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Re: Diversity and offensive terminology in RFCs

Evan Hunt <each@isc.org> Thu, 20 September 2018 17:42 UTC

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Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2018 17:42:56 +0000
From: Evan Hunt <each@isc.org>
To: Niels ten Oever <lists@digitaldissidents.org>
Cc: ietf@ietf.org
Subject: Re: Diversity and offensive terminology in RFCs
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On Thu, Sep 20, 2018 at 11:25:58AM +0200, Niels ten Oever wrote:
> This is not a discussion that can be resolved in hrpc, but rather should
> be dealt with in the IETF community (because hrpc doesn't make policy
> for terminology in the IETF), which is why I am posting this here.
> 
> If people find the discussion worthwhile, we might also be just in time
> to request a BoF on this topic.
> 
> Looking forward to discuss.

This is a valuable topic, thank you for bringing it up.

IMHO the IETF should promte clear communication. The use of a term that's
likely be *perceived* as weighted by some readers -- even if the author
didn't intend it that way, and even if person who coined the term in the
first place didn't intend it that way -- can still hinder communication
with those readers. If it's easy to find an equivalent term without
the baggage, then it seems like common sense to use that term instead.

-- 
Evan Hunt -- each@isc.org
Internet Systems Consortium, Inc.

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