Re: Tolerance

[Dave Cridland <[e-mail]>]

On Mon, 15 Jul 2019 at 18:50, Keith Moore <[e-mail]>
wrote:

> 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.
>
>
Almost certainly the precise meaning taken differs, but the essential
meaning here is that some IETFers choose to be blunt, and this drives
others away.

And make no mistake, this *is* a choice, and I've only ever seen long-time,
"senior", IETFers defend that choice publicly.


> 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.
>
>
These are other forms of the same problem, and thus have the same solution
- the best way to ensure that diverse opinions are given is to ensure that
we are welcoming to diverse opinions.

This means avoiding being blunt when we offer our opinions, as well as
trying to tease out the useful opinion from the bluntness of others.

To put it another way, we should be conservative in what we send, and
liberal in what we accept from others. Just like that principle, it should
not bar us from noting and rejecting bad input - but we shouldn't let that
be the cause of a fatal error.

I'm glad to see that you note in your example that the people were put off
speaking up by their perception of you. I can't tell you what you did to
give them that opinion - I've a thick enough skin, and I'm certainly guilty
of being overly blunt at times myself, so I'm not the best judge of whether
that was the issue. Nevertheless, I agree with your implication that how
people "in power" behave can have unexpected and highly undesirable
outcomes for the group.

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.
>

There's an element of truth here, in as much as if the only people who feel
comfortable speaking up are, shall we say, "people who enjoy bluntness" it
has a natural selective effect on the make up of the group; if newcomers
aren't comfortable speaking up themselves, we've already lost, and others
speaking up on their behalf is probably doing as much harm as good.

As yes, I appreciate the irony here.


> 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?
>

Not to retaliate, even where some course correction might be required.
Retaliation is, after all, escalation.

In my opinion, the problem we saw that sparked much of this discussion was
twofold:

a) By describing the actions as stupid, this carried a (unwanted)
implication that those carrying out the action were stupid. Only stupid
people do stupid things, but even clever people can make serious errors.

b) Rather than call out that choice of words but answer the essential
points, the organisation chose instead to chastise the sender publicly and
leave the points unanswered - unwittingly shutting down the discussion.

Put another way, the sender's choice of words added nothing useful to the
discussion, and in fact dissuaded some from offering their own opinions.
The response to it had much the same effect. And of course, the response to
that escalated further. And so on.


> >
> > 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.


Yes - and I note that a public chastising can very easily be a personal
attack of sorts, too.

Dave.