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

[tom petch <[e-mail]>]

On 21/06/2022 16:00, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 21, 2022 at 10:33 AM Nick Hilliard <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
>> Miles Fidelman wrote on 21/06/2022 15:12:
<snip>
>
> How the point is made makes a huge difference. And here it is important to
> remember that TechBro culture is a real thing and it isn't just the bros
> who engage in making the toxic workplaces more toxic.
>
> Consider for example,
>
> "That was proposed but I forget why we didn't do it"
> "That was proposed but we didn't do it because problem X was a higher
> priority"
> "That keeps being proposed, the problem is X"
>
> Versus
>
> "That won't work"
> "Dude, you keep making stupid suggestions"
> "Keeps coming up but it is just as stupid"
>
> Now admittedly, some of those are from Twitter but I have seen similar in
> IETF.

I think that that exemplifies a universal truth that is often missed and 
is perhaps the core of this discussion.

First, criticise the behaviour never the person.
Second, own it; not 'that is stupid' but 'I think that ...' ideally with 
logical reasons, never with emotional ones.

It took me a long time to realise how much nicer the world is when I 
remember this and, even now, I sometimes need to remind myself (as in 
opposing the adoption of an I-D which I am about to do).  I would 
sacrifice all the spell-checkers in the world for a reasonableness 
checker along these lines.

Tom Petch

>
> The worse attack though is when someone in a position of power decides to
> block your proposal by refusing to process it. The proposal that is never
> put to the group for adoption as was promised, the last call that is
> referred to a directorate which spends 12 months reviewing it, the appeal
> that is submitted but ignored for 6 months while the document being
> appealed became an RFC.
>
> I am really unimpressed by the claim that IETF process represents consensus.
>