Re: USA dominion: Re: IESG Statement On Oppressive or Exclusionary Language

[Jacob Uecker <[e-mail]>]

+1  

> On Jul 24, 2020, at 4:24 PM, Mary B <[e-mail]>
> 
> You might also want to consider that it isn't just a US majority, it's a white male US majority, which is also an issue IMHO.   The same applies for WG chairs etc.  Indeed, I would posit that the lack of diversity when it comes to gender is also a huge issue with the organization.
> 
> Regards,
> Mary. 
> 
>> On Fri, Jul 24, 2020 at 5:57 PM Toerless Eckert <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> Joe, *:
>> 
>> Here is how i think this whole effort is exclusionary: 
>> 
>> For the mayority of writers and even more so readers of IETF documents,
>> english is not the first language. Even for any non-american native english
>> speaker, i wonder how much they feel that there is a need to update the language
>> used by the IETF for what arguably is primarily a US social problem: Dealing with 
>> a still seemingly not well enough handled history of afro-american racism and slavery. 
>> 
>> This effort of language change if it is then adopted officially in IETF or RFC
>> editor will undoubtedly reconfirm the perception if not reality that the IETF
>> is a strongly USA dominated institution:
>> 
>> - IETF chair lives in USA works for USA company
>> - 12 of 14 IESG members live in the USA and/or work for USA companies.
>> - 10 out of 13 IAB members live in the USA and/or work for USA companies.
>> - Anybody want to take a bet what percentage of WG chairs live in the
>>   USA and/or work for a USA company ?
>> - Any of the other leadership roles ?
>> 
>> While in the past USA leadership was seen as very positive, unfortunately this
>> has changed around the world, and this effort has good chances to also be
>> seen in that light:
>> 
>> In this case, we have a situation where (if i analyze it correctly) not even 
>> the long-term IETF community, but one from outside the IETF brings this USA centric
>> social issue into the IETF, and the USA centric active IETF community is directly
>> jumping on this boat because they confuse whatever might be good for their
>> countries community to be equally good for the supposedly much larger 
>> and supposedly much more diverse and inclusive global IETF community. To me, this
>> is a sign of even stronger USA influence than anything technical we had so far.
>> 
>> IMHO this is NOT going to be perceived well in the worldwide IETF community,
>> instead, this will create more ridicule about bullish USA centric influence
>> and  control of the IETF. 
>> 
>> I for once learned a lot of network/software terminology from german language 
>> books using american terms. For all intent and purpose the mayority of the
>> worldwide IETF community  and even moree so the readers of IETF products (RFCs)
>> uses english ONLY as a technical language in a similar fashion. Why would
>> that community have to care about social issues in the USA in their
>> technical language ? Change english originated technical terms in maybe
>> a hundred foreign language books to match latest IETF documents ?
>> Retrain students all over the world about technical networking terms
>> and having to explain USA history in its wake ? And that going to play positive ??
>> 
>> How about we create an RFC-editor language advisory board: 10 people
>> selected at random from the active community, at most 2 first-language english
>> speakers, at most 2 first-language chinese speaker, at most one first-language
>> speaker for any other language. That would be a good starting point
>> to decide what does and what does not qualify as IETF community relevant
>> RFC language problems.
>> 
>> Otherwise, we could simply replace any english term we do not like as
>> americans with a french term for use in the IETF. They have a long history 
>> of trying to keep their own language freee of english influence, and AFAIK
>> they even have a government oversight board for such terminology, so i am
>> sure they will have a technical terms for anything we need and those
>> terms have been vetted professionally. Might even get lower hotel rates
>> next time in Quebec if we do this ;-)
>> 
>> Cheers
>>     Toerless
>> 
>> On Fri, Jul 24, 2020 at 01:35:37PM -0700, Joseph Touch wrote:
>> > On Jul 24, 2020, at 1:20 PM, Ole Troan <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> > > 
>> > > And you think this discussion isn???t exclusionary?
>> > > 
>> > > O. 
>> > 
>> > Just as ???free speech??? cannot include ???speech??? that restricts the speech of others, avoiding exclusionary language cannot avoid excluding those who consider that language appropriate.
>> > 
>> > If that???s what you mean. If not, it would be useful to explain.
>> > 
>> > Joe
>> 
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