Re: Bad/Good ideas and damage control by experienced participants

[Phillip Hallam-Baker <[e-mail]>]

On Tue, Jun 14, 2022 at 4:38 PM Brian E Carpenter <
[e-mail]> wrote:

> On 15-Jun-22 02:47, John Levine wrote:
> > It appears that Miles Fidelman  <[e-mail]> said:
> >> On the other hand, is it really a negative when someone is snarky with a
> >> snot-nosed kid who doesn't appreciate being told that their "great new
> >> idea" is a retread of something folks learned not to do decades ago?
> >
> > Depends.  If your goal is to make sure nobody new ever comes to the
> IETF, sure, do that.
> >
> > On the other hand, if someone new goes to the effort to write up an I-D
> and ask us
> > to look at it, there are a lot better ways to see if you can redirect
> their interest
> > to something that might be useful.  Sometimes they may go off in a sulk,
> but sometimes
> > a little politeness and specific references to prior work they should
> read about can
> > go a long way.
>
> I think it is also a very effective sieve. Newcomers who respond positively
> to this are much more likely to become genuine contributors than people
> who won't listen and learn. The ones who don't listen are unlikely to
> succeed anyway.


That is completely wrong. I could not disagree more emphatically.

Miles' premise is utterly wrong.

Most ideas are relevant to a very specific time and not always the one in
which they were proposed. Sometimes the solution to a problem came up long
before the problem was recognized. And that makes it very difficult to get
attention for that particular approach in academic circles because careers
are built finding new bright shiny objects, the realization that the
solution to the critical problem of today was discovered 20 years ago does
not usually bring offers of tenure.

Most systems are the result of a set of compromises. The fact that X was
considered and rejected 20 years ago because Y isn't a major concern is a
poor argument for rejecting X now that Y has become a major problem.

I don't think that anyone is doing anyone else a service by driving away
anyone who dares question the sacred principles of IETF protocols. The
IETF's biggest problem has been group think for a very long time.