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On 9/7/2019 8:20 AM, Stephen Farrell
wrote:
Hiya, On 07/09/2019 02:24, Alissa Cooper wrote: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.I fully agree and didn't mean to imply those were mutually exclusive - they are not. Maybe it'll help if I try phrase my concerns differently. I maintain that we need to be very careful in how we try get to a place where we bother respect one another as people and where we feel free to question anything relevant. It'd be easy enough to end up putting too much emphasis on one and not the other. While historically we've not sufficiently emphasised being respectful, it is also possible that efforts to encourage better behaviour could accidentally stymie an environment where we have a goal that anyone can and will question anything relevant. I do want an outcome where people are commonly more respectful of one another, but don't really want people to think they need be respectful of other people's positions - regardless of whether that position is based on one's employer or of having been selected for something by nomcom. And I do see that as a danger that (maybe inherently?) accompanies efforts to get us to behave better. Lastly I think the fact that we're a volunteer-driven body without members also has an impact in that we cannot as easily punish whatever one might consider bad behaviour as is possible in a company or membership organisation. I think our efforts to encourage better behaviour need to take that into account. To some extent, with our setup we need to be able to live with rougher-edges in debate as anyone can turn up. And that "anyone can turn up" is a strength that I think we all agree we don't want to lose. Cheers, S.Best, AlissaOn Sep 3, 2019, at 5:02 AM, Stephen Farrell <stephen.farrell@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: <snip> 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. I've come to really dislike the word "respectful" in any of our
context as it by definition implies both offering respect and
deference. Respect is so culturally circumscribed as to make
figuring out when you're offering enough respect in a given
circumstance difficult. Deference quickly becomes expected based
on role rather than good technical arguments. It tends to impose
a hierarchy where there should be none.
Noun: Respect: due regard for the feelings, wishes, rights, or traditions of others. Very hard to make an objective evaluation of respect, let alone a
subjective one. Becomes even harder when cultural traditions
and structures come head to head with IETF traditions and
structures. (As a really bad example that hasn't hit us yet - the Billy
Graham rule). 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:-) Professional has its own problems in that it brings us back to respectful and courteous. Courteous starts getting us to where we want to be.:
Somewhat circular, but introduces "considerate":
And that's a bit better as it's easier to understand "inconsiderate" behavior or speech is that which inconveniences or hurts others. But still, that's not quite modeled correctly. What I think we want is "careful not to cause unnecessary
inconvenience or hurt to others", as there will be times that
either or both is required to advance the IETF, or the topic or
the IETF culture in a meaningful manner. I use "hurt" here in the
most general sense of hurt feelings, reputational harm (e.g.
identifying a malicious falsehood, play for pay, hits to status
etc) and not any form of physical harm. Call it "consideration informed by necessity".
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.) In the technical discussions, imputing motives is almost always
"inconsiderate" :-) e.g. wrong. But even then hauling out the
submarine patent and asking someone to explain their motivation
for including something in that patent in the discussion without
telling people about... pretty much spot on. There are other
examples. Sometimes, if you don't understand the behavior, the
right answer is to ask for an explanation and try and relate to
observed facts. I think its probably ok to point out any variance
between said explanation and said facts.
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.) We are in no way a regular, organized organization. The folk in
leadership roles are working with delegations from the community
of certain privileges and authorities, and that's true from the
chairs down to the various WG chairs and editors. That probably
creates some creative dissonance between folks used to being able
to order minions about in their day jobs and those trying to herd
cats at the IETF sometimes forgetting and using their day-job
approaches instead. We probably collectively have an ego
quotient substantially higher than the average and that will lead
to a bit more ... noise? ... static? ... in any given discussion
than might be seen in a corporate or more organized organization.
I personally think it's part of the strength - even if sometimes I
lose the arguments.
I mostly agree with what you're saying - I really just want to
try to eliminate a bit more of the subjectivity that seems to be
swirling around the various meanings of "professional",
"respectful", "dignity" and "decency". Later, Mike
the requirements of accepted or respectable behavior
<snip> Cheers, S. <0x5AB2FAF17B172BEA.asc>
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