On Mar 9, 2014, at 4:15 AM, Klaas Wierenga (kwiereng)
<kwiereng(_at_)cisco(_dot_)com> wrote:
It works less well in groups, where the
disadvantaged participant disrupts and holds back discussion.
So in practice those participants usually show restraint and let you native
speaking alpha males fight it out at the mike.... Not sure that that improves
the quality of the IETF process.....
It has not been my experience that there is a strong correlation between native
speaking ability and disruptiveness at the mic, but it definitely has been my
experience that if people are patient with less-than-perfect english, the IETF
participants who speak it can meaningfully contribute. And it is also my
experience that if native speakers are not patient about this, they effectively
prevent useful contributions from non-native speakers. This is a bad outcome,
and the attitude expressed in the text you quoted above contributes to that
sort of outcome. So thank you for arguing back.