Re: Bad/Good ideas and damage control by experienced participants (was: Harassment, abuse, accountability. and IETF mailing lists)

[Keith Moore <[e-mail]>]

On 6/14/22 02:34, Barry Leiba wrote:

> I don’t think it’s that much subjective and vague, in that we really 
> do all know what we’re getting at here, what sorts of language is 
> meant to insult and anger people and perhaps drive them away.

Except that I don't think we really do all know what we're getting at here.

I don't really even think that people's language is the biggest part of 
the problem, and especially don't think that bad eggs are the cause of 
that problem.   I think the behavior that people complain about is 
largely a consequence of the work that we've taken on, and (more 
importantly, because there's more potential to fix this) the conditions 
and conventions we've adopted to do that work.

If people are impatient in their criticism,  too frequently short with 
one another, if out of frustration they lose precision in their 
criticism of proposals and instead start to criticize their proponents, 
why is that?   Saying it's bad people, or greybeards, or personality 
defects, is a cheap shot.   It's easy to say that but it doesn't look 
very deep.

We're asking a lot of ourselves, and our adopted tasks are not made 
easier by the ways that we work, and the volume of work that we take 
on.    We're too impatient because we take on too much work under 
difficult conditions, and we take on too much work because we fail to 
take the time to understand what's really important for the Internet and 
what's not.

Keith