Re: A contribution to ongoing terminology work

[Behcet Sarikaya <[e-mail]>]

On Thu, Apr 1, 2021 at 11:32 PM Dan Harkins <[e-mail]> wrote:

>
>    I'm saddened and shocked at the inability of IETF leadership to
> understand satire.
>
>

+1

I think April Fools Day is a big thing in Europe, I have a feeling that US
is yet to understand it.

Behcet

>    Do you think that Swift's "A Modest Proposal" really advocated
> cannibalism or was it, perhaps, a satirical response to a problem
> that should not have been taken literally?
>
>    I'll point out that 3 satirical April 1 drafts were deleted at
> the vocal insistence of Niels ten Oever who produced his own unfunny
> April 1 RFC. Lars dutifully responded on twitter that he was
> removing these drafts, and received the applause of the censorious
> who then proceeded to cheer their own contribution.
>
>    Niels noted that people should make fun of those who have more
> power then they do. Well I think it's obvious who has the power.
> It's the people you're not allowed to make fun of.
>
>    Dan.
>
> On 4/1/21 8:20 PM, Benjamin Kaduk wrote:
> > [obligatory disclosure: this is not a statement of the IESG, and I did
> not
> > consult with any of my fellow ADs on its content before sending.  It is
> > shaped in part by some discussions we had, but the opinions expressed are
> > my own.]
> >
> > On Thu, Apr 01, 2021 at 02:57:36PM -0500, Nico Williams wrote:
> >> On Thu, Apr 01, 2021 at 09:40:16PM +0200, Vittorio Bertola wrote:
> >>> In other words: is holding or expressing the opinion that "ongoing
> >>> efforts to make the IETF more accessible to all interested
> >>> participants are somehow overblown, not useful, or Orwellian in
> >>> nature" a violation of the code of conduct?
> >> That would be Orwellian in itself, wouldn't it.  I await Lars' response.
> > I note that based on timezones, Lars is likely asleep and that both
> Friday
> > and Monday are public holidays in his locale, so a response from Lars may
> > not be forthcoming until after that.
> >
> > As far as the quoted question itself, the answer is "no", and we tried to
> > indicate that by saying "contributions of diverse opinions are
> encouraged,
> > [but] they need to be done in accordance with the code of conduct,
> > respecting the other individuals and opinions in the discussion".
> >
> > Stepping back to a more abstract level, the most respectful way that I
> know
> > of to have a discussion when there are strongly conflicting views is to
> > take an approach that produces messages structured roughly like (with []
> > indicating portions that only sometimes appear): "I believe that I
> > understand what you would like to have happen in this case, and it is
> > <restatement in my own words>.  [However, the actual text that you are
> > proposing in this draft seems to me to actually have the effect of
> > <something else>.]  This seems problematic to me because I think it will
> > cause <thing>, which I think is harmful.  [Additional justification of
> why
> > <thing> is harmful.]"  This makes it very clear that there is an active
> > attempt both to understand and acknowledge what the differing party wants
> > to do, and to provide a causality chain to harm that may be caused by
> that
> > proposal.  It also provides ample opportunities to clarify
> miscommunication
> > or misundersatnding, as well as to determine whether any deviations
> between
> > the stated intent and the implications of the specific wording of the
> > proposal are inadvertent.
> >
> > But, while this approach is pretty reliable, it is also a lot of work!
> So
> > it's perfectly understandable and normal to only use a subset of it, or
> > other forms of discourse, depending on the situation.
> >
> > I believe that in some situations, satire is a prefecly usable technique
> > and can be a good tool for conveying sentiments akin to those I summarize
> > above as "this sees problematic to me because I think it will cause
> > <thing>, which I think is harmful".  But it, by itself, does essentially
> > nothing to cover the "I understand what you would like to have happen" or
> > "however, the actual text that you are proposing in this draft seems to
> me
> > to actually have the effect of <something else>" parts, and if those
> cannot
> > be filled in in some other way, it's not a very effective mode of
> > communication, at least for a technical discussion.  Implicitly asking
> the
> > reader to put in the effort to backfill those other steps can be
> > disrespectful, especially when there is a large gap to backfill, because
> it
> > is asking the entire reader base to independently reimplement what could
> > have been provided once by the writer.  (The size of this gap will, of
> > course, vary from person to person and situation to situation, so
> > reasonable people will tend to be accomodating of some level of
> variation.
> > For some very well-done satire the gap is very easy to fill.)
> >
> > Returning now from the abstract level to this specific draft: in this
> case,
> > speaking for myself as a reader, the gap between the presented satire and
> > my understanding of the intent of what is being proposed in the
> terminology
> > effort is so large that I simply cannot bridge it on my own.  The
> presented
> > scenario is so different from my expectations that it's not even a
> > "worst-case scenario" or "bad dream"; it just simply doesn't compute for
> > me.  Maybe this is a lack of creativity on my part, and someone will step
> > in and help show me what I'm missing, but I doubt that I'm alone in this
> > regard.  I would have expected a contribution to an ongoing technical
> > discussion to be respectful of the readership and ask less of the reader
> in
> > understanding what point is being made.  Otherwise, the satire just looks
> > like standalone satire and not a contribution to a technical discussion.
> > (I hope it goes without saying that there's nothing intrinsically
> > problematic about satire as satire, though IETF mailing lists are
> probably not
> > the best place for it.)  But, I'm willing to operate on the assumption
> > that we are still having a technical discussion about the proposed TERM
> > working group.
> >
> > In that vein, Ipromise to put in the effort to receive and attempt to
> > understand any reasoning that is sent to me about why the proposed
> > terminology work is not something that the IETF should undertake.  I
> > especially encourage messages covering aspects related to what I write
> > above about "however, the actual text that you are proposing in this
> draft
> > seems to me to actually have the effect of <something else>", since I
> think
> > I am seeing significant gaps between what the proponents of the work are
> > saying the work is intended to do and what the opponents of the work are
> > saying it will actually do.  The proposed TERM charter is currently on
> the
> > agenda of the 2021-04-08 IESG telechat.  Per
> >
> https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf-announce/6yVtXkj3wJjQxQA29On8-Lyvwmw/
> > please send your comments to [e-mail] by 2021-04-05.
> >
> >
> >
> > In closing, I'd like to follow up on a couple points from Lars' note.
> While
> > IESG members are saddened by this draft, we do not claim a right to not
> > be sad.  Lloyd can post this draft, and the community members (including
> me)
> > can respond to it, and I am sad about what I see as a detrimental effect
> on
> > the organization, [1] but the draft is still up, and we are talking
> about it.
> > There were two other drafts posted today that were removed from the I-D
> > repository for being clearly in violation of the code of conduct, but
> Lars'
> > note says only that this draft is "not in alignment with our code of
> > conduct", which can cover many points on a spectrum.  I don't think this
> > says that Lloyd is bad or that Lloyd's opinions are bad, just that we can
> > do better at having a respectful technical discussion that is more
> closely
> > aligned with the code of conduct.  Nobody's perfect (we will never be
> > perfectly aligned with the code of conduct), and we understand that on
> > occasion we all will get close to the boundary of the code of conduct,
> and
> > that's not intrinsically a failing on our part when it happens.  What's
> > most important is that someone notices when we're veering astray and how
> we
> > respond when it's pointed out.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Ben
> >
> > [1] I see this draft as having a detrimental effect because, in
> constructing
> > an elaborate work of (what I assume to be) satire but introducing it as
> "a
> > contribution" with no acknowledgment of its nature or attempt to "bridge
> > the gap", the author seems to be setting up the sense that the efforts
> > related to terminology are jocular as well.  I can understand if people
> who
> > are advocating the work feel disrespected when receiving the sentiment
> that
> > their effort is a joke, and I see how that would in practice make us a
> less
> > open organization.  While there is value in satire, if I have to estimate
> > the value that this draft, as presented (with minimal introduction on the
> > list) adds, and compare it against an estimate of the harm it causes, the
> > net effect seems more likely detrimental than beneficial, and so I am
> sad.
> >
>
> --
> "The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to
> escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." -- Marcus Aurelius
>
>