Re: Tolerance

[Keith Moore <[e-mail]>]

On 7/15/19 12:32 PM, Jacob Hoffman-Andrews wrote:

> To reinforce what Melinda's saying: I dedicate less time to IETF work 
> than I otherwise would, specifically because of the hostile and alien 
> nature of debate here. I have colleagues who feel the same way, and 
> other colleagues who refrain entirely from participating at the IETF 
> because of it.

I believe you.   But could you drill down a bit into (i.e. define more 
precisely) "hostile" and/or "alien"?   Because I suspect these words 
mean different things to different people.

I have seen many reasons why people might be reluctant to contribute 
technical input to IETF.   Among these are those that you mention, but 
also (and perhaps more importantly) people who feel that it is "not 
their place" (or to put it differently, it would be "impolite") to offer 
an opinion that conflicts with the opinion of someone with apparently 
higher status.   I saw this a lot when I was on IESG - people who would 
not say what they really thought (no matter how much I tried to 
encourage them) apparently because they thought I might disagree with them.

(My personal belief is that quite often there is not a single right 
answer to a problem, so insisting that someone has to be right and 
others wrong is counterproductive.   But good compromises come from 
having, and respecting, a wide variety of input.   Impassioned 
_technical_ arguments can produce such compromises, but only if 
everyone's dedicated to producing a good result, and has reason to trust 
that the community will encourage and facilitate that.  Sometimes you 
have to get to the root of a disagreement in order to find out what's 
really important, and sometimes that's a frustrating process.)

Also, I have sometimes found input from people who claimed to be 
speaking up for others' right to speak, to itself  have a chilling 
effect on others' willingness to speak up.

I hope there's general agreement that people should be free to 
contribute technical ideas and opinions without fear of reprisal.   
What's the best way to encourage that?

>
> It can certainly take a lot longer to write an email that expresses 
> disagreement strongly but without attacking the recipients (or other 
> parties). Often it takes multiple revisions. But it's worth all of us 
> taking the time and making those revisions in order to make the IETF a 
> sustainable venue.

I certainly agree that personal attacks are inappropriate, and hope 
others also feel that way.

Keith