Re: Harassment, abuse, accountability. and IETF mailing lists

[Keith Moore <[e-mail]>]

On 6/13/22 09:24, Warren Kumari wrote:

>
>     Even if it feels "rude" to speak up.   It always feels rude to
>     speak truth to power.   And even if the same kind of speech at
>     work would result in reprisals - because quite often at work,
>     challenging the boss is a career-limiting move even when you're
>     100% right and the wrong decision would harm people.  
>     Fortunately, we don't have bosses in IETF.   And that's just one
>     reason that "professional" is a poor criterion for inappropriate
>     speech in IETF.
>
>
>     The way that people know that it's okay to speak up is to witness
>     other people speaking up, even being "rude" or "unprofessional",
>     and not being subjected to reprisal.   An atmosphere of candor is
>     important to ensuring a safe space for honest technical discussion.
>
>
>
> Yup, I mostly agree. Professional (well, the opposite of 
> unprofessional) has always felt weird to me something to be aiming for.
>
> For example, much of my behavior (and attire -  e.g: 
> https://twitter.com/danyork/status/623142046031720449 ) would be 
> "unprofessional" if I were working for IBM in the 1970's, or if I were 
> a barrister / lawyer / etc. The obvious reply to this is "Well, duh, 
> this is the IETF, not IBM in the 1970s, nor the Old Bailey. We have 
> different culture and norms, and don't (generally) wear suits or silly 
> wigs. What are you, stupid?!"
>
> And this both proves and disproves my point — my argument / analogy is 
> clearly flawed and was a straw man - we were not talking about this 
> sort of professional / unprofessional, and I tried to lead the 
> argument down an unrelated path. Calling me out on that should be 
> expected. However, adding the "duh" and "What are you, stupid?!" moves 
> it from "calling out" / "candor" to something approaching "rude" 
> and ad hominem (and adding "silly" is just unnecessarily insulting an 
> outside group).  But, to my point, "unprofessional" seems more 
> "violating our cultural norms"...but that assumes that our norms are 
> actually the ones that we want… But, I also don't think that "rude" is 
> the right word  - "discourteous" actually seems like the closest I can 
> come up with.

I think "rude" and also "professional" mean different things to 
different people, and that's part of the problem with using those words 
to set bounds for behavior in IETF.

>
> I don't really agree with your "It always feels rude to speak truth to 
> power." - I fully agree that it can be (and usually is) uncomfortable, 
> and that it's always possible to *be* rude when speaking truth to 
> power, but I think that if we try for courteous  (or, at least try to 
> not be discourteous) we can get on much better.

People often rely on a "felt sense" of what is and is not appropriate 
behavior.  Or to put it differently, behavior is often regulated by 
conditioning more than rational thought.   And it generally feels 
uncomfortable to violate that conditioning.   But different people may 
use different words for that uncomfortable feeling - one person might 
feel like they're being rude, another might feel like they're doing 
something dangerous, and so on.

And while I think I agree that IETF participants should be courteous to 
one another, even that is problematic because to some it might feel 
discourteous to object to someone else's poor idea.

Keith