Choices or language and tone (was: Re: RFC Series Editor Resignation)

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

--On Tuesday, July 2, 2019 20:44 -0400 Alissa Cooper
<[e-mail]> wrote:

> Hi Mike,
> 
> As I mentioned to you off-list, your request below for Ben to
> use his inside voice is demeaning, unprofessional language
> that is not suitable for the IETF discussion list, per RFC
> 3005. Repeated use of unprofessional language may be deterring
> others from voicing their opinion for fear of being
> disrespected. It is important that everyone in the community
> feels comfortable enough to express their own views on the
> IETF discussion list if they choose to do so.
>...
 
Alissa,

I find your note to be a little bit troubling at best.  In the
hope of encouraging a discussion that will move us forward, let
me try to explain why.  It is obvious that a number of members
of the community have found the situation with the RFC Editor,
certainly including the causes and circumstances of Heather's
decision to not seek a contract renewal beyond this calendar
year, quite problematic.  Several people have leapt to
conclusions about what happened and why and then charged of in
pursuit of whatever assumptions that has led them to.  I think
that is behavior we should be discouraging whether we have
specific rules against it or not and, to their credit, several
members of the community have made that point.   Others,
including Mike, have tried to ask questions that have seemed to
me to be targeted at getting a better understanding of what
happened, in what sequence, and, more generally, about whether
the actions taken were appropriate and consistent with good
practices.  To the extent to which the IETF still believes that
it is open, operates by bottom-up consensus, and that
Nomcom-appointed or otherwise selected leadership are
accountable to the participants, such questions must be
appropriate and the community has the right to expect that they
will be answered in a clear and forthright way rather than,
e.g., requiring that essentially the same question be asked
multiple times.  If there are circumstances that prevent such
answers, they should be identified and explained clearly enough
that the community can evaluate the criteria and whether they
are being properly applied.

I don't know whether you and others in the leadership agree but,
to me, failure to respond clearly and completely to such
questions, especially when they are posed by members of the
community with long and significant records of contributions to
the IETF and the Internet are fully as disrespectful, demeaning,
and unprofessional as, an unfortunate choice of vocabulary or
phrasing in response to what can be reasonably perceived as
evasive, contradictory, or incomplete answers.   I certainly
don't want to encourage either behavior, but I hope that, when
discouraging one, we don't lose sight of the other and potential
cause end effect relationships, especially when people having to
asking questions several times to get meaningful and
interpretable answers (if they get them at all) can discourage
participation in the IETF and open discussion and dialogue at
least as effectively as other types of disrespectful behavior.

Part of what motivated this note was thinking about a key bit of
IETF history.  As I'm sure you know, the POISED WG and creation
of the contemporary IETF were initiated by a series of events
and observations.  One of the critical ones, at least in my
opinion, was a talk at a plenary that was fairly strident in its
criticism of some proposed protocol choices and the people who
had made them.  I wonder whether, today, a talk that described
some protocols and their proponents as "roadkill on the
Information Superhighway" would be taken as intended and lead to
serious discussions and change or whether it would be dismissed
as disrespectful, its author publicly criticized, and --whether
it was the intended effect or not-- the discussion suppressed
because people were afraid to subject themselves to similar
criticism.   I don't know that it is possible to answer the
question -- circumstances are always different -- but I believe
that thinking about it might help to inform our thinking,
reactions, and policies.

best regards,
    john