Re: IESG Statement On Oppressive or Exclusionary Language

[Toerless Eckert <[e-mail]>]

On Tue, Aug 11, 2020 at 03:24:13AM +0200, Carsten Bormann wrote:
> On 2020-08-10, at 13:27, Toerless Eckert <[e-mail]> wrote:
> > 
> > I was primarily thinking about the the fact that the whole community should
> > be able to claim to have a say in the policies, eve if they are non-native
> > english speaker.
> 
> Obviously!
> 
> But the way you are saying this also indicates that you are confused about this effort.

"confused" ?  Where again should i go to complain about unfriendly, dismissive 
"oppressive" ? language on IETF mailing lists ?

;-))

> This is not the IETF reinventing language.
> This is the IETF reacting to society reinventing language.
> 
> To a large extent, this is a diagnostic, not a synthetic effort.

I do not see such a clear separation. What you call "society" started
as IMHO a group of activists that is promoting a particulary type of
language change, and this group is getting into communities like the IETF to
promote community members to join their cause. So part of IETF community
becomes/became "part of that society" to drive that change.

> Whether someone is a "native speaker" does not predict that they will make a useful contribution to this (review this thread if you don???t follow).  Not being a ???native speaker??? does make it less likely that one is immersed enough to contribute, exceptions notwithstanding.

Thanks for restating. First time around i was reading your position differently. 

> The fact that my personal knee-jerk reaction to some of the proposals would be that they are ridiculous (or just betraying a lack of education) just shows that I am not immersed enough in the society that is making these changes.

"promoting/proposing these changes" ?

> The proposals were brought to the IETF by serious people, out of serious concerns.

Serious concerns by serious people do not guarantee that their means
are appropriate.

"We are not in the driver seat, and we shouldn???t act like we are."

I don't think the situation is that #000000 and #FFFFFF.
(Is that an IETF appropriate replacement for "black & white" ?)

>  In the old adage, ???lead, follow, or get out of the way???, I???d say this is a strong ???follow??? for the IETF.  I???ll ???get out of the way??? now.

Remember that we are not talkin about something that has happened,
but something being promoted to find supporters. 

Cheers
    Toerless

> Grüße, Carsten