Re: IESG Statement On Oppressive or Exclusionary Language

[Viktor Dukhovni <[e-mail]>]

On Fri, Aug 07, 2020 at 10:21:11AM -0400, Richard Barnes wrote:

> Literally the first sentence of my message is about people causing harm
> without intending to.
>
> If I'm going to be generous, I'll admit that in some idealized sense, there
> are risks in both directions here -- restricting useful speech on the one
> hand, alienating contributors who could do good work on the other hand.

So far, so good, benefit of the doubt and all that, other than
neglecting to note that the risk of alienating contributors who could do
good work may be present in both options.  Indeed perhaps the
institution of prior restraint of speech, and the inherent dynamics that
creates, could to put off more contributors than cosmetic removal of a
handful of technical terms.

    [ No master zone file or name server ever oppressed a slave zone
    file or slave name server, and at the time of the McCarthy witch
    hunts, the alleged and actual, communist sympathisers were
    blacklisted for the content of their character, not the colour of
    their skin.  Yes, of course, in most other respects such freedom
    from racial discrimination was not a feature of the times, and many
    disparities remain to this day.  And yet, even given the unresolved
    social issues in the USA, and indeed in various other societies
    around the world, the purported benefits of rewording the IETF's
    technical terms remain unclear, and the proposed measures can be
    counterproductive also by focusing attention away from IETF subject
    matter onto the various social, ethnic, racial, gender, etc., roles
    of the participans. ]

> But this thread itself is a testament to how free the in-group here feels
> to express their opinions, and I've had several people outside that group
> tell me how this toxic conversation is actively discouraging their
> participation in IETF.  Call them "professionally wounded" or "snowflakes"
> if you want, but the road this leads down is toward a senescent,
> obsolescent, irrelevant IETF.

And here, is where the above comment is blatantly insensitive, and
exclusionary.  It assumes that:

    - Objecting to policing of language in this community still places
      one in the "in-group".  And that one can express such objections
      comfortably, without fear of repercussions.  It is far from clear
      that is still the case, indeed it seems evident that there are
      clear risks here in opposing the excesses of proposed reforms.

    - It stereotypes those objecting as insensitive and haughtily
      dismissive of social issues. 

    - It paints the objectors as senescent, obsolescent and irrelevant.
      And yet somehow purports to be fighting exclusionary language.

> People have better things to do with their time than engage with an
> organization that doesn't care about them.

The IETF is not here to care or not care about specific inviduals or
particular social groups.  The purpose of the IETF is to promote
interoperability of network protocols and applications.  The people who
are here, are those who can (perhaps barely) afford to care about
Internet standards, and have chosen to dedicate some of their time in
that direction.

Those who could be here, but are not, are largely not here because the
IETF process is slow and cumbersome, and they may have more expedient
options.  The proposed reforms do nothing to address this.

> In other words, the pure focus on one side of the risk equation is
> causing the consequence -- unintended or not -- of driving away new
> participants.  Which implies to me that we should let up on that and
> take into account the effects we have on other people -- unintended or
> not.

The thesis that a significant number of potential new participants is
driven away from the IETF because of "senescent" and "obsolescent"
terminology is highly speculative.  It rather looks more like a
rationalisation, than a credible prior.

This thread was not here until recently, and yet throngs of newcomers
were not then clamoring to join the IETF then, who are now staying away
(for reasons other than COVID-19 restrictions).  The discussion has
actually been mostly tame, at worst at times somewhat pedantic, with a
bit of sophistry here and there, but likely even mellower than on some
of the more contentious technical issues.

-- 
    Viktor.