Subject: CoC at this week's meeting

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2021 16:47:01 -0900

Hi, all:

The emphasis on conduct at this week's meeting was excellent,
but in several cases chairs added some comments about conduct not
being a problem in their particular working group.  Alas, in
least one of those cases there have been serious enough conduct
issues that they've lost productive participants who were
making significant technical contributions to working group documents
(note that this doesn't reflect any Ombudsteam  activities or
discussions, but rather offline or Twitter [sorry] discussions).

Chairs don't always know what's taking place between individuals.
People who have been putting up with a lot of offline or
interpersonal email crap must certainly be dismayed to hear things
like that from working group leadership.  So, it's probably safest
to assume that you don't actually know what's going on behind the
scenes in your own working groups, and you may want to avoid telling
your working group that everything is fine because it, in fact, not be.

Thanks,

Melinda
[no hats]

-- 
Melinda Shore
[email-masked]

Software longa, hardware brevis

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From: Lucas Pardue <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2021 02:02:48 +0000

Hey Melinda,

> discussions, but rather offline or Twitter [sorry] discussions).

I think I likely said something like that.

> your working group that everything is fine because it, in fact, not be.

Totally agree. Thank you, I have a better appreciation for how I could have
phrased my comments on CoC as chair better.

Cheers

Lucas

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From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2021 02:06:59 +0000

Hiya,

> phrased my comments on CoC as chair better.

I was also guilty of that same sin. Thanks Melinda for
pointing that out.

Cheers,
S.

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From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2021 17:09:28 -0900

On 11/12/21 5:02 PM, Lucas Pardue wrote:> I think I likely said 
something like that.
For whatever it's worth, a lot of people did, and in a lot
of cases it may actually be true.  But there's damage when it
isn't, and since we don't always know when it isn't it's
probably good to stay away from "all's well" and go with
something along the lines of "thank you for treating each
other well."

Thanks, all

Melinda

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From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2021 22:51:29 -0500

When I was covering the topic, i tried to be clear that I was talking 
about the on list behavior when I said (roughly) that the recent 
difficult discussion on the list had stayed on the correct side of the line.

While it is important not to imply that there are no problems, it is 
also important to recognize when the group does things right.

Yours,
Joel

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From: Lucas Pardue <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2021 04:13:24 +0000

My prior statements of notewell haven't come with either a subjective or
objective appraisal of the WG efficacy to the topic. So neither should my
statements with respect to CoC.

There's a trap to fall into, that I did, to try and apply some positive
statements. No need.

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From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2021 12:13:57 -0900

> also important to recognize when the group does things right.

Yes, absolutely, and that's a very good point.  But the point
I was trying to make is that you may not know if there are
problems between participants that don't show up during meetings
or on the mailing list, because they're expressed through
private email or other communications. A "no problems here"
message is going to be received very differently by 1) people
who really are behaving professionally, 2) people who are
on the receiving end of hostile off-list behavior, and 3)
people who are being hostile off-list.  I think it's clearly
the case that most people working in the IETF do treat each
other well, but if there weren't some serious problems from time
to time that happen without wg leadership awareness, I wouldn't
have said anything.

Melinda

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From: Joel Halpern Direct <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2021 16:28:15 -0500

I am sure there are problems that occur and chairs do not hear about them.

So, yes, we need to be careful about how we phrase our messaging.

Equally, there is not much we can do about bad behavior if we do not 
know about it.  I would hope that reminding people of the expectations 
will suggest to people that they can go to chairs for help in such 
situations.

But we are inherently limited.  We cannot prevent off-list 
communication.  As far as I know, we cannot perform list blocking 
(limited or otherwise) based on private communication.

Yours,
Joel

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From: Henk Birkholz <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2021 11:21:25 +0100

Hi all,

In hindsight, I can see that while I referred to the Code of Conduct, 
keeping a civil attitude, and even was directly referring to the 
ombudsperson, I also see now that I explicitly mentioned that I do not 
see a current problem in the WG or the list.

One the one hand, it makes me sad that it is necessary to spell that out 
to grown people. On the other hand, I can see that that is a part of 
proper conduct.

"Sometimes valuable people seem clueless at first.", I recently read on 
an SDO's official slide, followed by "Assumptions make an 🍑 out of you 
and me". It took me a few minutes to find myself 100% agreeing with that 
and that I just learned a bit more about myself.

That said, chairs speak only for the conduct on the list and (interim) 
sessions, etc., I think - i.e, the things highlighted by note well. If 
people want to "make an 🍑" out of themselves in private discussions, 
initially that is... well, a private discussion. We can encourage 
negatively affected people to bring that up to the chairs, ADs, or 
ombudspeople, but I would like to add carefully here that we are neither 
pedagogues and nor should we make too many assumptions ourselves.

Trying to be a nice person helps and sometimes that includes telling 
people to be nice to others.

Viele Grüße,

Henk