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

[Phillip Hallam-Baker <[e-mail]>]

I am mostly in agreement with Tim except that I have also met the 'reverse
victim' tactic where the person whose general unpleasantness and aggressive
behavior caused the code of conduct to be introduced in the first place
weaponizes it by making a series of challenges.

The issue I think we need to focus on is what are the criteria that
maximize the scope for open discussion without people being shut down by
deliberate rudeness or for that matter unintentional rudeness or people
playing political games.

I know that when I make a proposal and the first four responses are of the
form 'that is already being done by <new proposal>' that this is the result
of someone involved in <new proposal> seeing a potential competitor and
sending an email round to their mates telling them to jump on the thread
quick in the hope of squashing the threat.

I also know that when someone says my proposal is good but it absolutely
MUST be built on top of some scheme that was developed years back but never
made it to deployment that they are trying to make me carry their boat
anchor for them.

I also know that whenever someone says 'we can't spend time considering
alternative design proposals because it is absolutely essential that this
be deployed in 12 months' that the proposed WG is doomed and I can expect
to be the SECDIR reviewer for something pretty similar to what was rejected
on the grounds of insufficient time roughly 8 years later.

But most folk don't know to expect that sort of behavior.




On Mon, Jun 13, 2022 at 1:31 PM Tim Bray <[e-mail]> wrote:

>
> On Mon, Jun 13, 2022 at 10:19 AM Keith Moore <[e-mail]>
> wrote:
>
>> I am not sure that I agree.   I can certainly see how what you describe
>> could happen.  But the Politeness Police have themselves discouraged
>> participation in IETF, at least in part because some of them were every
>> bit as arrogant and demeaning as your example statement above, and
>> worse, AND they had the backing of the organizational leaders.
>>
>
> What we have is at best anecdata, but I strongly disagree.  I have
> personal experience with wonderful people who have walked away saying some
> variation on "all those pissy greybeards waiting to pounce".  Don't
> personally know anyone who (a) has walked away because of the "politeness
> police" and (b) is regretted.
>
> Be kind. It doesn’t hurt.
>
>
>>