On Tue, Aug 12, 2014 at 8:52 AM, Eliot Lear <lear(_at_)cisco(_dot_)com> wrote:
My only problem with this sadly seems more theoretical than actual: the
IETF list used to be the one common discussion point that participants
shared, where serious architectural issues could be discussed. And it's
not like that hasn't happened this year. See the debate about dmarc,
for instance.
But people do need to exercise self-control. I had thought that was
what the IESG proposal was all about, really: helping people to
recognize when they need to take a step back. If this list is to be
taken seriously by serious people then people need to be have in a
serious manner towards it.
I think this is something needed for all of our lists, not just the IETF
list. Good communication practices will go a long way towards improved
results from discussions. It seems many of us forget that list traffic
goes to a very large number of people and paying attention to how we
communicate can go a long way.
Many of us are very good about keeping the discussion of topics on the
right list (maybe a separate list is a good idea), but we fail in other
areas such as:
1. Considering the large number of readers when posting and the impact of
time on those readers. This means, make sure your messages are concise,
but have the appropriate context to prevent the need for extended dialogs.
2. Don't repeat yourself, +1 is fine to agree with others. If you stated a
position and didn't change it, we know you didn't come around to the other
point of view being stated.
3. Make sure there is some purpose to your message (again, impact).
There are a bunch of good email practices blogs out there, so I looked a a
couple. Here are tidbits from this one that I think apply to our lists:
http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2007/10/23/the-7-bad-e-mail-habits-that-make-people-want-to-kill-you/
Avoid buried requests. "A buried request is where the question or
actionable information is sandwiched between unimportant info."
"Don’t try to be witty or sarcastic in an e-mail and pretend as if
everything you say will be taken literally. Although a few metaphors can
come across well in an e-mail, most don’t."
"People don’t read e-mails, they skim. So don’t write an eight sentence
paragraph in one chunk."
From the following article, #1, #2, and #3 apply in some cases as well:
http://www.mergedcomms.com/5-communication-habits-break/
3. Constant negativity is not needed (see description for full information
before you blast me)
2. Not listening (For us, this could mean taking time to cool off before
responding. Email wasn't meant to be real-time, no one should expect an
immediate response.)
1. Emailing everything.
Eliot
--
Best regards,
Kathleen