Re: IESG Statement On Oppressive or Exclusionary Language

[Carsten Bormann <[e-mail]>]

On 2020-08-10, at 13:27, Toerless Eckert <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> I was primarily thinking about the the fact that the whole community should
> be able to claim to have a say in the policies, eve if they are non-native
> english speaker.

Obviously!

But the way you are saying this also indicates that you are confused about this effort.

This is not the IETF reinventing language.
This is the IETF reacting to society reinventing language.

To a large extent, this is a diagnostic, not a synthetic effort.

Whether someone is a "native speaker" does not predict that they will make a useful contribution to this (review this thread if you don’t follow).  Not being a “native speaker” does make it less likely that one is immersed enough to contribute, exceptions notwithstanding.

The fact that my personal knee-jerk reaction to some of the proposals would be that they are ridiculous (or just betraying a lack of education) just shows that I am not immersed enough in the society that is making these changes.  The proposals were brought to the IETF by serious people, out of serious concerns.  We are not in the driver seat, and we shouldn’t act like we are.  In the old adage, “lead, follow, or get out of the way”, I’d say this is a strong “follow” for the IETF.  I’ll “get out of the way” now.

Grüße, Carsten