have its own
culture, for good and valid reasons.
Keith
p.s. out of respect, I'd punctuate my remarks to you in an Irish manner
if I could -- but I expect I'd fail miserably at it.
