Subject: A few hums

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2003 18:02:57 -0400

Full meeting minutes should be out by the end of the week,
but in the meantime you all should be aware of some hums
that were taken and their outcomes, and we need to get those
ratified and turned into decisions on this mailing list.

In the discussion of timeliness, we asked for a hum whether
or not the current text in section 2.1 of the problem
statement document is adequate.  The hum was positive (the
text is adequate).

In the discussion of ADs who function as WG chairs, we asked
whether this was adequately covered in section 2.6.6 of the
problem statement document.  The hum indicated that those
present feel that it is.

In the discussion of the IETF's scope, the question was
whether or not the existing text in the problem statement
document sufficiently addressed the issue.  The hum
indicated that those present felt it does.

In the discussion of whether or not there's a problem
accomodating ESL speakers, the discussion broadened a bit to
cover cultural issues, the hum indicated that those present
felt that we needed more text on this issue.

In the discussion of whether or not the existing IETF
document format is a problem, the hum indicated that those
present felt that it is not.

We took a hum to see if those present felt that the process
document is headed in the right direction.  The hum
indicated that they do.

We took a hum to see if those present felt that we need to
define a process to identify values, mission, scope, and
goals.  The hum was split.

We took a hum to see when work should start on the
short-term solutions proposals in the process document.  The
options were 1) when the problem statement is approved, 2)
when the process document is approved, and 3) now.  The hum
was overwhelmingly in favor of "now."

Needs more discussion:

Appeals process
Size of IETF documents
Cross-organizational decision-making

---

From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 01:15:31 +0200

On woensdag, jul 23, 2003, at 00:02 Europe/Amsterdam, Melinda Shore 

> felt that we needed more text on this issue.

Something that people who aren't used to working in a second or third 
language may not realize is that it often simply takes more time to 
digest what is said in English for non-native speakers. For me, it's 
especially this humming thing that usually happens way too fast. There 
was more than one occasion last week where the hum was over before I 
could join in. For some unknown reason, this problem is much less for 
me with hand raising, although a few triple negatives in the question 
slow me down in that case too.

And was it just me or were many of the participants from Japan 
especially hard to understand? I think in many cases this is 
exacerbated when people (try to) speak too fast. Maybe some kind of 
sunday session where people who will be presenting later in the week 
can get some feedback on the way they speak can take the edge off here. 
The system they use for the ICANN meetings where all text is typed in 
verbatim and projected on a screen is also a very good solution and 
comes in handy for other reasons as well, but this is probably way too 
expensive.

As for cultural issues: it may be good to say something about what is 
the appropriate way to get someone's attention for exchanging a few 
words before/after a session or in the hallways.

---

From: Pekka Savola <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 09:45:47 +0300 (EEST)

Just adding my two cents..

On Wed, 23 Jul 2003, Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote:
[...]
> And was it just me 

Nope.

> or were many of the participants from Japan 
> especially hard to understand? 

YES!

> I think in many cases this is 
> exacerbated when people (try to) speak too fast. [...]

Indeed.

However, *I* at least don't have any problems with understanding fast
speaking, *as long as* the speaker is a native speaker (or close enough),
i.e. can speak in a way I'm used to hear English spoken.  I'm not sure how
big a problem this is for most folks.

But when someone with e.g. a strong French or Japanese/Korean accent tries
to speak fast, then everyone is lost immediately..

-- 
Pekka Savola                 "You each name yourselves king, yet the
Netcore Oy                    kingdom bleeds."
Systems. Networks. Security. -- George R.R. Martin: A Clash of Kings

---

From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 10:29:52 +0200

On woensdag, jul 23, 2003, at 08:45 Europe/Amsterdam, Pekka Savola 

> big a problem this is for most folks.

I don't know if people come to IETF meetings who find it difficult to 
follow English when it is spoken clear but fast. Speed in itself isn't 
a problem for me, as long as I get a few moments to let everything sink 
in before I'm required to react. However, speaking fast and still 
articulate well is something that is hard even for native speakers. And 
the people who speak the fastest usually use the most "uhm", "ahhh", 
"errr" and so on so it really doesn't help anyway.

> to speak fast, then everyone is lost immediately..

Yes, this is often the case although there are also many people with 
accents that don't get in the way.

---

From: "todd glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 08:08:28 -0700

So the issues with multiple languages are

    1)    people that don't speak English as their primary language MAY find
it hard to understand English Dialog spoken too fast in a public forum.

    2)    people that don't speak English as their primary language may not
have an equal participation opportunity because of the language issues and
so they are slighted by the IETF's participation process...

    3)    people that likewise don't speak English as a primary language may
miss any number of the nuances and any local colloquialisms that are used in
technology disclosures...

The analysis of this is pretty simple.

    Some people that are not Native English speakers MAY suffer herein...
but this is subjective and dependant on the individuals perceptions and
experience in speaking local dialects and technical English...

What's the solution? - That's actually pretty simple too. The basic question
here is whether the IETF can afford to take on a publications process that
encompasses more than one language. And the answer is obviously NO if it is
to retain any of its current flavor. So with that said, the also obvious
answer is that in a meeting where one does not understand any of what is
said, those individuals need to pose a question to the chair or the speakers
to qualify their commentary more. Or just to explain themselves such that
all understand the commentary. And this is more a rule of order than
anything else it seems to me...

Todd

---

From: Scott W Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 15:51:59 -0400

> goals.  The hum was split.

I'm against.

---

From: Scott W Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 18:57:39 -0400

I agree with the hums on everything else, btw.

> felt that we needed more text on this issue.

Since I can't find any text at all right now, how about:

  The IETF has never decided to do anything about the known problems
  with language and verbal communication despite its increasing
  international participation.  At this point there are serious
  difficulties for those who are not native speakers of English, in
  understanding presentations and arguments, in reading and
  understanding colloquial text, and in formulating responses in order
  to participate in the usual lively IETF discussion.  There are also
  problems for those who speak English natively but are not used to the
  accent or dialect of another participant.  The IETF needs to decide,
  explicitly, what it will or will not do about these issues.

---

From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 10:23:06 +0200

On donderdag, jul 24, 2003, at 00:57 Europe/Amsterdam, Scott W Brim 

>   explicitly, what it will or will not do about these issues.

This here is dangerously close to blowing the whole thing way out of 
proportion. Yes, it would be nicer to if I could use my native 
language, but I'm not waiting for all you guys to learn Dutch. I 
haven't worked with interpretation, but from what I see (UN, european 
parliament) it sucks. And the IETF can't afford it anyway. So I'll 
manage to get by in English. And guess what: most of your 
colloquialisms aren't that difficult to understand. (Now spelling, 
that's another matter.)

There is enough evidence that non-native English speakers can function 
just fine within the IETF. Unfortunately, there are also examples to 
the contrary, at least to some degree, as some participants can be hard 
to understand. I do maintain that this has very likely something to do 
with the speed at which is spoken, so it should be possible to gain 
improvement here with some one-on-one feedback.

What I'd really like to know is how many people would like to 
participate in the IETF but don't because of language issues. If this 
turns out to be a large number, more effort in this area is justified. 
But it could also be a negligible number, so no action is warranted.

---

From: Pekka Savola <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 13:18:55 +0300 (EEST)

> But it could also be a negligible number, so no action is warranted.

Another problem I've seen, unfortunately, is that internet-drafts from 
certain people have been of *awful* language.

In a document of a dozen pages, excluding the standard boilerplates, you
can hardly find a sentence which does not break English grammar, spelling,
choice of wrong words or be otherwise difficult to understand.

Forcing people to review these seems like a waste of time from almost
everyone's perspective.  It just takes *considerably* more effort to do.

Luckily enough this is rather rare, but happens nonetheless.

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 06:54:56 -0700

if we think we can solve the global multi-language/culture problem,
why the heck don't we get real and work on world hunger and peace?

let's face it, we live in a multi-lingual world, embarrassingly,
american has become the lingua franca of our technology.  there
are some simple (but hard) things folk can do to make themselves
easier to understand, speak slowly and clearly, use no idioms,
have clear slides which help folk read along, etc.  i would wager
that there is some nice web page on this if we googled correctly.

beyond that, yes it's a problem, but we ain't gonna fix it.

randy

---

From: Leif Johansson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 16:44:04 +0200

>beyond that, yes it's a problem, but we ain't gonna fix it.
Really! Just consider us poor Swedes who are all taught to speak and 
write the
Queen's English at school. How are we supposed to cope with "American" 
?!? ;-)

I believe the web-page you were looking for is

    http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/6174/brit-queue-51st.htm

    MVH (I bet you don't know what that stands for either :-) ) leifj

---

From: "Bob Wyman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 11:07:09 -0400

Sorry for entering solution space... However, it seems to me that it
would make sense at future IETF meetings to do at least two things:
	1. Provide a specific Sunday orientation for ESL attendees or
add an optional "for-ESL folk" extension to the traditional orientation.
While much of the content would be similar to the normal orientation
meeting, this meeting would go at a slower pace and encourage "bonding"
between attendees. If people with language difficulties can hook up with
others at the meeting, they may be able to support each other in
resolving confusions as the meetings progress.
	2. Designate a specific area as a meeting place for ESL and/or
non-English speaking attendees that would be open throughout the
meeting. The idea would be to encourage people to go there to meet
others in with similar problems and also for people who were willing to
provide assistance to ESL attendees to have a way of meeting people who
needed help.

		bob wyman

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked]
[mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Scott W
Brim
Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2003 6:58 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: English (was Re: A few hums)

On Tue, Jul 22, 2003 06:02:57PM -0400, Melinda Shore allegedly wrote:
> In the discussion of whether or not there's a problem accomodating ESL

> speakers, the discussion broadened a bit to cover cultural issues, the

> hum indicated that those present felt that we needed more text on this

> issue.

---

From: "todd glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 08:00:26 -0700

What it sounds like we need is an official IETF lexicon. Or possibly at
least a set of agreed upon common terms.

Todd

---

From: Leif Johansson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 19:40:27 +0200

>least a set of agreed upon common terms.
Well, if the time spent deciding what MUST, MAY, SHOULD and friends
mean is any indication of how long this will take, if we start quickly 
we should
be done any century now... :-)

       MVH leifj

---

From: "todd glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 10:55:16 -0700

Leif - their meaning was not the issue. The issue was how they were used and
the rules for that use. What we are looking for here is not the use rules
but the ideas themselves that we want to carve out.

And I do understand your concerns too and support them as well, but the
reality of this is that these terms really do need to be defined one would
think...

Todd

---

From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 20:30:03 +0200

On donderdag, jul 24, 2003, at 17:10 Europe/Amsterdam, Cyrus Shaoul 
wrote:

> In rejoining the thread, I wanted to note that there are parts of the
> world that have much less exposure to American English as compared to
> the Netherlands or other countries in Western Europe.

The fact that movies and tv are subtitled and not dubbed here in NL 
seems to make a difference as well. This certainly explains why my 
English has improved since high school while my German has only gotten 
worse, as I found out last week...

But I can't imagine being involved in one of the areas of interest of 
the IETF and not at least reading a lot of English.

> I talked to a
> small number of people from India, Korea, China and Japan at the last
> IETF meeting in Vienna (about 10 people), and they all told me that 
> they
> felt left out and frustrated at some of the WG meetings.

Do you mean that there are also people who don't feel frustrated and 
left out during wg meetings, not counting the inner circle with 25 IETF 
meetings down their belts?

Did they tell you why they feel this way?

> I don't think the situation is black-or-white with the all the European
> participants either. There may be a significant minority of European
> attendees who would have a much better understanding of what is going 
> on
> if speakers spoke slower and more clearly, in plainer language.

I don't think speaking slow in itself is of much value. It's just that 
many people try to speak too fast for reasons I can only imagine and 
this tends to get in the way of clear articulation. This is especially 
problematic if the speaker diverts from "generic" (American?) English.

> I do agree with you that we need more information about the scale of 
> the
> problem before deciding whether or not it is significant enought to act
> on. I have lots of anecdotal evidence, but no hard data. I would love
> to know how many people have already stopped attending IETF meetings
> because of this problem. Unfortunately, it is hard to find out from
> within the IETF who is no longer involved in the IETF, but we could 
> send
> out a survey to all non-native English speakers currently subscribed to
> all WG mailing lists (should this be done?).

Why not contact people who used to come to the IETF meetings but don't 
anymore?

> How large a number of
> people complaining would you say would be needed to justify action? 100
> people? More? Less?

I'd say that if less than 10% of all people who respond didn't stop 
coming because of language-related problems there is no reason to do 
anything. Above 35% we absolutely need to do something.

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 12:45:07 -0700

Randy,

RB> if we think we can solve the global multi-language/culture problem,
RB> why the heck don't we get real and work on world hunger and peace?

1. No one said "solve".

2. Thanks. Your responding with insulting hyperbole provides an
excellent demonstration of one of the "cultural" concerns that needs to
be worked on within the IETF. It is especially helpful to see that sort
of supportive contribution from an Area Director.

RB> let's face it, we live in a multi-lingual world, embarrassingly,
RB> american has become the lingua franca of our technology.  there
RB> are some simple (but hard) things folk can do to make themselves
RB> easier to understand, speak slowly and clearly, use no idioms,
RB> have clear slides which help folk read along, etc.

Oh.  Nice of you to acknowledge that perhaps some things can be done.

If everyone had your prior knowledge and distinctive sensitivity to
linguistic and cultural issues, then the topic would not have come up.

I guess it is ok to remind people to turn off mobile phones and pagers,
but not to provide them with guidance about a speaking style that might
be helpful to non-native English listeners.

d/
--
 Dave Crocker <mailto:[email-masked]>
 Brandenburg InternetWorking <http://www.brandenburg.com>
 Sunnyvale, CA  USA <tel:+1.408.246.8253>, <fax:+1.866.358.5301>

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 16:20:34 -0400

> I guess it is ok to remind people to turn off mobile phones and
> pagers, but not to provide them with guidance about a speaking style
> that might be helpful to non-native English listeners.

To me it seems perfectly appropriate and consistent with the goals of
this WG to include in our list of problems a mention that non-native
English speakers/listeners have difficulties participating in IETF. 
Since we are not working on solutions in this WG, we don't need to agree
on the mechanism by which the problem is solved, or even whether the
problem can be solved.  For now, it is enough to recognize it as a
problem.

We are constructing this list of problems because we wish to understand
the breadth of difficulties we face.  By making ourselves aware of this
breadth we hope to avoid crafting "solutions" which address some
problems while making other problems worse.  But we also need to keep in
mind that many problems are inherently difficult to solve - and those
related to differences in human language are far from the only
difficult problems we face. 

So we should not expect that we can completely solve every problem on
our list.  Therefore, placing a problem on our list should not create an
expectation that we will completely solve it.   Neither should we avoid
listing problems merely because we do not believe we can completely
solve them.

We will always have difficult problems.  We will solve the ones we can,
especially those that most impede our work.  Hopefully we will still be
able to accomplish useful work in spite of those that remain.

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 14:19:39 -0700

glad to provide a soapbox for your ongoing demagoguery, dave.  but
do you have anything actually constructive to contribute?

randy

---

From: "Steve Silverman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 18:20:38 -0400

A few steps that might help:

All speakers to put the substance of what they are saying in words on
the slides.
People try to speak a little slower.  (This is hard to remember
especially when the chair says 1 minute more!)
A distinction between questions for clarification (asking what is
being said) versus
comments on the material.  The former should be taken first,
preferably immediately.
Some sort of signal (holding up a paper?  or blue index cards?) might
be used to signify a question of clarification.

Steve Silverman

> [mailto:[email-masked]]On Behalf
> Of Randy Bush
> Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2003 5:20 PM
> To: Dave Crocker
> Cc: [email-masked]

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 15:57:47 -0700

> be used to signify a question of clarification.

yep.  thanks for helping expand on my over-terseness.

RB>> there are some simple (but hard) things folk can do to make
RB>> themselves easier to understand, speak slowly and clearly, use
RB>> no idioms, have clear slides which help folk read along, etc.

but this issue is not at all unique to the ietf, computing, etc.
so i still wonder if

RB>> i would wager that there is some nice web page on this if we
RB>> googled correctly.

randy

---

From: Cyrus Shaoul <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 11:10:13 -0400

Iljitsch, 

In rejoining the thread, I wanted to note that there are parts of the
world that have much less exposure to American English as compared to
the Netherlands or other countries in Western Europe. I talked to a
small number of people from India, Korea, China and Japan at the last
IETF meeting in Vienna (about 10 people), and they all told me that they
felt left out and frustrated at some of the WG meetings. (There are some
Asian attendees who have no difficulties participating, but I feel that
they are the exception, not the rule).

I don't think the situation is black-or-white with the all the European
participants either. There may be a significant minority of European
attendees who would have a much better understanding of what is going on
if speakers spoke slower and more clearly, in plainer language. 

I do agree with you that we need more information about the scale of the
problem before deciding whether or not it is significant enought to act
on. I have lots of anecdotal evidence, but no hard data. I would love
to know how many people have already stopped attending IETF meetings
because of this problem. Unfortunately, it is hard to find out from
within the IETF who is no longer involved in the IETF, but we could send
out a survey to all non-native English speakers currently subscribed to
all WG mailing lists (should this be done?). How large a number of
people complaining would you say would be needed to justify action? 100
people? More? Less?

(I should finally note there there are other barriers besides language
that may prevent people from participating, among them: money for travel
and lodging, registration fees and visa difficulties. I think that they
should be addressed as well, but for now let's focus on language.)

Thanks, 

Cyrus

On Thu, 24 Jul 2003 10:23:06 +0200
Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]> wrote:

IvB> On donderdag, jul 24, 2003, at 00:57 Europe/Amsterdam, Scott W Brim 
IvB> wrote:
IvB> 
IvB> > Since I can't find any text at all right now, how about:
IvB> 
IvB> >   The IETF has never decided to do anything about the known problems
IvB> >   with language and verbal communication despite its increasing
IvB> >   international participation.  At this point there are serious
IvB> >   difficulties for those who are not native speakers of English, in
IvB> >   understanding presentations and arguments, in reading and
IvB> >   understanding colloquial text, and in formulating responses in order
IvB> >   to participate in the usual lively IETF discussion.  There are also
IvB> >   problems for those who speak English natively but are not used to the
IvB> >   accent or dialect of another participant.  The IETF needs to decide,
IvB> >   explicitly, what it will or will not do about these issues.
IvB> 
IvB> This here is dangerously close to blowing the whole thing way out of 
IvB> proportion. Yes, it would be nicer to if I could use my native 
IvB> language, but I'm not waiting for all you guys to learn Dutch. I 
IvB> haven't worked with interpretation, but from what I see (UN, european 
IvB> parliament) it sucks. And the IETF can't afford it anyway. So I'll 
IvB> manage to get by in English. And guess what: most of your 
IvB> colloquialisms aren't that difficult to understand. (Now spelling, 
IvB> that's another matter.)
IvB> 
IvB> There is enough evidence that non-native English speakers can function 
IvB> just fine within the IETF. Unfortunately, there are also examples to 
IvB> the contrary, at least to some degree, as some participants can be hard 
IvB> to understand. I do maintain that this has very likely something to do 
IvB> with the speed at which is spoken, so it should be possible to gain 
IvB> improvement here with some one-on-one feedback.
IvB> 
IvB> What I'd really like to know is how many people would like to 
IvB> participate in the IETF but don't because of language issues. If this 
IvB> turns out to be a large number, more effort in this area is justified. 
IvB> But it could also be a negligible number, so no action is warranted.

Cyrus Shaoul
NTT Advanced Technology Corp.
[email-masked]
http://www.ntt-at.com/

---

From: Cyrus Shaoul <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 16:03:08 -0400

On Thu, 24 Jul 2003 20:30:03 +0200
Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]> wrote:

IvB> But I can't imagine being involved in one of the areas of interest of 
IvB> the IETF and not at least reading a lot of English.

True, but I think that reading and writing is much easier to learn from
hearing and speaking. As hard to believe as it may seem, some people at
IETF meetings are fluent readers and writers of English (even authors of
Internet Drafts that contain no errors of English grammar or usage), but
can't speak or understand spoken English well at all.

IvB> Do you mean that there are also people who don't feel frustrated and 
IvB> left out during wg meetings, not counting the inner circle with 25 IETF 
IvB> meetings down their belts?

Touche. Perhaps there are different degrees of frustration. Perhaps
everybody would benefit, including native English speaking IETF first-timers,
if awareness of this problem could be raised.

IvB> Did they tell you why they feel this way?

The overlapping parts of their comments were that some speakers spoke
too quickly, some answered questions at native-speed to oblivious
non-native English speaking questioners, some speakers rushed through
their slides so fast that they could only read one or two lines because
they read slower than native-readers, and many other issues. The point
is that they were having language-related problems, and they felt that
speakers and questioners were oblivious to this. Some of them told me
that they have studied written English for 10 years or more, and are
working hard to improve their English hearing and speaking, but that it
takes many years of practice to master the fluency needed to fully
participate in an IETF-meeting-level discussion. (Remember, most Asian
languages share no roots, vocabulary or writing system with English).

[Side note: With packed agendas, most presenters get 10-15 minutes at WG
meetings. For some reason, many people decide to pack as much content
into those 10 minutes as possible, and then are forced to rush through
their presentations. Is this a related problem?]

IvB> > I don't think the situation is black-or-white with the all the European
IvB> > participants either. There may be a significant minority of European
IvB> > attendees who would have a much better understanding of what is going 
IvB> > on
IvB> > if speakers spoke slower and more clearly, in plainer language.
IvB> 
IvB> I don't think speaking slow in itself is of much value. It's just that 
IvB> many people try to speak too fast for reasons I can only imagine and 
IvB> this tends to get in the way of clear articulation. This is especially 
IvB> problematic if the speaker diverts from "generic" (American?) English.

Agreed.

IvB> > I do agree with you that we need more information about the scale of 
IvB> > the
IvB> > problem before deciding whether or not it is significant enought to act
IvB> > on. I have lots of anecdotal evidence, but no hard data. I would love
IvB> > to know how many people have already stopped attending IETF meetings
IvB> > because of this problem. Unfortunately, it is hard to find out from
IvB> > within the IETF who is no longer involved in the IETF, but we could 
IvB> > send
IvB> > out a survey to all non-native English speakers currently subscribed to
IvB> > all WG mailing lists (should this be done?).
IvB> 
IvB> Why not contact people who used to come to the IETF meetings but don't 
IvB> anymore?

Would the IETF registrar have this information? Just knowing the
non-native English speaker attrition rate could be interesting (again,
they could be leaving for other reasons, so we would need to ask them
directly).

IvB> 
IvB> > How large a number of
IvB> > people complaining would you say would be needed to justify action? 100
IvB> > people? More? Less?
IvB> 
IvB> I'd say that if less than 10% of all people who respond didn't stop 
IvB> coming because of language-related problems there is no reason to do 
IvB> anything. Above 35% we absolutely need to do something.

Perhaps those are good guidelines. I need to think about the metrics a
little more before I can give my opinion.

To the Chairs: Is there enough interest to do such a survey? Are there
other items that would go on this survey? Are surveys out of scope?

Thanks, 

Cyrus

Cyrus Shaoul

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2003 07:00:22 -0700

Randy,

RB> glad to provide a soapbox for your ongoing demagoguery, dave.  but
RB> do you have anything actually constructive to contribute?

Changing your postings from

         a) misrepresenting what is said and then invoking hyperbole to
         dismiss what was not actually said,

to

         b) "thanks for helping expand on my over-terseness"

is significantly constructive for everyone else.

However you need to review the definition of 'demagogue' Randy. You are
the AD, not ID. And you started with an attack on a serious issue, not
I.

And if you find the words "hyperbole" and "insult" to be emotional, then
you need to look more closely at their definitions and your posting
style.

As to "ongoing", Randy, you really are inviting a review of *both* our
posting histories, aren't you?

d/

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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 09:38:55 +0200

> > goals.  The hum was split.

I'm split. I have believed for years that we need a definition of
what is in or out of scope (even if the definition cannot be rigid).
But values, mission, goals are in RFC 3160.

   Brian

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Brian E Carpenter 
Distinguished Engineer, Internet Standards & Technology, IBM 

NEW ADDRESS <[email-masked]> PLEASE UPDATE ADDRESS BOOK

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From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 09:01:55 -0700

RFC 3184, "

> beyond that, yes it's a problem, but we ain't gonna fix it.

RFC 3184, "IETF guidelines for conduct".

>    1. IETF participants extend respect and courtesy to their colleagues
>       at all times.
>
>       IETF participants come from diverse origins and backgrounds and
>       are equipped with multiple capabilities and ideals.  Regardless of
>       these individual differences, participants treat their colleagues
>       with respect as persons--especially when it is difficult to agree
>       with them.  Seeing from another's point of view is often
>       revealing, even when it fails to be compelling.
>
>       English is the de facto language of the IETF, but it is not the
>       native language of many IETF participants.  Native English
>       speakers attempt to speak clearly and a bit slowly and to limit
>       the use of slang in order to accommodate the needs of all
>       listeners.

The EDU team (result of the EDU BOF) is taking up the issue of making 
guidelines available - both for non-North American people to participate in 
the IETF and for North American people to make it easier for non-North 
American to participate. Both are needed, I think :-)