Re: A contribution to ongoing terminology work

[Keith Moore <[e-mail]>]

On 4/5/21 11:02 AM, Carsten Bormann wrote:

> On 2021-04-05, at 15:53, Keith Moore <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> No, I'm troubled by how the IESG arbitrarily used the Guidelines for Conduct as an excuse to suppress criticism and dissenting voices in order to promote its political agenda while at the same time violating those Guidelines.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griefer

I don't think that's a valid accusation, or at least I don't see the 
similarity.   There's a huge difference between trying to illustrate a 
problem versus stirring up trouble just for the sake of amusement.

> More gravely speaking, the founding principle of the country I’m living in is that one needs to be vigilant against attempts to destroy its freedom.  I fully subscribe to this principle, even if it means that Nazis don’t get freedom of speech here.

Ok but there's more than one way of interpreting that principle even 
among those who fully subscribe to it.  One is that freedom of speech 
(for example) must be preserved even though it sometimes makes people 
uncomfortable; another is that certain groups known to cause malice have 
their freedom of speech curtailed. Reasonable people should be able to 
disagree about which approach is better.

And if those Internet-Drafts have resulted in a conversation about the 
propriety of suppressing speech that is critical of popular ideas, I 
think that's a Good Thing, and probably a necessary thing, even if it 
makes some people uncomfortable.

I am continuing to press this issue because I wish to be vigilant 
against degradation of IETF's traditions of openness and consensus-based 
decision-making.

I am also profoundly uncomfortable with an idea that IETF participants 
have a duty to not "rock the boat" because I've so often seen in other 
contexts how that social convention protects abuse, corruption, 
discrimination, and/or irresponsible behavior.   I realize that many 
people implicitly consider this duty part of "professional" behavior, 
and I explicitly reject the idea that it's desirable.   I do think that 
one should consider whether "rocking the boat" will make things better 
or worse overall, but there's no general duty to not do so.

>
> (OK, the amount of transfer effort needed to translate these principles to what’s going on in the IETF right may be high — IETF is no country, but the point is that not every dissent is noble and deserves protection.  That is not an easy line to ride, but relitigating ad nauseam every decision the IESG makes to protect the IETF is not productive.  The submitter has even made known that he now considers his contribution rushed, and has apologized!  My mother would have said: Schwamm drüber.)

This wasn't just any decision, it was a decision to suppress speech that 
was (in my interpretation) critical of potentially harmful ideas and 
even of IETF leadership.    I would recommend that decisions to suppress 
speech be taken with extreme care, without undue haste, and with full 
transparency.   And for reasons which should now be obvious, this should 
probably not be something that is within the purview of IESG or the IETF 
Chair.   We need to be able to trust the IESG to evaluate participants' 
contributions fairly, and such arbitrary actions undermine that trust.

And I would hate to think that we shouldn't allow rushed contributions.  
The fact that we effectively have deadlines means that many submissions 
are rushed.

Keith