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Re: Reaction to T-shirts

At the risk of appearing completely straitlaced and out-of-touch.....
I am not unworried.



I am NOT very worried about this particular T-shirt or this particular
person.





I AM worried that Steve, Randy, Ted and Ned all appear to think that there
isn't more than one side to this issue.



Then permit me to flip this around. I am worried that the response of the IETF
Chair to this wasn't to listen carefully and respectfully to this person's rant
and then respond by saying that:

(1) Everyone in the IETF is entitled to their opinion.

(2) Everyone in the IETF is entitled to express their opinion.

(3) Senior management in the IETF is elected not to perform bureaucratic
   rubber stamping and editing of specifications, but instead to take
   the principles they believe in and apply them to the work that is done
   here. To the extent that we end up with people on the IESG or IAB whose
   beliefs do not align with the community or with the well-being of the
   Internet, that represents an unfortunate failure of the selection process,
   not a failure of the invidual involved to kow-tow to some form of
   political correctness.

(4) Critical T-shirts, buttons, and so on provide a very useful means of
   communicating a sense of profound uneasiness about something. They are in
   no way an indicator of unreasonable or inappropriate bias for or against
   anything. And this is especially true -- and especially important -- when
   senior management wears them.

(5) Sound protocols emerge not from a rubber stamping process, but rather from
   debating the issues fully, fairly, and completely. This debate is sometimes
   heated, and sometimes people get their feelings hurt.




If the guy had had a completely different cultural background (Japanese?),
we might have considered taking care not to appear unnecessarily offensive,
and create unintended barriers to communication.



I doubt it.




But this guy's an American, so that does not apply ..... or does it?





All we know for certain is that this guy claimed to be offended; it's not
totally unreasonable to presume that he *was* offended.



Let me flip this around as well. We may not wear suits and ties, but this does
not mean we don't have something like a code of professional conduct. It may be
an unwritten and largely defacto code, but it exists nevertheless.

Basically what that code calls for is to respect the positions of others and
give them full and reasonable consideration whenever appropriate.

I may not see eye to eye with, say, Randy on the topic of protocol complexity,
or perhaps Steve or Russ on some security topic or Russ, but I absolutely
respect and will vigorously defend their right to have a differing view from my
own. And I maintain that respect even when thay means a proposal I support runs
into rough waters because of their view.

I also respect the right for people, including those on the IESG and/or IAB, to
don apparel critical of something I've done. I've never seen a "MIME is a
Crime" button, but if I did I certainly would not criticize the wearer for
putting it on. (Actually I'd probably ask where I could get one, but that's
just my contrarian way...)

So what I see here is not a failure on the part of some IESG members, but
rather a failure on the part of this particular participant to respect the
right -- and perhaps even the duty -- of IESG members to make statements
regarding their beliefes.




Now, he and his compatriots might have deserved it, or he might not, but
still, starting out with the assumption that there's absolutely no need to
think twice about what kind of T-shirt slogans we use and what effect they
have on communication between us and the more straitlaced parts of American
society seems dangerous to me.



I don't think you heard anyone say that. Randy certainly didn't. I certainly
didn't either.

Rather, what you heard was a second order effect of the criticism that was
directed at us. Once this person challenged our right to wear this particular
T-shirt, the act of wearing ceases to be a statement for or against IEPREP and
becomes instead a statement that the IESG does not believe this person has a
right to dictate the principles we decide to air through the apparel we wear.




I delete company logos from presentations, because including them damages
my ability to communicate in the IETF.



This is an entirely different issue, although as a form of personal amusement I
often wear T-shirts advertising various companies that are no longer in
business.




I expect you as IESG members to consider the reception of your message in
the use of T-shirts too; if I'd gotten a response saying "this particular
issue deserved some attention, the T-shirt was effective in bringing that
message across, and I thought wearing it on the IESG stage was an
appropriate form of sending that message", I would say "Your call".



I think all of us took this as a given.




I do not want to dictate a position. I am asking you to think. And talk
back.



And I have done so.

				Ned