Re: discussion style and respect

["Dan Harkins" <[e-mail]>]

  This has been a very interesting discussion but I think
its focus on action/behavior and "standards by combat"
(I will buy that t-shirt!!!) has distracted from what I
think is a very important point Mike made, which was:

"Don't annoy anyone unnecessarily, and don't be easily annoyed."

I think the second half of that sentence is just as important
as the first. It is very easy to misinterpret an email and
that causes people to ascribe bad motives to the sender and
to disregard or reject the points being made, which creates
frustration and even more misinterpreted emails.

  I met someone in the bar at the last IETF who, when learning
my name, said something to the effect of "why are you such
an asshole?" And over a beer we discussed things that came
across wrong in email and ended up with an amicable "well
I might not agree with you 100% but I understand your points
and you are not the asshole I imagined you were."

  So it's good to focus on actions to avoid confrontation
and attacks it's also important to not forget our reactions
and to put what we read in the most generous light possible.

  regards,

  Dan.

On Fri, June 12, 2015 4:10 am, Jari Arkko wrote:
> Let me just say that ‘standards by combat’ has not been my experience :-)
> nor should it be our mode of operation.
>
> Mike is completely right about 'strongly presented, vigorously defended,
> by people with gravitas applicable to the technology’. And about our
> consensus mode of operation. These are how we should be.
>
> But it does not follow that aggressive argumentation or a war of ideas
> is what we should be doing. Granted, there are always some people in any
> organisation who want that sort of thing… egos… techies… need to
> show superiority… cases of busy or poor management… social skills…
> online discussion forums… people who thrive on creating controversy.
>
> I started this thread because I saw two incidents, and I didn’t like them.
> My overall experience is that those are still exceptions. My typical
> experience in working on some topic is that the successes or my
> personal gratification does not come through winning the other guy.
> The most wonderful experience is when you find others with the
> same issues and ideas, and you together build something that is
> better than what you could have done alone. And that through several
> people wanting the same thing, you have something that the market
> wants, and it actually takes off. I see so many cases of that...
>
> So I would like to agree with Melinda and others on the consensus
> process being best as highly collaborative. The suggestion to re-read
> Pete’s rough consensus document RFC 7282 from Alia is a really
> good one.  +1 also on real world being our criteria of success (Harald).
> And +1 to what Eliot said WG chairs and senior members of the
> community leading the way.
>
> Jari
>
>