Re: tone policing

[Dan Harkins <[e-mail]>]

   Hi Bron,

On 9/9/19 4:15 PM, Bron Gondwana wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 10, 2019, at 08:43, Joel M. Halpern wrote:
>> Dan, you asked for specific examples of speech whose acceptability has
>> changed.
>>
>> A clear and simple example is personal attacks.  It is no longer
>> acceptable (or at least, we try to make it impossible) to respond to an
>> argument by saying "you do not know what you are talking about, so we
>> should ignore your input." Other even more extreme and personal
>> comments were once accepted in this community.   they are not accepted
>> any longer.
>
> Like for example this thing, which I'm not particularly proud of:
>
> https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/imap5/zPoaR1ezRWRs4ji9rbojXLuomFE
>
> The whole experience around there nearly turned me off the IETF 
> entirely, largely due to things like this:
>
> https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/imap5/4bg3IkTTJvCAcr8aro5wCyNjZSA
>
> ... and I know Mark's not around to defend himself here, so I can only 
> point out the flaws in my own communication style there and the missed 
> opportunities to progress work because I was too busy butting heads.

   There are plenty of emails I am ashamed of.

> I'm sad I never got to meet Mark in person.  I think a lot of the 
> value of in-person meetings is the sitting together and looking into 
> each other's eyes and realising that the other person isn't a moron 
> and isn't deliberately trying to break the world!

   Yup, after a flare-up on this list some years ago in which I was kind 
of active
I was sitting at the bar in the IETF hotel with an IESG member. Another 
IESG member
came up to him and said, "what's with this Harkins guy? He's such an 
asshole!" The
response was, "ask him, he's sitting right here." So this other IESG 
member and I
went and found a table to chat. It was my "tone" on the list that got 
his dander up.
But we had a nice exchange and the opportunity to sit together and have 
a talk really
helped. Email is a flawed medium for communication but it scales well so 
we use it.

   I guess maybe we shouldn't read so much into an email or at least not 
draw conclusions
about people based solely on the emails they send.

   regards,

   Dan.


> Bron.
>
> --
>   Bron Gondwana, CEO, Fastmail Pty Ltd
>   [e-mail]
>
>