Re: [Gendispatch] Meetings summary

[Francesca Palombini <[e-mail]>]

Hi all,

We haven't heard any new objections or additions that would change our summary and proposed dispatching outcome. So, as a WG, we have rough consensus to recommend the creation of a new quick-spin WG, aimed at producing an Informational RFC containing recommendations on terminology to use in technical work, and recommend draft-gondwana-effective-terminology as the starting point. There was also rough consensus for recommending a broader discussion and resulting document on inclusivity beyond the terminology, possibly sponsored by the IAB.
We will forward these recommendations to our AD as the dispatch decision.

Thanks everybody for your patience.
Francesca and Pete

On 13/10/2020, 22:17, "Gendispatch on behalf of Pete Resnick" <[e-mail] on behalf of [e-mail]> wrote:

    Here is a summary of what your chairs have concluded is the result of 
    the two virtual interim meetings we held on the issue of terminology in 
    IETF technical work generally, and draft-knodel-terminology, 
    draft-gondwana-effective-terminology, and 
    draft-moore-exclusionary-language specifically. We'll allow a couple of 
    weeks for discussion of these conclusions on the list before we report 
    back to Alissa the group's final recommendation on how we think this 
    ought to be dispatched.

    --

    First, we find that there was rough support in both meetings for 
    creating a document containing recommendations on terminology to use in 
    technical work, and that such a document should be Informational status. 
    However, there were concerns about describing motivations in such a 
    document for fear of "ratholing"[1], and so any significant discussion 
    of motivations ought to be avoided.

    After extensive discussion, there were objections by the end of the 
    first meeting to making the output of this work AD-sponsored, with a 
    preference for a quick-spin-up WG. In the second meeting, there was more 
    ambivalence as to whether AD-sponsored or quick-spin WG would be better. 
    Putting this together, we think the rough consensus within the meetings 
    was to have a quick-spin WG.

    There was rough support in both meetings for recommending a broader 
    discussion and resulting document on inclusivity beyond the terminology, 
    but there were many concerns for how to structure such work in a WG and 
    have it be successful. Several suggestions were made to have the IAB 
    sponsor such work as part of their program on "Diversity, Inclusion, and 
    Growth". The thought was that perhaps a discussion there could generate 
    a path forward for IETF work.

    We found a clear outcome in both meetings that draft-knodel has too much 
    controversial discussion to be the basis of a document for the above 
    mentioned quick-spin WG on terminology. There was rough support for 
    recommending the use of draft-gondwana as a starting point.

    --

    We are looking for a two important things in the discussion here on the 
    list. First, if you have read the minutes of the meetings and believe 
    that something was not discussed or that a point was missed by the 
    people at the meeting that would change the conclusions in the above, 
    please speak up. Second, if you think we misinterpreted the outcome of 
    the discussion from the meetings and therefore should have come to a 
    different conclusion, please let us know. Of course, you are also 
    welcome to ask questions about how we came to our summary. However, we 
    don't need to hear "+1" or "I agree with the above" (we'll assume you do 
    if you say nothing) and importantly we do not want to re-litigate 
    discussions that happened during the meeting unless you have new 
    information to contribute. Simply restating arguments isn't going to 
    change the outcome. So please do re-read the minutes of the meetings 
    before posting.

    Thanks for everyone's participation,

    Pete and Francesca

    [1] In case you haven't seen the IETF use of that term before: 
    Interminable and often useless or off-topic discussion, as if to fall 
    into a messy pit made by a rat.

    -- 
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