Re: IESG Statement On Oppressive or Exclusionary Language

[Mary B <[e-mail]>]

On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 11:14 AM Yoav Nir <[e-mail]> wrote:

>
>
> > On 27 Jul 2020, at 15:50, Salz, Rich <rsalz=[e-mail]>
> wrote:
> >
> >>     And I'm telling you that if you that the bar to compel speech is
> >>    considerably
> >>    higher than rank assertions and fallacies.
> >>
>
> > Nobody is compelling anything,
>
> The subject of this thread is “IESG Statement On Oppressive or
> Exclusionary Language”. Someone is definitely tryiing to compel people to
> not use what they consider to be oppressive and exclusionary language.
>
> > unless the IETF comes to consensus to not use language that some find
> problematic.
>
> This is empowering “some” to compel everyone to avoid what they consider
> problematic. As an example, I know I’m an outsider in the US, but to me
> words like “folks” and “y’all” in US English (no connection to German or
> Dutch origins) express the contempt that intellectual elites feel towards
> less educated people. The latter term is specifically a fake southern
> accent, while the former is always associated with a lack of education.
> Consider terms like “folksy” and “folk wisdom”.
>
[MB] And, your interpretation is totally, totally off base.  I use both of
those words frequently and there are a lot of folks here in Texas with a
real southern accent that use those words. And, I've been around long
enough that I can also use a southern drawl and it's not even intentional
that I will often do so after spending time in places like East Texas (most
of Dallas are not native Texans).  I use "folks" all the time and I'm
absolutely not using it as an intellectual elite nor using it in any way
as condescending. And, yes, I use "y'all" frequently as well but not very
frequently in writing.   I have no idea where you got this impression or
why you've formed such a strong negative opinion of those terms.  You might
be watching too much American television if this is what you really
believe.   Of course, this might explain why I do find IETF to be a pretty
hostile place to get work done if people are interpreting my language in
that way.  [/MB]

>
> > I think you have made it clear that you are opposed to that consensus.
> Calling it compelled speech is clever and I salute your linguistic ability.
>
> IETF consensus is usually achieved by a small group of people who care
> about a particular subject. That works fine as long as the people who care
> about automated certificate issuance and renewal participate in ACME, and
> people who only participate in the IETF for routing protocols don’t ever
> read the drafts. We’re fine with saying that the documents have “IETF
> consensus”.
>
> This doesn’t work here. Like every other topic, only the people who care
> about word usage are going to participate in the discussion, and maybe Dan
> and two others will be the only voices there against it. The people who
> don’t care so much, or the people who think the whole thing is just silly
> are not going to participate.  Yet this will end up in an RFC that is
> binding on everyone.
>
> The potential for a small but motivated group to hijack the process and
> dictate policy is great, and the argument that the process was open to
> everyone is not convincing. We all have limited time, and arguing language
> policy at the IETF is not a good use of time for most of us.
>
> For me, the “master/slave” terminology is something that I believe should
> be phased out, because it was never a good metaphor: The interaction
> between human masters and human slaves is not one where the slave copies
> the master, so it was always a poor term. But “blacklist” and “whitelist”
> are terms that have been used widely for decades if not centuries, and
> nobody can really give a good reason as to why someone would consider it
> offensive.  Perhaps whitespace is also offensive? Red/Black trees?  You
> don’t have to walk in anyone’s shoes to consider that silly, and yet a
> working group would be very likely to add all of those to the list of
> prohibited speech, and that will affect us all.
>
>