Re: The Next Generation

[Keith Moore <[e-mail]>]

John,

I respect your efforts, and those of Kathleen and others, to mentor new 
people.  I wouldn't mind helping myself, but new people are generally 
not visible to me unless I attend meetings, which is problematic both 
for reasons of expense and reasons of stress. The thought of spending 
thousands of dollars to participate in what has often become an 
extremely dysfunctional discussion environment (though this does vary 
from one WG to another), and endure more abuse in the process, is just 
too depressing.   But if there were some other way to connect new people 
to remote participants, that might be helpful, and that's why I asked 
about other efforts.

And I respect your right, and others' rights, to make individual 
judgments and choices about how to best further IETF's mission. If you 
choose to do work more behind-the-scenes I wish you well in your 
efforts.   We certainly need lots of help of various kinds. Meanwhile 
it's increasingly clear that some IETF leaders' actions (promoting 
censorship for arbitrary reasons and also overtly promoting 
discrimination) are having a chilling effect on IETF's ability to do 
sound technical work, and exacerbate the very toxicity that some leaders 
claim to be trying to remedy.   I have seen no sign that these efforts 
have been curtailed.   Until they are curtailed, I believe it will 
continue to be necessary to call them out.   But I remain hopeful that 
the problems will be addressed.  And I will also continue to try to 
recognize positive developments that come to my attention.

You mentioned remembering when I first came to IETF.   What I remember 
about my first meeting (St. Louis) is being pleasantly surprised, even 
shocked, at how eager the participants were to have a new and 
well-informed participant, and how welcome my input was in the 
discussions that we had that week.   It was a complete contrast to 
today's environment of general hostility.   Of course conditions are 
different now, but so is the organization.

I think the biggest problem we have is that we've lost the sense of 
collaborating for a common purpose.    I don't see how we can restore 
that as long as the leadership promotes divisiveness.

Keith