Re: IESG Statement On Oppressive or Exclusionary Language

[Vittorio Bertola <[e-mail]>]

> Il 10/08/2020 00:03 S Moonesamy <[e-mail]> ha scritto:
> 
> Here are two sentences from a RFC:
> 
>    "For example, a poor person in a Third World country might keep the money
>    in each mail message, regardless of whether it is spam".
> 
>    "Assuming cheap labor in a poor country can be obtained for about
>     60 cents per hour, and assuming a Turing test of a 30-second duration,
>     this is about 0.50 cents per test and thus 0.50 cents per message to
>     send an IM spam."

Thanks for posting these examples: I find these two sentences much more problematic - and condescendingly discriminatory - than any use of "blacklist" or "master/slave". Actually, if I have to say which messages on this list disturbed me in the past in terms of "oppressive or exclusionary language", they were the ones suggesting that Singapore was an inappropriate place to meet because of some pretty normal customs check, or that you could never get acceptable healthcare in Thailand and possibly also in Spain. But I also assumed to be alone in that perception, and that if anyone was out of place in this context, it was me; perhaps I was just being too sensitive.

This is indeed part of the problem: these sensitivities vary a lot depending on each participant's culture and personal values, and what is a problem for me is fine with others. This is also why the problem cannot be solved with a list of proscribed words: the most offensive concepts can be written in very normal words. 

So, with all due respect for the "terminology" draft (which is IMHO fighting the wrong battle in the right war), I would prefer that the IETF community worked on a different draft which is not about proscribing words, but about improving inclusiveness and respect throughout the organization in general, and encouraging each author and each participant to take direct responsibility for that.

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Vittorio Bertola | Head of Policy & Innovation, Open-Xchange
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