Re: [Gendispatch] draft charter text: terminology-related WG

[John Levine <[e-mail]>]

In article <[e-mail]> you write:
>However, what I really care about is that any effort to improve language inclusiveness is actually inclusive. Whenever this
>discussion comes up, it focuses regularly just on a handful of terms that are deemed offensive to one specific ethnicity in one
>specific country. While of course this is not the intention, this often feels exclusive to people from other countries and other
>ethnicities; this became apparent during some past discussions on the main IETF list.

I share the concern that this is an exercise in which a bunch of
mostly rich white people are trying to guess how people who are not
rich and white might feel. While I agree it is an important topic to
address, it is my strong impression that most of the obvious things
one might do, e.g., making lists of words to avoid, are not actually
productive.

Also, wearing my sort-of-RSE hat, whatever we do has to be advice for
document authors, editors, and shepherds.  We cannot ask the production
center to be our language police.

R's,
John