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

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

--On Tuesday, June 7, 2022 08:56 +1200 Brian E Carpenter
<[e-mail]> wrote:

> On 06-Jun-22 23:56, Keith Moore wrote:
>> On 6/6/22 04:20, tom petch wrote:
>> 
>>> I saw an apology for the use of '...considered harmful'
>>> recently and was suprised that that phrase was .. well
>>> considered harmful
>> 
>> This makes me wonder: how is making a reference to a letter
>> that's rather famous in Computer Science history any
>> different that referring to any established technical term or
>> concept? Granted not absolutely everyone will have heard of
>> that letter, but is it really hostile to newcomers to use
>> well-established language of the subject domain that we work
>> in when that language isn't, say, sexist or racist?   Is 
> it hostile
>> to newcomers to refer to the end-to-end principle?
> 
> I suspect that, as always, context is everything. If somebody
> had written
> a draft "6to4 considered harmful" some years ago, I don't
> think that
> Keith or I would have been upset. (If you don't get that, see
> RFC 3056.)
> But if they had written a draft "Carpenter and Moore
> considered harmful"
> we would have been quite angry. Somewhere in between is
> "Carpenter and Moore's
> work considered harmful" - I'm really not sure how I would
> have reacted to that.
> 
> As a matter of fact that work was subject to a lot of
> criticism, as was its
> extension by RFC 3068, but I don't recall a single ad hominem
> comment.
> 
> We can be critical without being rude.

Brian,

I think the problems arise when almost any attempt to be
critical is interpreted as being at least disrespectful even if
not actually rude.

   john