Re: [Last-Call] Last Call: BCP 83 PR-Action Against Dan Harkins

[Keith Moore <[e-mail]>]

On 10/2/22 18:49, Adam Roach wrote:

> On 10/2/22 10:02, Keith Moore wrote:
>> To me what is toxic is the intolerance of the expression of 
>> alternative views. 
>
>
> I trust that the misdirection from "disruptive behavior" to "unpopular 
> opinion" was unintentional.
I don't think there was any misdirection, and I didn't use either term 
in the message you were replying to.

Fundamentally, at least a couple of messages ago, we are/were discussing 
an effort by IESG to censor someone because (at least some of) his 
expressed opinions were in conflict with then then-leaders' agenda.
(I haven't tried to analyze each of the examples from this perspective, 
but this is certainly the case for some of them.)

> There's nothing inherently wrong with putting forth arguments of the 
> form "I don't think the IETF should engage in this kind of work 
> because <list of one or more good faith reasons>, and I think the 
> negative impact will be X <and Y and Z, as necessary>," even if that 
> position is extremely unpopular.
I agree.
>
> To be clear, they're not unrelated concepts; they're just not the same 
> thing: unpopular opinions can become disruptive behavior when 
> consensus is declared, those opinions are properly determined to be 
> "in the rough," and their proponents insist on re-litigating those 
> issues anyway. 
I don't see quite such a bright line, because sometimes consensus has 
been improperly declared and that's not realized until that consensus 
has been declared and someone objects.  It makes more sense to make the 
lack of consensus clear immediately than to burden the community with an 
appeal.   Responsible chairs will realize their error and fix the 
situation quickly.
> But in many ways, none of that is really applicable here. Once we 
> reach a point that someone's reaction to the Executive Director of the 
> IETF asking for community input on in-person meetings is to respond 
> with a hostile mini-rant about a tenuously related tweet that he found 
> elsewhere, it's not even plausibly related to "alternative views" in a 
> way that could prompt your (again, presumably unintentional) 
> misdirection. It's about whether we tolerate that kind of unfettered 
> jackassery on our mailing lists, regardless of the opinions they express.

I might even agree, but I don't immediately see what this has to do with 
the current topic.

Keith