Re: IESG Statement On Oppressive or Exclusionary Language

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

Hi.

I have been trying to follow this discussion but have had
difficulty doing so -- far too many postings, many of them
repetitive, especially when it was initiated only two or three
days before the start of IETF.  I'm in agreement with the basic
principles, including the idea that it is time for the IETF to
start thinking about its vocabulary, but concerned about the
document, the details, and how this has been and is being
handled.  A brief summary of my impressions after doing
something I would definitely not recommend --reaching through
the entire thread at one sitting -- is:

(1) For many reasons, some of them not even mentioned in the
I-D, it would be a good idea for the IETF community to pay more
attention its vocabulary -- especially vocabulary that could be
construed as oppressive or exclusionary (and I'd add
"dismissive", "insulting of groups or individuals" and maybe a
few other categories to that list), both in documents it
develops or produces and in day-to-day discussions and
presentations.

(2) Creation of a dictionary of bad words (even to the extent
that the I-D does it) is unlikely to be satisfactory, especially
if, in practice, it devolves into "anything not forbidden by the
list is allowed".  Encouraging some group of people to
participate in the IETF by playing enforcers of cultural norms
(whether as "language police" or otherwise) or in the form of a
WG is unlikely to work out well for either the IETF or the
portions of the Internet that we are supposedly trying to make
better... and the people who depend on our work.

(3) We are an international community with aspirations to be
even more so.   That may imply that a term or acronym that is
neutral or otherwise acceptable in English may be offensive,
oppressive, or exclusionary when translated or transliterated
into another language.  We should probably be aware of that too.

(4) The good news is that the IETF has very good ways of dealing
with such issues even if they are not the remedy recommended by
the I-D.  That is that we try to educate the community to these
issues (in a way, these discussion threads are a good start but
one can imagine EDU team and other IESG efforts).  Then we use,
and encourage the use of, our existing WG, IETF Last Call, and
IESG review mechanisms, mechanisms that include people who are
not first-language speakers of English and, as we work on other
problems, an increasingly diverse IETF community, to identify
problematic language and handle it the same way we handle other
problematic text in documents.

And three more observations:

(5) Some of the subthreads on the list have shown a level of
acrimony, dismissiveness of the perspectives of others, and
absence of willingness to listen, much less demonstrate any
empathy, that are, IMO, as likely, perhaps more likely than any
particular choice of language, to convince newcomers (especially
newcomers from disadvantaged groups) that the IETF is not a
place in which they want to do work.  If we really want
diversity, we may need to expand our definition of bullying to
move well beyond recent interpretations and apply it to behavior
on our mailing lists.

(6) If we need a document to describe what we are trying to do
and why we are trying to do it (I'm not convinced we do) the
current iteration of draft-knodel-terminology is almost
certainly not it.  I think the issues have been identified
adequately by others and I won't repeat them, but it needs work,
ideally work that includes generally-accessible references and
[more] people with in-depth professional expertise on the
relevant topics.

(7) Finally, I would encourage the IESG to examine what was done
here and its (IMO, predictable) outcome.  An IESG statement was
posted three days before the IETF meetings started referring to
version -03 of an I-D (posted 8 July) whose -02 version dates
from mid-June and whose -00 version was posted in October 2018.
The community was asked to look at it (essentially for the first
time, since it was not developed as an IETF document) and told
it would be on the agenda for the GENDISPATCH meeting Thursday,
a week after the announcement was posted.  It generated close to
200 messages on the IETF list, a flow that was more than
adequate to suppress any more technical discussions that might
have been come up on that list in the days before IETF and
possibly to distract people from doing pre-meeting technical
work, getting meeting materials posted in a timely fashion, etc.
If this subject matter is important --and I think it is-- then
it was important a month or six weeks ago, an only slightly
different version of the draft was around, and a more leisurely
discussion could have been held without the risk of impairing
the message or the use of a last-minute announcement.  I also
note that the IESG has pushed less complex discussions off onto
dedicated mailing lists rather than encouraging even smaller
volumes of discussion on the IETF list.  I'm sure the IESG had
its collective reasons for this particular case but I hope it
does not become bad precedent for how we do things in the future
and, for the future, I hope we can avoid similar sequences and
timing.

best,
    john







--On Thursday, July 23, 2020 09:35 -0700 The IESG
<[e-mail]> wrote:

> The IESG believes the use of oppressive or exclusionary
> language is  harmful.  Such terminology is present in some
> IETF documents, including  standards-track RFCs, and has been
> for many years. It is at odds with  our objective of creating
> an inclusive and respectful environment in the  IETF, and
> among readers of our documents.
> 
> The IESG realizes that the views of the community about this
> topic are  not uniform. Determining an actionable policy
> regarding problematic  language is an ongoing process. We
> wanted to highlight that initial  discussions about this topic
>...
> [1] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-knodel-terminology/