Re: IESG Statement On Oppressive or Exclusionary Language

[Vittorio Bertola <[e-mail]>]

> Il 23/07/2020 18:35 The IESG <[e-mail]> ha scritto:
> 
> The IESG looks forward to hearing more from the community, engaging in 
> those discussions, and helping to develop a framework for handling this 
> issue going forward.

While I share the basic motivations, and I have no problems with the wording changes that are proposed in the draft if the community wants them, I have a few comments on the approach.

First of all, we need principles and a method well before we start building lists of proscribed words. The referenced draft only seems to address what is offensive to a single ethnic group in a single country, i.e. African-Americans. However, a proper policy on this would address language that is offensive to any ethnicity, gender, culture, geographical origin and social background.

For example, quite a few Italian software developers feel offended by the widespread use of the expression "spaghetti code" - even if it purportedly refers to the structure of the code, it is not uncommon to see any code written by an Italian pejoratively defined like that, even when it is actually good code. I don't know if this expression is ever used in any RFC, but it is just to illustrate that the discussion should be about much more than "master/slave".

I am also a bit wary of attaching inherent negative and positive meaning to colours. Again, I have no problem in getting rid of "blacklist" if it makes other people happy, but statements such as "Blacklist-whitelist is not a metaphor for lightness or darkness, it is a good-evil metaphor" are unsourced or sourced with single references to militant scholars (e.g. Frantz Fanon). Colours are widely used in technical interfaces and specifications, but most of them can be attached to specific ethnicities (or political opinions and more), and it could be a problem if we had to get rid of them completely.

But more importantly, I think that any kind of word policing and cleaning up of text is hypocritical if the problem of the actual inclusiveness and diversity of participation in the IETF is not addressed. Actually, I dislike word policing because it too often becomes a way for organizations to whitewash(*) themselves while perpetuating their imbalances of representation and power.

To be practical: the draft was proposed two years ago on HRPC and even there it could not reach consensus. Given how sensitive the subject is, I would suggest that we would dispatch it to a specific working group with the task of working out a general mechanism that can apply to any past and future case of offensive language. The specific terms to avoid, and how to deal with them, should then emerge as an initial application of that mechanism. 

It would however be much better if the group were also tasked with developing a strategy to increase the overall diversity of participation in the IETF and in its leadership roles.


(*) used in the primary British English meaning of https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/whitewashing #1, and also as an example of a word associating white with something negative

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Vittorio Bertola | Head of Policy & Innovation, Open-Xchange
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Office @ Via Treviso 12, 10144 Torino, Italy