Hi Stephen, I believe that the notion that we must choose between an environment where we can disagree — about anything that is in scope for IETF discussion — and an environment in which every person is treated with dignity, decency, and respect (to quote BCP 54) is a false choice. Best, Alissa > On Sep 3, 2019, at 5:02 AM, Stephen Farrell <stephen.farrell@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > Hi Alissa, > > I fully agree with your mail with two minor caveats. I hope > those may be useful input to IESG discussion on this, hence > this mail. > > #1 I don't think continuing to discuss the SOW/RSE role on > the IETF list as well as or instead of the rfc-interest > list is at all unreasonable if that's what a poster wants > to do, despite us asking for discussion to move to the > rfc-interest list. For this one, I think the onus is on > whomever needs to be up to speed with that discussion > to monitor both and there are enough different opinions > on related topics that I can imagine someone having what > they consider a reasoned argument why moving discussion > to rfc-interest is wrong. > > #2 I'd like to suggest a phrase you used is a bit too > broad. You said: > > On 03/09/2019 02:51, Alissa Cooper wrote: >> a firmer commitment to building a respectful environment > > I've two quibbles with how you expressed that. > > I think we want an environment where we are all respectful > of the people participating (or not participating) in the > IETF, but we explicitly do not want participants to be > overly respectful of the (current) organisational structures, > nor of the fact that one us happens to be in a certain role > etc. That does differ from bring "professional" at least > as that term is understood by some reasonable people. How > to phrase that well is tricky but I'd say doable if we > somewhere explicitly note that the kind of openness we > aim for requires us to encourage criticism of the subsets > of us acting in leadership roles, and of the roles as well, > and that such criticism ought be actively encouraged, as > long as it's not personally disrespectful. And as a > corollary, as nomcom appointees we ought not take ourselves, > nor that we're acting in particular roles, too seriously:-) > > Secondly, we also do not want IETF participants to be > shy criticising what they consider technically bad ideas. > That's an area where some of us go wrong when we step over > lines between criticism of ideas and get too close to being > critical of other IETF participants. (For example by > imputing motives, which can be done very politely and > tangentially but is nonetheless wrong.) I think there's > definitely room for improvement here, (myself included) > but I'm less sure how to ensure that improvement doesn't > also damage the culture of openly criticising ideas. So > yes, let's work on being better, but carefully, and taking > into account the subtle differences between the IETF and > a company, university, or other kinds of organisation. > (In some respects, I think we're much more like a largely > volunteer-driven amateur-sports organisation, which has > different needs, and dangers, compared to a regular > for-profit company or even a professional-sports setup.) > > I guess we may agree that those quibbles need to be handled > in IESG discussion of this topic, but do think there's real > value in explicitly aiming at preserving one of what I think > is the best bits of IETF culture, being folks' willingness to > openly disagree. We absolutely need to be better at doing > that, (for example, avoiding endless repetition of well-worn > arguments that'll never be resolved;-) but we cannot stop > disagreeing or I think we're organisationally dead. > > Cheers, > S. > > > > <0x5AB2FAF17B172BEA.asc>
