Jari has done a good job about talking about speaker responsibilities in the
IETF. I don't totally agree with his approach or conclusions, and I do
somewhat object to the use of the Chair's bully pulpit to impose a specific
approach, but those are quibbles. But speaker responsibilities are only half
of the story.
What I'd like to do is talk about *listener* responsibilities, which I believe
to be as important as the speaker responsibilities discussed by Jari.
The general mantra of the IETF is :
"Be conservative in what you send, be liberal in what you accept."
That applies across all of our protocol design. But there's a human
interaction equivalent:
"Don't annoy anyone unnecessarily, and don't be easily annoyed.".
Jari covered the "Don't annoy anyone unnecessarily" piece, let me address the
other part.
The IETF is a multi-cultural organization and each speaker has at least 20-30
years of acculturation in their own culture driving their manner of speaking
and interaction. It's fine to say "behave in a professional manner" as Jari
suggests, but what that is differs from culture to culture. In a multicultural
organization, you need to start out with the assumption that what's being said
is not meant to demean or degrade you and even if you believe it was, you need
to, as a professional, seek for the technical content and ignore the emotional
content.
As a listener in the IETF, my belief is that you need to first assume a lack of
malice on any speaker's part and you should listen for the technical content
and to mostly ignore the emotional content. E.g. it really isn't all about you
and you should not be taking things as a personal attack, or even an attack
upon your culture. And if you're not sure, feel free to ask questions as to
what was meant.
In the IETF, we benefit (and have benefited) from a robust discussion style.
Granted, the IETF has a style that's on the extreme side of robust, but it has
served us well over the years in getting to the mostly correct technical
solution for any given problem.
Finally, - and this is firmly my opinion rather than established fact - the
IETF is not a Least Common Denominator sort of organization. If we restrict
our abilities, and our discussions to a style which is acceptable always to
everyone, we throw a way a great deal of our strength. Not everyone one in the
world will find the IETF an amenable organization to work within, but that is
just the reality of the situation rather than an attempt at exclusion or
selection.
The IETF has a unique culture that is a melange of the styles of the
participants going back to its founding. That culture changes as the
participation changes, but not quickly and not always smoothly. Any given
participant should not assume that the IETF culture will be accepting of their
approach, customs, or discussion style, and should be prepared to adapt
themselves to the IETF's culture rather than vice versa and should not be
surprised if their views are not always immediately accepted. Over time, their
participation will tend to reform the IETF's culture, but it will not happen
quickly and it may not happen in ways they expect.
Mike