Re: Harassment, abuse, accountability. and IETF mailing lists

[Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]>]

On 06-Jun-22 23:56, Keith Moore wrote:
> On 6/6/22 04:20, tom petch wrote:
> 
>> I saw an apology for the use of '...considered harmful' recently and
>> was suprised that that phrase was .. well considered harmful
> 
> This makes me wonder: how is making a reference to a letter that's
> rather famous in Computer Science history any different that referring
> to any established technical term or concept? Granted not absolutely
> everyone will have heard of that letter, but is it really hostile to
> newcomers to use well-established language of the subject domain that we
> work in when that language isn't, say, sexist or racist?   Is 
it hostile
> to newcomers to refer to the end-to-end principle?

I suspect that, as always, context is everything. If somebody had written
a draft "6to4 considered harmful" some years ago, I don't think that
Keith or I would have been upset. (If you don't get that, see RFC 3056.)
But if they had written a draft "Carpenter and Moore considered harmful"
we would have been quite angry. Somewhere in between is "Carpenter and Moore's
work considered harmful" - I'm really not sure how I would have reacted to that.

As a matter of fact that work was subject to a lot of criticism, as was its
extension by RFC 3068, but I don't recall a single ad hominem comment.

We can be critical without being rude.

    Brian