On 27/02/2014 11:21, S Moonesamy wrote:
Hi Brian,
At 11:06 26-02-2014, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
But participation is open to everybody; if I don't choose to comment
on a draft, that is my problem, not the problem of those who do
comment. Nobody has ever told me that I am not allowed to comment.
I am using "you" for clarity. It is not intended as antagonism. You
have been participating in the IETF since a long time. I don't think
that someone would tell you that you are not allowed to comment.
Sorry, I should have used the impersonal "one" instead of "you".
I wasn't think about myself.
If a person posts a comment and receives a sarcastic reply he or she
will be uncomfortable to post more comments. If a person sees "someone
like him/her" receiving sarcastic replies the person will be
uncomfortable to post a comment.
Indeed. Sarcasm is not a good tool for professional communication.
Unfortunately, sometimes a perfectly serious remark is (mis)understood
as sarcasm.
If the only comments posted are from participants affiliated with Vendor
X I would not write that there is consensus for the draft to move forward.
That's a real problem, but sometimes there is consensus in such a case,
and sometimes there is resignation. It's a matter of judgment, and one tha
a WG Chair has to make sometimes.
I'm sorry... which particular mail threads do you mean? Anyway, a
lot of comments come from a country called gmail, which you won't
find in the UN list.
There isn't a country called "gmail" in the UN list. :-) I was not
pointing to a particular mail thread. If an Area Director asks for the
list of countries I'll post it.
I understand that it's hard for people to understand that there
is no barrier to speech in the IETF and that there is no secret
handshake.
I beg to differ on the "barrier to speech". There is a message from a
French reader at
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg85043.html The
IAOC and Juliao Braga
had some difficulty understanding each other (if I recall correctly he
asked me why I did not try to help).
You're talking about a barrier to understanding. That's not what
I meant.
There has been discussions about newcomers. I do not derive any benefit
by arguing in favor of newcomers except, maybe, getting some reviews for
IETF work. My conclusion from the discussions was that there are
difficulties.
Of course there are. That's true in any large organisation.
Really? It seems to me to be a universal aspect of human behaviour
that people are more disciplined and careful when speaking in
public than when speaking in private. If my private opinion is that
some IETF work is "Yuck", "Pointless", or "Relatively harmless"
(examples from my private notes) I am unlikely to say so in public.
I would use more analytic language.
I posted that message to ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org by mistake.
If I was having a discussion with someone I am familiar with about
another person's draft I might write "relatively harmless". I have
never sent a private message to an author saying "Yuck". Please note
that I am not saying that the word is inappropriate.
If there is a pattern of insulting (private) comments from a person(s)
who speaks nicely in public, would the regular IETF participant be aware
of that? That is what I thought about when I responded to the "I trust
that doesn't surprise anyone." written by John Klensin.
I really think most humans would be aware of that. I don't see
anything specific to the IETF in such inconsistency.
Regards
Brian