Re: A contribution to ongoing terminology work

[Benjamin Kaduk <[e-mail]>]

[obligatory disclosure: this is not a statement of the IESG, and I did not
consult with any of my fellow ADs on its content before sending.  It is
shaped in part by some discussions we had, but the opinions expressed are
my own.]

On Thu, Apr 01, 2021 at 02:57:36PM -0500, Nico Williams wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 01, 2021 at 09:40:16PM +0200, Vittorio Bertola wrote:
> > In other words: is holding or expressing the opinion that "ongoing
> > efforts to make the IETF more accessible to all interested
> > participants are somehow overblown, not useful, or Orwellian in
> > nature" a violation of the code of conduct?
> 
> That would be Orwellian in itself, wouldn't it.  I await Lars' response.

I note that based on timezones, Lars is likely asleep and that both Friday
and Monday are public holidays in his locale, so a response from Lars may
not be forthcoming until after that.

As far as the quoted question itself, the answer is "no", and we tried to
indicate that by saying "contributions of diverse opinions are encouraged,
[but] they need to be done in accordance with the code of conduct,
respecting the other individuals and opinions in the discussion".

Stepping back to a more abstract level, the most respectful way that I know
of to have a discussion when there are strongly conflicting views is to
take an approach that produces messages structured roughly like (with []
indicating portions that only sometimes appear): "I believe that I
understand what you would like to have happen in this case, and it is
<restatement in my own words>.  [However, the actual text that you are
proposing in this draft seems to me to actually have the effect of
<something else>.]  This seems problematic to me because I think it will
cause <thing>, which I think is harmful.  [Additional justification of why
<thing> is harmful.]"  This makes it very clear that there is an active
attempt both to understand and acknowledge what the differing party wants
to do, and to provide a causality chain to harm that may be caused by that
proposal.  It also provides ample opportunities to clarify miscommunication
or misundersatnding, as well as to determine whether any deviations between
the stated intent and the implications of the specific wording of the
proposal are inadvertent.

But, while this approach is pretty reliable, it is also a lot of work!  So
it's perfectly understandable and normal to only use a subset of it, or
other forms of discourse, depending on the situation.

I believe that in some situations, satire is a prefecly usable technique
and can be a good tool for conveying sentiments akin to those I summarize
above as "this sees problematic to me because I think it will cause
<thing>, which I think is harmful".  But it, by itself, does essentially
nothing to cover the "I understand what you would like to have happen" or
"however, the actual text that you are proposing in this draft seems to me
to actually have the effect of <something else>" parts, and if those cannot
be filled in in some other way, it's not a very effective mode of
communication, at least for a technical discussion.  Implicitly asking the
reader to put in the effort to backfill those other steps can be
disrespectful, especially when there is a large gap to backfill, because it
is asking the entire reader base to independently reimplement what could
have been provided once by the writer.  (The size of this gap will, of
course, vary from person to person and situation to situation, so
reasonable people will tend to be accomodating of some level of variation.
For some very well-done satire the gap is very easy to fill.)

Returning now from the abstract level to this specific draft: in this case,
speaking for myself as a reader, the gap between the presented satire and
my understanding of the intent of what is being proposed in the terminology
effort is so large that I simply cannot bridge it on my own.  The presented
scenario is so different from my expectations that it's not even a
"worst-case scenario" or "bad dream"; it just simply doesn't compute for
me.  Maybe this is a lack of creativity on my part, and someone will step
in and help show me what I'm missing, but I doubt that I'm alone in this
regard.  I would have expected a contribution to an ongoing technical
discussion to be respectful of the readership and ask less of the reader in
understanding what point is being made.  Otherwise, the satire just looks
like standalone satire and not a contribution to a technical discussion.
(I hope it goes without saying that there's nothing intrinsically
problematic about satire as satire, though IETF mailing lists are probably not
the best place for it.)  But, I'm willing to operate on the assumption
that we are still having a technical discussion about the proposed TERM
working group.

In that vein, Ipromise to put in the effort to receive and attempt to
understand any reasoning that is sent to me about why the proposed
terminology work is not something that the IETF should undertake.  I
especially encourage messages covering aspects related to what I write
above about "however, the actual text that you are proposing in this draft
seems to me to actually have the effect of <something else>", since I think
I am seeing significant gaps between what the proponents of the work are
saying the work is intended to do and what the opponents of the work are
saying it will actually do.  The proposed TERM charter is currently on the
agenda of the 2021-04-08 IESG telechat.  Per
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf-announce/6yVtXkj3wJjQxQA29On8-Lyvwmw/
please send your comments to [e-mail] by 2021-04-05.



In closing, I'd like to follow up on a couple points from Lars' note.  While
IESG members are saddened by this draft, we do not claim a right to not
be sad.  Lloyd can post this draft, and the community members (including me)
can respond to it, and I am sad about what I see as a detrimental effect on
the organization, [1] but the draft is still up, and we are talking about it.
There were two other drafts posted today that were removed from the I-D
repository for being clearly in violation of the code of conduct, but Lars'
note says only that this draft is "not in alignment with our code of
conduct", which can cover many points on a spectrum.  I don't think this
says that Lloyd is bad or that Lloyd's opinions are bad, just that we can
do better at having a respectful technical discussion that is more closely
aligned with the code of conduct.  Nobody's perfect (we will never be
perfectly aligned with the code of conduct), and we understand that on
occasion we all will get close to the boundary of the code of conduct, and
that's not intrinsically a failing on our part when it happens.  What's
most important is that someone notices when we're veering astray and how we
respond when it's pointed out.

Thanks,

Ben

[1] I see this draft as having a detrimental effect because, in constructing
an elaborate work of (what I assume to be) satire but introducing it as "a
contribution" with no acknowledgment of its nature or attempt to "bridge
the gap", the author seems to be setting up the sense that the efforts
related to terminology are jocular as well.  I can understand if people who
are advocating the work feel disrespected when receiving the sentiment that
their effort is a joke, and I see how that would in practice make us a less
open organization.  While there is value in satire, if I have to estimate
the value that this draft, as presented (with minimal introduction on the
list) adds, and compare it against an estimate of the harm it causes, the
net effect seems more likely detrimental than beneficial, and so I am sad.