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

[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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