[Terminology] offensive terminology draft progressing on independent stream

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The terminology workgroup chartering effort has been closed, leaving
just this mailing list. RFC editing style guides have been updated
in accordance with the NIST document, in line with consensus on
this list.


https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-knodel-terminology/06/


However, this Knodel/ten Oever terminology draft is still pushing
for (independent stream) publication. -06 of that has just come out.
That finally excises the was-always-inappropriate standards-track language,
but does say, among many other things that you can read for yourselves:


"  There is harm in protracted discussion about the validity IETF
   participants and their experiences with exclusionary terminology.
   The racism in the community that has been surfaced as a result of
   this larger debate among technologists pushed away participants and
   observers [Conger].  This illustrates the need to, as Graves is cited
   above as saying, continue to raise awareness within our community for
   eventual, lasting change on the continued front of struggle against
   the racists amongst us.  "


Citing the New York Times article which describes the debate that
this draft fuelled is something of an ouroboros. Graves and Graves said
nothing about the IETF community. The grammar there seems quite
tortuous, which may well reflect the clarity of underlying thought.
There is harm in protracted discussion of exclusionary terminology --
this, in a long document focused on discussing exclusionary terminology?
And calling IETF participants racist is bound to go down well.


There were many other alternate drafts proposed, some which were viewed
far more favourably than this particular draft, not least because those
weren't calling their readers racists. Work on those drafts was halted
by their authors due to agreed consensus to follow the guidelines of the
NIST document.


This does look like an attempted end-run around previous consensus;
don't get a workgroup to play thought police in, get published anyway.


Why should this particular draft be published and endorsed to be viewed
by the wider world (which doesn't understand independent stream nuances)
as an official IETF position? It's simply not.



Lloyd Wood

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