Subject: On PR-actions, signatures and debate

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 07 Oct 2005 00:38:22 +0200

I've been following this discussion closely, as can be expected.

It's been a long road here; the first version of Marshall's draft was 
written in April 2003, based on a POISED mailing list discussion.

It took 8 months and a lot of email before the IESG approved the document 
(in December 2003), asserting that the IETF community had consensus on the 
document (and I believe it was true at the time).

This is the first serious attempt at invoking it, and in trying to do so, I 
wanted certain things to be true:

- The community should be aware of what's happening. I think that's been 
achieved!
- The request should be based on a grievance shared by a number of people, 
not on any individual's personal grievance. That's why I asked for help in 
drafting, and signatures on the petition.
- The process should be carried out in the open, by people prepared to 
stand up for their position. That's why I chose to publish the signatures.

I think I achieved my goals. In retrospect, it might have been better to 
gather my signatures quietly and let the IETF debate occur at IETF Last 
Call. But hindsight is always perfect.....

Today (Friday), I'll pass the petition to the IESG for their consideration, 
and will leave it in their hands without arguing any more about it; I 
believe I have written enough about the specific case.

But the debate on the IETF list deserves comment.

To me, the positions people have taken on the IETF list about the PR-action 
seem to fall into roughly three groups:

- The behaviour described is egregrious enough that the extreme measure of 
an RFC 3683 PR-Action is warranted.

- The behaviour described is not egregrious enough to justify the extreme 
measure of a PR-Action, but we can imagine situations where such an action 
would be justified.

- Under no circumstances can I imagine that a PR-Action can be warranted; 
the circumstances of the case do not matter.

(There's also a set of people saying "no comment").

I think that Marshall Rose described the current way people handle 
irritating people well back in 2003 (POISED list, April 8):

  people who have a high tolerance to pain, ignore it, those who
  have a lower tolerance to pain implement a local solution, and
  those with less of a tolerance have simply left the mailing
  lists.

The logical consequence of the "nobody should be banned" position is that 
this is the way we want the IETF to be.

Some people will leave if we make that decision.
I think that these people leaving will make the IETF less able to carry out 
its mission.
I think that's an important consideration.

The next step is in the hand of the IESG.

                    Harald

_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf

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From: "Anthony G. Atkielski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2005 06:46:22 +0200

> this is the way we want the IETF to be.

Sounds good to me.  The intolerant thus exclude themselves
voluntarily, and the tolerant remain to engage in discussion.

> Some people will leave if we make that decision.

Is there a prize for having the highest possible membership numbers?

> I think that these people leaving will make the IETF less able to carry out

How?  People who cannot tolerate disagreement are very poor at
discussing most things, anyway, since they become upset as soon as
anyone expresses an opinion different from their own.  And if one
cannot express differences in opinion, one cannot discuss.

> The next step is in the hand of the IESG.

If it decides against you, what will you try next?

---

From: kent crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2005 22:19:57 -0700

On Fri, Oct 07, 2005 at 06:46:22AM +0200, Anthony G. Atkielski wrote:
> anyone expresses an opinion different from their own.

Toleration of disagreement has almost nothing to do with it.  Instead, it's
more a matter of signal to noise ratio on a limited bandwidth channel.  If
you fill up a list with ignorant drivel, people who don't have time to deal
with drivel will go away, leaving the list to those who produce the drivel. 
That's the problem.  I've seen it happen many times. 

-- 
Kent Crispin 
[email-masked]

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From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2005 22:49:06 -0700

Anthony G. Atkielski <anthony at atkielski dot com> wrote:

> ... People who cannot tolerate disagreement are very poor at

It has already been explained here that this has NOTHING to do with
tolerance for different opinions.  It has everything to do with the
obnoxious, abusive, disrespectful manner in which those opinions have
been expressed.

--
Doug Ewell
Fullerton, California
http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/

---

From: "Nick Staff" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2005 23:22:24 -0700

> Toleration of disagreement has almost nothing to do with it.  
> Instead, it's more a matter of signal to noise ratio on a 
> limited bandwidth channel.  If you fill up a list with 
> ignorant drivel, people who don't have time to deal with 
> drivel will go away, leaving the list to those who produce 
> the drivel. 

I really, really don't want to get into another one of these, but let's be
clear - no matter what you say, no matter how long you say it for, and no
matter who agrees with you, Anthony is right and you are not.  Let me
clarify - I absolutely am not commenting on the whole signal to noise ratio
thing.  I am not at all trying to tell anyone what a reasonable amount of
noise is for them to handle.

What I'm saying is, if this were Lord of The Flies some of you would be the
one who kills Piggy.

nick

---

From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2005 23:48:40 -0700 (PDT)

> What I'm saying is, if this were Lord of The Flies some of you would be the

Nick,

I always felt really sorry for Piggy and I thought it was wrong for them 
to kill him. He was smarter than any of the others and he spoke the truth 
against a frenzy inspired by fear. But he wasn't "voted off the island" in
a popularity contest, one could argue that he died by accident in a heated
exchange.

I don't quite see the current situation as analogous, but I am more than 
happy to go with the majority opinion. If the group feels that no action
should be taken, then fine. We have at least tested our mechanism, 
assuming we can agree that we actually have one...

Ole

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From: grenville armitage <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 07 Oct 2005 16:58:38 +1000

Nick Staff wrote:
	[..] 
> matter who agrees with you, Anthony is right and you are not.

Since Anthony made an assertion about those who tolerate disagreement and
Kent made an assertion about the (somewhat orthogonal) issue of tolerating
signal to noise, why do you think this is an either-or question?  They're
both right, in the abstact. Kent's right that disagreement's aren't what's
at issue here (IETF lists have _always_ been great sources of disagreements).
The principle at hand is what we do in the face of degraded SNR.

Some people believe degraded SNR risks culling the crowd in the wrong way.
Researchers and engineers with other things to do may leave. Technologists
with a penchant for the meta-discussion may stay.

gja

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From: "Nick Staff" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2005 01:12:13 -0700

> Technologists with a penchant for the meta-discussion may stay.
> 
> gja
>
So I guess you'll be staying then since you have quite the penchant for
contributing to these things which you claim to hate so much.

Though it's obvious you enjoy the protection of a closed community, that
does not change the fact that you just contributed in a conversation whose
contributors you attacked.  I understand you thought YOUR contrbution WAS
SPECIAL and that the problem is those of us who disagree with you, but I
thought as a non technologist you'd realize that electricity needs
resistance which means it's equally your drivel (if I may use one of your
teams words) that continues this.

I has hoped the lord of the flies analogy would have been sufficient,
however I've spent more than enough time trying to teach you that 3 + 5 <>
Jello (to quote Chris Rock) so say what you want and beat up who you'd like
and do it your way, luckily I know you'll encounter a person like you on
most every newsgroup and bulletin board there is so you can always see how
you also built the worst part of the internet that everyone hates.  Though
being part of the source old timer I'm sure it will all seem rather tame to
you.

nick

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From: "Anthony G. Atkielski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2005 20:55:15 +0200

> obnoxious, abusive, disrespectful manner in which those opinions have

Do you think that is an improvement?

Does the intrinsic merit of a point of view depend on how it is
expressed?  Are people here so much slaves of their emotions that they
cannot look past the way in which an opinion is expressed when
evaluating that opinion on its own merits?

There are no objective standards for obnoxious, abusive, or
disrespectful speech.  I have found that characterizing someone's
speech or writing with any of these adjectives often equates to saying
"I disagree."

---

From: "Anthony G. Atkielski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2005 21:22:19 +0200

> That's the problem.  I've seen it happen many times.

Can you write a program that will scan a message and determine whether
or not it is ignorant drivel?  If not, then how can it be used as a
criterion of equitable censorship?

I never call anyone's messages ignorant drivel, and there's good
reason for that.

---

From: "Thomas Gal" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2005 14:54:10 -0700

Well put. Actually I have yet to see ANYONE refute any of the examples
Harald made about inappropriate acts. Nothing but "I don't support this
action universally."  THAT sounds a lot like not tolerating disagreement.

-Tom

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On 
> Behalf Of kent crispin
> Sent: Thursday, October 06, 2005 10:20 PM
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: On PR-actions, signatures and debate
>

---

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2005 22:30:32 -0700

> evaluating that opinion on its own merits?

Does it make a difference, when someone is speaking to you in person,
whether they talk in a normal speaking voice or shout into your ear with
a bullhorn?  Does it matter if they call you by insulting names, or
question your integrity or motives, because your opinion differs from
theirs?

If these things don't matter to you, in speech or on mailing lists, then
I have to hand it to you: you are indeed a more tolerant person than I
am.

> speech or writing with any of these adjectives often equates to saying

Anthony, if you wish to go on thinking that my objection to Jefsey's
behavior is merely a smokescreen for disagreeing with his opinions, you
are entitled to do so and there is nothing I can do to change your mind.
(I do disagree with Jefsey's opinions, but I also disagree with a lot of
other people who treat me with more respect and less contempt, and
consequently I have no problem with them.)

I really don't want to drag this on.  You and I have a difference of
opinion about how this PR-thing should be handled, and that is that.

---

From: "Anthony G. Atkielski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 8 Oct 2005 10:46:14 +0200

Doug Ewell writes:

> Does it make a difference, when someone is speaking to you in
> person, whether they talk in a normal speaking voice or shout into
> your ear with a bullhorn?

Not if I have access to ear protection (the equivalent of a delete
key, in this scenario).

> Does it matter if they call you by insulting names, or question your
> integrity or motives, because your opinion differs from theirs?

No.

> If these things don't matter to you, in speech or on mailing lists,
> then I have to hand it to you: you are indeed a more tolerant person
> than I am.

Thank you.

> behavior is merely a smokescreen for disagreeing with his opinions,
> you are entitled to do so and there is nothing I can do to change
> your mind.

Okay.

> I do disagree with Jefsey's opinions ...

Ah.  A coincidence, I'm sure.

---

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 08 Oct 2005 17:47:34 +0200

Anthony G. Atkielski wrote:

> disrespectful speech.

My personal subjective limits are (among others) attempts to
involve the _employer_ of a poster on an IETF mailing list by
private mails - but I don't see how RfC 3683 could help with
this issue, besides one "obnoxious person" might have decided
that this was a really bad idea.  Sometimes optimistic, Frank

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2005 16:51:40 +0200

> that this was a really bad idea.  Sometimes optimistic, Frank

One thing I've learned from this set of threads is that (after
we have dealt with the current formal requests for PR actions),
it would be good to use that running code experience to
improve the guidelines for what constitutes unacceptable mailing
list behaviour. I won't start that here and now, but I believe
it is quite possible to be more specific and clearer than the
existing RFCs - even though ultimately there will be a
judgement call involved.

    Brian