Re: USA dominion: Re: IESG Statement On Oppressive or Exclusionary Language

[Toerless Eckert <[e-mail]>]

On Sat, Jul 25, 2020 at 12:52:43AM +0000, Salz, Rich wrote:
> >    What specifically do you think we should do to have
>     sufficient diversity for deciding on IETF document language evolution ?
> 
> We don't have to "solve" all the problems.  We should address known issues.  And then, when language changes, or another group comes up and says "this is hurtful/eclusionary" we should continue the process.

The question i have is more about who makes the decision. From
what you are saying it sounds as if its fine if just the interested
small set of people who are vocal enough chiming into the issue
should be the ones making the decision. My argument is that that
group has not enough diversity to represent the diversity of the
target audience of RFCs across the globe. I gave examples
of pain points in my prior email.

> Based on your postings, I have come to the conclusion that you seem to think that, ideally, this is a one-time thing:  We fix a few words and then we're done.  I don't see it that way.  We start a process, and address those terms we know about.

I don't know how you think this is what i said. I meant that i
see the risk of this happening because i see the initiative being
brought up by a specific, quite focussed social issue originating
from a single country. As i proposed, i would be happy if we
first agreed on what the goal is, and i proposed one (no feedback
received for that), and i don't think that a predominant USA
group should decide how to make such determinations for the IETF.

> >    What does it say about the self proclaimed inclusiveness goal of the
>     IETF if it does imvolve 70% or more USA centric contributors ?
> 
> I don't know, but that's kind of a leading question. I'll answer similarly: if the first part of the process is done by mostly US contributors, that's could be okay because it is mostly US contributors that have used words we now want to avoid, and who seem to be in the most civil unrest over it. Put another way, "look those folks over there are getting rid of problematic terminology, maybe I can mention some words that hurt"  It is up to the privilege to provide a "safe space" for others.  I speak from experience on that.

I am sure that in this climate the IETF mailing lists are a safe
space for others to chime in in the way you describe it, but
a real safe space would have to be one equally safe for all
reasonable opinions. And then there is the question how
to even best determine the best outcome for the target audience.

Cheers
    toerless