Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On 19/03/2013 12:59, Margaret Wasserman wrote: On Mar 12, 2013, at 2:24 PM, Dan Harkins dhark...@lounge.org wrote: I'd love to get out of this rat hole. Perhaps the signatories of the open letter can restate the problem they see so it isn't made in terms of race and gender. The letter specifically mentioned the axes of race, gender, geographic location and corporate affiliation, so the letter was not only about race and gender. Other people have mentioned other pertinent axes in the e-mail discussion, such as industry segment and background/experience. I don't think it is possible for remove race and gender from the list of axes, though, since there is a notable lack of diversity in those areas. Margaret As I pointed out on an earlier thread, the relevant EU policy body, which I assume has a lot of expertise on this, defines the following protected characteristics, i.e. characteristics that you are NOT permitted to discriminate on in the EU: Age Disability Gender reassignment Marriage and civil partnership Pregnancy and maternity Race Religion and belief Sex Sexual orientation If we are going to have an itemized list of diversity characteristics, we should not pick and choose, we should include the full list. Stewart
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On 03/19/2013 11:04 PM, Stewart Bryant wrote: Margret this is the IETF, it regularly sets aside law to create its own lies about what it is and is not capable of in a legal context - but that is all about to change I think... Todd On 19/03/2013 12:59, Margaret Wasserman wrote: On Mar 12, 2013, at 2:24 PM, Dan Harkins dhark...@lounge.org wrote: I'd love to get out of this rat hole. Perhaps the signatories of the open letter can restate the problem they see so it isn't made in terms of race and gender. The letter specifically mentioned the axes of race, gender, geographic location and corporate affiliation, so the letter was not only about race and gender. Other people have mentioned other pertinent axes in the e-mail discussion, such as industry segment and background/experience. I don't think it is possible for remove race and gender from the list of axes, though, since there is a notable lack of diversity in those areas. Margaret As I pointed out on an earlier thread, the relevant EU policy body, which I assume has a lot of expertise on this, defines the following protected characteristics, i.e. characteristics that you are NOT permitted to discriminate on in the EU: Age Disability Gender reassignment Marriage and civil partnership Pregnancy and maternity Race Religion and belief Sex Sexual orientation If we are going to have an itemized list of diversity characteristics, we should not pick and choose, we should include the full list. Stewart
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
Hi Stewart, On Mar 20, 2013, at 2:04 AM, Stewart Bryant stbry...@cisco.com wrote: Age Disability Gender reassignment Marriage and civil partnership Pregnancy and maternity Race Religion and belief Sex Sexual orientation The U.S. has a similar (although not identical) list, and it may vary a bit state-by-state. If we are going to have an itemized list of diversity characteristics, we should not pick and choose, we should include the full list. While I certainly wouldn't suggest we start discriminating based on _any_ of these factors, it is very difficult to measure our results in some of these areas, as we do not collect this information from IETF attendees, nor do we publish the age, disability status, gender status, marital status, religion or sexual orientation of our I* members. I am not suggesting that we start collecting or publishing this information, just saying that it makes it hard to tell whether our leadership is reasonably representative of the community in some of these areas. Also, I think there are some area where diversity is important to the IETF that are not on this list, like geographic location, corporate affiliation and industry segment (vendor, operator, researcher, etc.). Margaret
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On 20/03/2013 10:53, Margaret Wasserman wrote: Hi Stewart, On Mar 20, 2013, at 2:04 AM, Stewart Bryant stbry...@cisco.com wrote: Age Disability Gender reassignment Marriage and civil partnership Pregnancy and maternity Race Religion and belief Sex Sexual orientation The U.S. has a similar (although not identical) list, and it may vary a bit state-by-state. If we are going to have an itemized list of diversity characteristics, we should not pick and choose, we should include the full list. While I certainly wouldn't suggest we start discriminating based on _any_ of these factors, it is very difficult to measure our results in some of these areas, as we do not collect this information from IETF attendees, nor do we publish the age, disability status, gender status, marital status, religion or sexual orientation of our I* members. I am not suggesting that we start collecting or publishing this information, just saying that it makes it hard to tell whether our leadership is reasonably representative of the community in some of these areas. Also, I think there are some area where diversity is important to the IETF that are not on this list, like geographic location, corporate affiliation and industry segment (vendor, operator, researcher, etc.). Margaret . There are methods of anonymously determining the profile of the IETF in the above terms, but to preserve the anonymity of such information, and understand its statistical significance this should probably be gathered by a specialist organization outside the IETF but on our behalf. The extended list needs further review and consideration. For example, perhaps we should take a leaf from the IEEE and consider who funds work items rather than simply use current affiliation as we do today. This makes things more transparent both at the corporate and the consulting level. Stewart
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
Let's not play Internet lawyers about this. How Jari's design team bring in real lawyers at the appropriate time?
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 11:53 AM, Margaret Wasserman m...@lilacglade.orgwrote: Hi Stewart, On Mar 20, 2013, at 2:04 AM, Stewart Bryant stbry...@cisco.com wrote: Age Disability Gender reassignment Marriage and civil partnership Pregnancy and maternity Race Religion and belief Sex Sexual orientation The U.S. has a similar (although not identical) list, and it may vary a bit state-by-state. If we are going to have an itemized list of diversity characteristics, we should not pick and choose, we should include the full list. While I certainly wouldn't suggest we start discriminating based on _any_ of these factors, it is very difficult to measure our results in some of these areas, as we do not collect this information from IETF attendees, nor do we publish the age, disability status, gender status, marital status, religion or sexual orientation of our I* members. I am not suggesting that we start collecting or publishing this information, just saying that it makes it hard to tell whether our leadership is reasonably representative of the community in some of these areas. I would say that in this case we are almost surely automatically fair: while one can suspect that gender or geographical origin could add a bias (even an unwanted one), if I do not know the, say, sexual orientation of a candidate, I cannot discriminate (even on a subconscious level) using that information. Also, I think there are some area where diversity is important to the IETF that are not on this list, like geographic location, corporate affiliation and industry segment (vendor, operator, researcher, etc.). Margaret
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
Margaret Wasserman wrote: On Mar 12, 2013, at 2:24 PM, Dan Harkins dhark...@lounge.org wrote: I'd love to get out of this rat hole. Perhaps the signatories of the open letter can restate the problem they see so it isn't made in terms of race and gender. The letter specifically mentioned the axes of race, gender, geographic location and corporate affiliation, so the letter was not only about race and gender. Other people have mentioned other pertinent axes in the e-mail discussion, such as industry segment and background/experience. I don't think it is possible for remove race and gender from the list of axes, though, since there is a notable lack of diversity in those areas. The monetary and time resources necessary to fill an I* position adequately appear quite significant to me, and I believe it would be hard to fill them without strong support from an employer which covers the monetary investment. Any lack of diversity in the IESG/IAB/IAOC of the IETF leadership is IMHO related to the lack of interest in longterm planning in the majority of management of large companies--those which can reasonably expect to still be around and still sell products in some area a few years into the future. -Martin
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 5:40 PM, Riccardo Bernardini framefri...@gmail.comwrote: if I do not know the, say, sexual orientation of a candidate, I cannot discriminate (even on a subconscious level) using that information. Hi Riccardo, I hope you are not suggesting candidates to remain in closet, to not be discriminated? :D Dhruv
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
--On Wednesday, March 20, 2013 06:53 -0400 Margaret Wasserman m...@lilacglade.org wrote: ... I am not suggesting that we start collecting or publishing this information, just saying that it makes it hard to tell whether our leadership is reasonably representative of the community in some of these areas. Also, I think there are some area where diversity is important to the IETF that are not on this list, like geographic location, corporate affiliation and industry segment (vendor, operator, researcher, etc.). Margaret, While I am very much in favor of a more diverse IETF population and leadership, the above, especially when combined with Martin Rex's later comment, is part of the reason why I see the problem as terribly difficult and not yielding easily to petitions, design teams, instructions to confirming bodies (particularly problematic as other discussions have shown), or good intentions. As a specific example, I think the IETF would be considerably strengthened by more diversity in corporate affiliations and industry segments as you suggest above. As with gender diversity, my impression is that we are getting more homogeneous rather than more diverse. One of the problems is time commitment and associated costs. For many corporations, most startups, and a significant fraction of actual individual participants, service in leadership positions is feasible only if those positions are really part-time and significant attention is paid to either cost containment or spreading marginal costs around the community. Yet the IESG (and, to a slightly lesser extent, the IAB) have tended to assign more and more work and responsibility to themselves, If we want more diversity along corporate, role, and related economic axes, we need (as others have pointed out) to shrink the jobs. In the IESG's case, that may require reducing the number of WGs we think we can operate in parallel. Unfortunately, there are many reasons to continue to _expand_ the jobs: on a point basis, it will always be easier to add tasks to existing leaders than to consider whether those tasks are really necessary, to consider sunsetting other tasks, or to organize and manage alternate ways to get them done. It also isn't clear that the community cares: I note that the recent effort to allow the IAB and IESG to appoint people other than the Chairs to serve on the IAOC/Trust, and an earlier one to separate the IAOC and the Trust, went exactly nowhere. On the other hand, if we are serious, I think it needs to be something that Nomcoms are committed (preferably without more rules) to enforce by asking candidates their positions on job-shrinking and by retiring incumbents who contribute to job-expansion. Those expansions are perhaps also influenced by the observation that, if the incumbents have the time and support for an expanded role, such expansion doesn't seem to be harmful. That is part of a classic example of why already-homogeneous organizations tend to become even more homogeneous, at leat in the absence of disruptive changes. best, john
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
I would suggest John that the real diversity the IETF needs is transparency in its process and a competent IPR rule set which meets the same set of legal hurdles people do in the commercial world so to speak. I would also suggest that the idea of splitting all of these contractually binding practices into a set of technical publications is inherently insane and has lead to the fiasco that we have today. What the IETF needs is a simple set of documents that do not require a free wall to post the various components on to develop a proper reliance map. Just my own two cents though. Todd On 03/20/2013 06:30 AM, John C Klensin wrote: --On Wednesday, March 20, 2013 06:53 -0400 Margaret Wasserman m...@lilacglade.org wrote: ... I am not suggesting that we start collecting or publishing this information, just saying that it makes it hard to tell whether our leadership is reasonably representative of the community in some of these areas. Also, I think there are some area where diversity is important to the IETF that are not on this list, like geographic location, corporate affiliation and industry segment (vendor, operator, researcher, etc.). Margaret, While I am very much in favor of a more diverse IETF population and leadership, the above, especially when combined with Martin Rex's later comment, is part of the reason why I see the problem as terribly difficult and not yielding easily to petitions, design teams, instructions to confirming bodies (particularly problematic as other discussions have shown), or good intentions. As a specific example, I think the IETF would be considerably strengthened by more diversity in corporate affiliations and industry segments as you suggest above. As with gender diversity, my impression is that we are getting more homogeneous rather than more diverse. One of the problems is time commitment and associated costs. For many corporations, most startups, and a significant fraction of actual individual participants, service in leadership positions is feasible only if those positions are really part-time and significant attention is paid to either cost containment or spreading marginal costs around the community. Yet the IESG (and, to a slightly lesser extent, the IAB) have tended to assign more and more work and responsibility to themselves, If we want more diversity along corporate, role, and related economic axes, we need (as others have pointed out) to shrink the jobs. In the IESG's case, that may require reducing the number of WGs we think we can operate in parallel. Unfortunately, there are many reasons to continue to _expand_ the jobs: on a point basis, it will always be easier to add tasks to existing leaders than to consider whether those tasks are really necessary, to consider sunsetting other tasks, or to organize and manage alternate ways to get them done. It also isn't clear that the community cares: I note that the recent effort to allow the IAB and IESG to appoint people other than the Chairs to serve on the IAOC/Trust, and an earlier one to separate the IAOC and the Trust, went exactly nowhere. On the other hand, if we are serious, I think it needs to be something that Nomcoms are committed (preferably without more rules) to enforce by asking candidates their positions on job-shrinking and by retiring incumbents who contribute to job-expansion. Those expansions are perhaps also influenced by the observation that, if the incumbents have the time and support for an expanded role, such expansion doesn't seem to be harmful. That is part of a classic example of why already-homogeneous organizations tend to become even more homogeneous, at leat in the absence of disruptive changes. best, john
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 6:53 AM, Margaret Wasserman m...@lilacglade.orgwrote: Hi Stewart, On Mar 20, 2013, at 2:04 AM, Stewart Bryant stbry...@cisco.com wrote: Age Disability Gender reassignment Marriage and civil partnership Pregnancy and maternity Race Religion and belief Sex Sexual orientation The U.S. has a similar (although not identical) list, and it may vary a bit state-by-state. If we are going to have an itemized list of diversity characteristics, we should not pick and choose, we should include the full list. I would strongly recommend that legal counsel be consulted before any such list is produced or used by IETF/IESG/Nomcom. (FYI, this is totally outside my own area of legal expertise, so IAOC would need to incur some expense to hire competent counsel in this area) While I certainly wouldn't suggest we start discriminating based on _any_ of these factors, it is very difficult to measure our results in some of these areas, as we do not collect this information from IETF attendees, nor do we publish the age, disability status, gender status, marital status, religion or sexual orientation of our I* members. What records *do* exist regarding the identify of IETF leadership? Is there a central repository of at least names/companies of IESG members and/or WG leaders?
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
IESG, with name/area: http://www.ietf.org/iesg/past-members.html IAB, with name/affiliation: http://www.iab.org/about/history/ On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 10:16 AM, Jorge Contreras cntre...@gmail.comwrote: On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 6:53 AM, Margaret Wasserman m...@lilacglade.orgwrote: Hi Stewart, On Mar 20, 2013, at 2:04 AM, Stewart Bryant stbry...@cisco.com wrote: Age Disability Gender reassignment Marriage and civil partnership Pregnancy and maternity Race Religion and belief Sex Sexual orientation The U.S. has a similar (although not identical) list, and it may vary a bit state-by-state. If we are going to have an itemized list of diversity characteristics, we should not pick and choose, we should include the full list. I would strongly recommend that legal counsel be consulted before any such list is produced or used by IETF/IESG/Nomcom. (FYI, this is totally outside my own area of legal expertise, so IAOC would need to incur some expense to hire competent counsel in this area) While I certainly wouldn't suggest we start discriminating based on _any_ of these factors, it is very difficult to measure our results in some of these areas, as we do not collect this information from IETF attendees, nor do we publish the age, disability status, gender status, marital status, religion or sexual orientation of our I* members. What records *do* exist regarding the identify of IETF leadership? Is there a central repository of at least names/companies of IESG members and/or WG leaders?
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 9:16 AM, Jorge Contreras cntre...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 6:53 AM, Margaret Wasserman m...@lilacglade.org wrote: Hi Stewart, On Mar 20, 2013, at 2:04 AM, Stewart Bryant stbry...@cisco.com wrote: Age Disability Gender reassignment Marriage and civil partnership Pregnancy and maternity Race Religion and belief Sex Sexual orientation The U.S. has a similar (although not identical) list, and it may vary a bit state-by-state. If we are going to have an itemized list of diversity characteristics, we should not pick and choose, we should include the full list. I would strongly recommend that legal counsel be consulted before any such list is produced or used by IETF/IESG/Nomcom. (FYI, this is totally outside my own area of legal expertise, so IAOC would need to incur some expense to hire competent counsel in this area) [MB] I agree 100%. IETF is not at all qualified to define hiring criteria or practices. Unfortunately, they do it all the time. The model in place IMHO would not stand up to the scrutiny of any major US company's HR dept. And, of course, the HR departments are the ones responsible for ensuring the laws in a specific area are met. [/MB] While I certainly wouldn't suggest we start discriminating based on _any_ of these factors, it is very difficult to measure our results in some of these areas, as we do not collect this information from IETF attendees, nor do we publish the age, disability status, gender status, marital status, religion or sexual orientation of our I* members. What records *do* exist regarding the identify of IETF leadership? Is there a central repository of at least names/companies of IESG members and/or WG leaders?
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
I do not really think the legal angle is helpful in resolving this problem. (Which country's laws do we need to comply with?) Let's treat these legal ideas as considerations that we should be thinking about, not something where we should be striving for strict compliance. --Richard On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 10:27 AM, Mary Barnes mary.ietf.bar...@gmail.comwrote: On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 9:16 AM, Jorge Contreras cntre...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 6:53 AM, Margaret Wasserman m...@lilacglade.org wrote: Hi Stewart, On Mar 20, 2013, at 2:04 AM, Stewart Bryant stbry...@cisco.com wrote: Age Disability Gender reassignment Marriage and civil partnership Pregnancy and maternity Race Religion and belief Sex Sexual orientation The U.S. has a similar (although not identical) list, and it may vary a bit state-by-state. If we are going to have an itemized list of diversity characteristics, we should not pick and choose, we should include the full list. I would strongly recommend that legal counsel be consulted before any such list is produced or used by IETF/IESG/Nomcom. (FYI, this is totally outside my own area of legal expertise, so IAOC would need to incur some expense to hire competent counsel in this area) [MB] I agree 100%. IETF is not at all qualified to define hiring criteria or practices. Unfortunately, they do it all the time. The model in place IMHO would not stand up to the scrutiny of any major US company's HR dept. And, of course, the HR departments are the ones responsible for ensuring the laws in a specific area are met. [/MB] While I certainly wouldn't suggest we start discriminating based on _any_ of these factors, it is very difficult to measure our results in some of these areas, as we do not collect this information from IETF attendees, nor do we publish the age, disability status, gender status, marital status, religion or sexual orientation of our I* members. What records *do* exist regarding the identify of IETF leadership? Is there a central repository of at least names/companies of IESG members and/or WG leaders?
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
Going a bit over-the-top: is there an interaction between sex and sexual orientation? Can one count as the other? On Mar 20, 2013, at 8:10 AM, Riccardo Bernardini framefri...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 11:53 AM, Margaret Wasserman m...@lilacglade.org wrote: Hi Stewart, On Mar 20, 2013, at 2:04 AM, Stewart Bryant stbry...@cisco.com wrote: Age Disability Gender reassignment Marriage and civil partnership Pregnancy and maternity Race Religion and belief Sex Sexual orientation The U.S. has a similar (although not identical) list, and it may vary a bit state-by-state. If we are going to have an itemized list of diversity characteristics, we should not pick and choose, we should include the full list. While I certainly wouldn't suggest we start discriminating based on _any_ of these factors, it is very difficult to measure our results in some of these areas, as we do not collect this information from IETF attendees, nor do we publish the age, disability status, gender status, marital status, religion or sexual orientation of our I* members. I am not suggesting that we start collecting or publishing this information, just saying that it makes it hard to tell whether our leadership is reasonably representative of the community in some of these areas. I would say that in this case we are almost surely automatically fair: while one can suspect that gender or geographical origin could add a bias (even an unwanted one), if I do not know the, say, sexual orientation of a candidate, I cannot discriminate (even on a subconscious level) using that information. Also, I think there are some area where diversity is important to the IETF that are not on this list, like geographic location, corporate affiliation and industry segment (vendor, operator, researcher, etc.). Margaret
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On 03/20/2013 08:13 AM, Martin Rex wrote: The monetary and time resources necessary to fill an I* position adequately appear quite significant to me, and I believe it would be hard to fill them without strong support from an employer which covers the monetary investment. Agreed. But this is a huge problem for IETF. Far too often, our standards aren't serving the Internet community so much as serving the interests of a few large companies. I'd actually guess that this is IETF's biggest problem. Keith
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On 03/20/13 15:16, Jorge Contreras allegedly wrote: I would strongly recommend that legal counsel be consulted before any such list is produced or used by IETF/IESG/Nomcom. Or don't generate it at all. Trying to have a complete list of human attributes to diversify to looks like an engineer's reflex. We know what we want to do in principle.
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On 03/20/2013 07:16 AM, Jorge Contreras wrote: On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 6:53 AM, Margaret Wasserman m...@lilacglade.org mailto:m...@lilacglade.org wrote: Jorge - did I miss something here - isnt this your job? If not why are you here? Let me respond that further - I believe that there are any number of both privacy and transparency counsel's in the movement so to speak who would love to work with such a body to create a transparent set of participation rules UNDER THE CURRENT PARTICIPATION MODELS AS BROKEN AS THEY ARE... Didnt you file an ID yourself not to long ago? In fact I am betting Professor you know any number of Grad Students who would love such a job if you catch my drift. Todd Hi Stewart, On Mar 20, 2013, at 2:04 AM, Stewart Bryant stbry...@cisco.com mailto:stbry...@cisco.com wrote: Age Disability Gender reassignment Marriage and civil partnership Pregnancy and maternity Race Religion and belief Sex Sexual orientation The U.S. has a similar (although not identical) list, and it may vary a bit state-by-state. If we are going to have an itemized list of diversity characteristics, we should not pick and choose, we should include the full list. I would strongly recommend that legal counsel be consulted before any such list is produced or used by IETF/IESG/Nomcom. (FYI, this is totally outside my own area of legal expertise, so IAOC would need to incur some expense to hire competent counsel in this area) While I certainly wouldn't suggest we start discriminating based on _any_ of these factors, it is very difficult to measure our results in some of these areas, as we do not collect this information from IETF attendees, nor do we publish the age, disability status, gender status, marital status, religion or sexual orientation of our I* members. What records *do* exist regarding the identify of IETF leadership? Is there a central repository of at least names/companies of IESG members and/or WG leaders?
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On Wed, March 20, 2013 7:16 am, Jorge Contreras wrote: On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 6:53 AM, Margaret Wasserman m...@lilacglade.orgwrote: Hi Stewart, On Mar 20, 2013, at 2:04 AM, Stewart Bryant stbry...@cisco.com wrote: Age Disability Gender reassignment Marriage and civil partnership Pregnancy and maternity Race Religion and belief Sex Sexual orientation The U.S. has a similar (although not identical) list, and it may vary a bit state-by-state. If we are going to have an itemized list of diversity characteristics, we should not pick and choose, we should include the full list. I would strongly recommend that legal counsel be consulted before any such list is produced or used by IETF/IESG/Nomcom. (FYI, this is totally outside my own area of legal expertise, so IAOC would need to incur some expense to hire competent counsel in this area) Great, now the lawyers are getting involved. A sure sign this has gone way too far. The factors listed above are those that an employer cannot discriminate on. It says nothing about diversity or the alleged benefits that diversity brings to a group. For example, a company is prohibited from not hiring someone because he or she is Catholic but it does not mean that the company must work to have some arbitrary percentage of Catholics in leadership positions or among the general workforce. Absent any evidence of discrimination there is Disparate Impact Theory which says that the mere fact that a process produces a result that does not satisfy an arbitrary goal with respect to a protected group is justification for actively discriminating in favor of that protected group to balance it all out. I really, really hope that is not where we are going in the IETF. It would wreck this organization if we had a committee that performed such a blatantly political activity. If that is not where the IETF is going, then the categories listed above should not have anything to do with selection of candidates for leadership positions. It doesn't matter to the IETF if the candidate is a disabled, pregnant, lesbian, Wiccan. What matters to the IETF is whether the candidate is qualified. Dan.
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
As I understand it, Jorge is highlighting that he is not an expert in employment and Equal opportunity law. That is a specific expertise. On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 10:20 AM, tsg tglas...@earthlink.net wrote: On 03/20/2013 07:16 AM, Jorge Contreras wrote: On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 6:53 AM, Margaret Wasserman m...@lilacglade.org wrote: Jorge - did I miss something here - isnt this your job? If not why are you here? Let me respond that further - I believe that there are any number of both privacy and transparency counsel's in the movement so to speak who would love to work with such a body to create a transparent set of participation rules UNDER THE CURRENT PARTICIPATION MODELS AS BROKEN AS THEY ARE... Didnt you file an ID yourself not to long ago? In fact I am betting Professor you know any number of Grad Students who would love such a job if you catch my drift. Todd Hi Stewart, On Mar 20, 2013, at 2:04 AM, Stewart Bryant stbry...@cisco.com wrote: Age Disability Gender reassignment Marriage and civil partnership Pregnancy and maternity Race Religion and belief Sex Sexual orientation The U.S. has a similar (although not identical) list, and it may vary a bit state-by-state. If we are going to have an itemized list of diversity characteristics, we should not pick and choose, we should include the full list. I would strongly recommend that legal counsel be consulted before any such list is produced or used by IETF/IESG/Nomcom. (FYI, this is totally outside my own area of legal expertise, so IAOC would need to incur some expense to hire competent counsel in this area) While I certainly wouldn't suggest we start discriminating based on _any_ of these factors, it is very difficult to measure our results in some of these areas, as we do not collect this information from IETF attendees, nor do we publish the age, disability status, gender status, marital status, religion or sexual orientation of our I* members. What records *do* exist regarding the identify of IETF leadership? Is there a central repository of at least names/companies of IESG members and/or WG leaders?
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On 3/20/2013 4:33 AM, Eliot Lear wrote: Let's not play Internet lawyers about this. How Jari's design team bring in real lawyers at the appropriate time? Or not. There's an important choice between focusing on the sufficiency of representation from a defined set of population groups, versus focusing on the need for true diversity and the means of achieving it. The former is a numbers game and produces soulless mechanics that can't possibly be constructive, in a group as small and specialized as ours. The latter is a culture game and actively seeks as a rich range of perspectives as practical, knowing that it can't get /all/ perspectives. d/ ps. A small point to watch for, if there is a focus on a defined list of groups, is the difference between discriminating /against/, versus ensuring representation /from/. Active prohibition vs. active solicitation. The exchange between Margaret and Stuart seemed to mix these. We need to be careful about the distinction. -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
I don't think anyone is asking for strict compliance to a particular country's laws, although, one could debate that since ISOC is the mother organization for IETF that it might be reasonable to look at the laws in the regions where ISOC is incorporated. My understanding, however, is that since IETF is a non-profit, there is no requirement for them to comply with any of these laws (at least in the US), although one could debate the fact that the US DoD provides funds to ISOC such might be required. Given that folks are still debating whether this years nominees reflected a reasonable diversity (there were 9 women out of 37 nominees), it does seem that finding a description of diversity criteria that is considered by other professional organizations is not a bad idea.However, given the direction of most of these threads, I'm beginning to be of the same mindset as John: https://www.ietf.org/ibin/c5i?mid=6rid=49gid=0k1=933k2=68058tid=1363793904 Regards, Mary. On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 9:34 AM, Richard Barnes r...@ipv.sx wrote: I do not really think the legal angle is helpful in resolving this problem. (Which country's laws do we need to comply with?) Let's treat these legal ideas as considerations that we should be thinking about, not something where we should be striving for strict compliance. --Richard On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 10:27 AM, Mary Barnes mary.ietf.bar...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 9:16 AM, Jorge Contreras cntre...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 6:53 AM, Margaret Wasserman m...@lilacglade.org wrote: Hi Stewart, On Mar 20, 2013, at 2:04 AM, Stewart Bryant stbry...@cisco.com wrote: Age Disability Gender reassignment Marriage and civil partnership Pregnancy and maternity Race Religion and belief Sex Sexual orientation The U.S. has a similar (although not identical) list, and it may vary a bit state-by-state. If we are going to have an itemized list of diversity characteristics, we should not pick and choose, we should include the full list. I would strongly recommend that legal counsel be consulted before any such list is produced or used by IETF/IESG/Nomcom. (FYI, this is totally outside my own area of legal expertise, so IAOC would need to incur some expense to hire competent counsel in this area) [MB] I agree 100%. IETF is not at all qualified to define hiring criteria or practices. Unfortunately, they do it all the time. The model in place IMHO would not stand up to the scrutiny of any major US company's HR dept. And, of course, the HR departments are the ones responsible for ensuring the laws in a specific area are met. [/MB] While I certainly wouldn't suggest we start discriminating based on _any_ of these factors, it is very difficult to measure our results in some of these areas, as we do not collect this information from IETF attendees, nor do we publish the age, disability status, gender status, marital status, religion or sexual orientation of our I* members. What records *do* exist regarding the identify of IETF leadership? Is there a central repository of at least names/companies of IESG members and/or WG leaders?
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
Hi Dave, On Wed, March 20, 2013 8:35 am, Dave Crocker wrote: ps. A small point to watch for, if there is a focus on a defined list of groups, is the difference between discriminating /against/, versus ensuring representation /from/. Active prohibition vs. active solicitation. The exchange between Margaret and Stuart seemed to mix these. We need to be careful about the distinction. I have been viewing this as the difference between discriminating against versus discriminating for. And I am against discrimination, even that done for the best of intentions. Active solicitation is all well and good but how do you _ensure_ representation of members from a defined list of groups if your active solicitation does not result in the favored mix? Dan. -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
I'm somewhat worried at the lurch this thread has taken into the land of protected classes, legal advice, etc. I hope we do not go there. Having said that ... since Eric asked ... On 3/20/2013 9:57 AM, Eric Burger wrote: Going a bit over-the-top: is there an interaction between sex and sexual orientation? Can one count as the other? I'm not answering as an IAB member, but as co-president of PFLAG Dallas (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transgenders) ... PFLAG includes sexual orientation under sexual orientation, gender identity and expression. Each of these terms means something different, and all of these can be distinct from birth gender. So, PFLAG would suggest that we treat gender and sexual orientation, gender identity and expression interchangeably. Spencer (www.pflag.org)
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On 03/20/2013 11:41 AM, Mary Barnes wrote: Given that folks are still debating whether this years nominees reflected a reasonable diversity (there were 9 women out of 37 nominees), I actually don't think that the number of female nominees is relevant.What is relevant is the number of qualified female nominees who had the willingness, the availability, the required expertise, and the support necessary to fill the position. On several occasions in the past decade I've been asked if I were willing to be nominated to serve on IESG again, even though I didn't have either sufficient time or support to devote to the task, just so that nomcom would have a slate of candidates to compare. I thought on those occasions, and still think, that it's a bit silly to ask nomcom to investigate candidates who don't have the time or support to do the job. But I still agreed to be nominated because I could also see some value in having nomcom compare several candidates. (Just like when shopping for a new car, it doesn't hurt to look at models that you know that you're probably not going to buy, just to get a sense of whether you really want what you think you want). So I guess I've formed the impression that merely being nominated for a position doesn't really mean that a person is available. Keith
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 11:10 AM, Keith Moore mo...@network-heretics.com wrote: On 03/20/2013 11:41 AM, Mary Barnes wrote: Given that folks are still debating whether this years nominees reflected a reasonable diversity (there were 9 women out of 37 nominees), I actually don't think that the number of female nominees is relevant. What is relevant is the number of qualified female nominees who had the willingness, the availability, the required expertise, and the support necessary to fill the position. [MB] Sure. But, I know of at least two that I don't think or would hope anyone would debate were qualified in all the areas you suggest. Both have contributed significantly to IETF in a variety of leadership positions. I do not believe at least one of the choices would have stood up against scrutiny by my own HR dept. Certainly, you have opinions, as does the IETF population that is in the majority, as to what makes one qualified. One concept that is not very well understood, however, is the basic fact that women work differently than men and thus expecting us to fit the cookie cutter of IETF leaders isn't quite appropriate. To be told by a nomcom voting member, when I mention this fact, that this just isn't so because IETF is a meritocracy is insulting and shows a sheer lack of respect for the value that diversity brings to an organization. [/MB] On several occasions in the past decade I've been asked if I were willing to be nominated to serve on IESG again, even though I didn't have either sufficient time or support to devote to the task, just so that nomcom would have a slate of candidates to compare. I thought on those occasions, and still think, that it's a bit silly to ask nomcom to investigate candidates who don't have the time or support to do the job. But I still agreed to be nominated because I could also see some value in having nomcom compare several candidates. (Just like when shopping for a new car, it doesn't hurt to look at models that you know that you're probably not going to buy, just to get a sense of whether you really want what you think you want). So I guess I've formed the impression that merely being nominated for a position doesn't really mean that a person is available. [MB] You have to keep in mind in the past that the there were dummies in the nominee pool before open list. I was explicitly told by this year's nomcom chair that they were not doing that. Thus, I would anticipate that the majority of those in the pool this year were willing and able.[/MB] Keith
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On 3/20/2013 11:21 AM, Mary Barnes wrote: On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 11:10 AM, Keith Moore mo...@network-heretics.com wrote: So I guess I've formed the impression that merely being nominated for a position doesn't really mean that a person is available. [MB] You have to keep in mind in the past that the there were dummies in the nominee pool before open list. I was explicitly told by this year's nomcom chair that they were not doing that. Thus, I would anticipate that the majority of those in the pool this year were willing and able.[/MB] Both of you are right, of course. Before OpenList, the list of nominees willing to be considered was treated as confidential. Nomcoms that wanted to ask for input on specific people sent out lists of nominees that were padded, as Keith says, so that there were dummies (usually described as ringers), and theoretically no one outside Nomcom knew precisely who was being considered. When we approved http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5680.txt in 2009, it added this text to RFC 3777: The list of nominees willing to be considered for positions under review in the current NomCom cycle is not confidential. The NomCom may disclose a list of names of nominees who are willing to be considered for positions under review to the community, in order to obtain feedback from the community on these nominees. The list of nominees disclosed for a specific position should contain only the names of nominees who are willing to be considered for the position under review. The NomCom may choose not to include some names in the disclosed list, at their discretion. The NomCom may disclose an updated list, at their discretion. For example, the NomCom might disclose an updated list if the NomCom identifies errors/omissions in a previously disclosed version of the disclosed list, or if the NomCom finds it necessary to call for additional nominees, and these nominees indicate a willingness to be considered before the NomCom has completed its deliberations. Nominees may choose to ask people to provide feedback to the NomCom, but should not encourage any public statements of support. NomComs should consider nominee-encouraged lobbying and campaigning to be unacceptable behavior. IETF community members are encouraged to provide feedback on nominees to the NomCom, but should not post statements of support/ non-support for nominees in any public forum. So, the assumption before 2009 was that lists were padded, and the assumption after 2009 is that lists aren't padded. The Nomcom can do what seems right, of course. Spencer
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 09:01:01AM -0700, Dan Harkins wrote: On Wed, March 20, 2013 8:35 am, Dave Crocker wrote: ps. A small point to watch for, if there is a focus on a defined list of groups, is the difference between discriminating /against/, versus ensuring representation /from/. Active prohibition vs. active solicitation. The exchange between Margaret and Stuart seemed to mix these. We need to be careful about the distinction. I have been viewing this as the difference between discriminating against versus discriminating for. And I am against discrimination, even that done for the best of intentions. This is certainly the biggest challenge of any intent to include diversity (of any form) in the mix. In general, we want the best people in the job in question. What is best depends on the position (chair, I*, etc.) but as a technical organization that runs on documents, several things will bubble to the top: - Technical clue in the matter at hand. - Reasonable administrative skills. - Ability to work with others. - Solid communication skills. For candidates wherein the above things are roughly equal - or have exceeded the requirements - diversity is a possible tie-breaker. If the intent is to emphasize diversity (for some metric) over one of the core skills, that's certainly possible. The primary challenge then is making sure there is a diverse candidate pool that satisfies the minimum core skills needed for the positions. See prior discussion on mentoring. (Note that the above observations were things I had intended to say at the administrative plenary, but I appeared to be standing at the invisible mic.) -- Jeff
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On 3/20/2013 10:01 AM, Jeffrey Haas wrote: In general, we want the best people in the job in question. What is best depends on the position (chair, I*, etc.) but as a technical organization that runs on documents, several things will bubble to the top: - Technical clue in the matter at hand. - Reasonable administrative skills. - Ability to work with others. - Solid communication skills. Note the 3 of the 4 items on your list are not a matter of technical skill. Also note that your list is missing something that was raised earlier in the thread, namely the difference between local optimization versus 'global'. There are benefits in having a group mixture that can be far more important than the attributes of the group members taken individually. d/ -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 10:09:41AM -0700, Dave Crocker wrote: On 3/20/2013 10:01 AM, Jeffrey Haas wrote: In general, we want the best people in the job in question. What is best depends on the position (chair, I*, etc.) but as a technical organization that runs on documents, several things will bubble to the top: - Technical clue in the matter at hand. - Reasonable administrative skills. - Ability to work with others. - Solid communication skills. Note the 3 of the 4 items on your list are not a matter of technical skill. Agreed, although it is probably understood that technical clue tends to be pretty high on the list in terms of weight. The overlap of those (IMO) core skills and diversity (for some metric thereof) is present. Regardless of the reason someone has a given skill, the skill itself is the functional requirement. Also note that your list is missing something that was raised earlier in the thread, namely the difference between local optimization versus 'global'. There are benefits in having a group mixture that can be far more important than the attributes of the group members taken individually. Probably because I don't buy wholly into that argument - or at least the argument it makes us smarter. A broader source of opinions is always a good thing and I believe that is one of the things that diversity brings us. To draw a very geekish analogy, I tend to find that diversity helps only a little on the intelligence of a group. It does wonders for the wisdom of the group. :-) -- Jeff
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On 03/20/2013 12:21 PM, Mary Barnes wrote: On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 11:10 AM, Keith Moore mo...@network-heretics.com wrote: On 03/20/2013 11:41 AM, Mary Barnes wrote: Given that folks are still debating whether this years nominees reflected a reasonable diversity (there were 9 women out of 37 nominees), I actually don't think that the number of female nominees is relevant. What is relevant is the number of qualified female nominees who had the willingness, the availability, the required expertise, and the support necessary to fill the position. [MB] Sure. But, I know of at least two that I don't think or would hope anyone would debate were qualified in all the areas you suggest. Both have contributed significantly to IETF in a variety of leadership positions. Sure, but that doesn't mean that they have sufficient time or employer support to do the job now. And there's no way that someone like you or me can reliably know whether that's the case. That has to be something that's kept confidential between the nominee and the nomcom. One concept that is not very well understood, however, is the basic fact that women work differently than men and thus expecting us to fit the cookie cutter of IETF leaders isn't quite appropriate. To be clear: I wasn't arguing about that aspect at all, just about whether it's reasonable to look at a slate of nominees and compare that to the slate of people selected and make inferences about the role of gender in the nomcom's decision process. I'm also not presuming that just because there were no women in the latest set of appointees to IESG, that it's because the current nomcom didn't think that women could fit the cookie cutter. I don't have and don't pretend to have the ability to read their minds. In general I think that presumptions that require the ability to read specific people's minds should be dismissed out-of-hand as irrelevant and perhaps insulting. People can imagine or project what they like, but what people imagine or project should never be confused with reality. To be told by a nomcom voting member, when I mention this fact, that this just isn't so because IETF is a meritocracy is insulting and shows a sheer lack of respect for the value that diversity brings to an organization. Respectfully disagree. We expect the nomcom to balance lots of different considerations when choosing IESG and other appointees, AND we expect them to keep their deliberations confidential. Gender is definitely a valid consideration, but it's only one consideration, and at least a dozen others have been mentioned. To look at the nomcom result through the aperture of only one or two of those considerations, and then make a statement about the nature of their imagined gender bias strikes me as pure speculation. I certainly hope that the nomcom doesn't believe that women can't do the jobs. Our community has ample evidence and decades of experience that they can. I served with several women when I was on IESG and found all of them to be capable and professional in every respect. Note also that the process for selecting the nomcom is inherently gender-neutral, at least to the extent that the requirement for nomcom attendance at prior IETF meetings doesn't impose a gender barrier. [MB] You have to keep in mind in the past that the there were dummies in the nominee pool before open list. I was explicitly told by this year's nomcom chair that they were not doing that. Thus, I would anticipate that the majority of those in the pool this year were willing and able.[/MB] That helps a bit, but I still don't think it supports an assertion of gender bias in the nomcom's process. Keith
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On 3/20/2013 10:53 AM, Jeffrey Haas wrote: On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 10:09:41AM -0700, Dave Crocker wrote: Also note that your list is missing something that was raised earlier in the thread, namely the difference between local optimization versus 'global'. There are benefits in having a group mixture that can be far more important than the attributes of the group members taken individually. Probably because I don't buy wholly into that argument - or at least the argument it makes us smarter. Then I encourage you to do more reading. It's not a marginal or controversial point, among folk who do research in the relevant fields. d/ -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On Wed, March 20, 2013 10:01 am, Jeffrey Haas wrote: On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 09:01:01AM -0700, Dan Harkins wrote: On Wed, March 20, 2013 8:35 am, Dave Crocker wrote: ps. A small point to watch for, if there is a focus on a defined list of groups, is the difference between discriminating /against/, versus ensuring representation /from/. Active prohibition vs. active solicitation. The exchange between Margaret and Stuart seemed to mix these. We need to be careful about the distinction. I have been viewing this as the difference between discriminating against versus discriminating for. And I am against discrimination, even that done for the best of intentions. This is certainly the biggest challenge of any intent to include diversity (of any form) in the mix. In general, we want the best people in the job in question. What is best depends on the position (chair, I*, etc.) but as a technical organization that runs on documents, several things will bubble to the top: - Technical clue in the matter at hand. - Reasonable administrative skills. - Ability to work with others. - Solid communication skills. For candidates wherein the above things are roughly equal - or have exceeded the requirements - diversity is a possible tie-breaker. If the intent is to emphasize diversity (for some metric) over one of the core skills, that's certainly possible. By that, I take it you mean it's certainly possible to discriminate in favor some metric of diversity and against a core skill. So? Is that the intent? There is quite a bit of dancing around this subject and it would be nice to say what we all mean here. If you're proposing that IETF start the practice of discriminating against certain people then say so. The primary challenge then is making sure there is a diverse candidate pool that satisfies the minimum core skills needed for the positions. See prior discussion on mentoring. You snipped my other question. So let me ask again. What do we do if, after ensuring that there's a diverse candidate pool that satisfies the minimum core skills needed for positions, the end result is more white men? Do we stop with the pretense of ensuring diversity of opportunity and just proceed to diversity of result? Do we enshrine the soft bigotry of low expectations? Dan.
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
Part of what I meant when I signed the diversity letter was to state a belief that within a pool of qualified candidates, I believe diversity is important enough that it is valuable to select for diversity even if this does not maximize the skills that you enumerated (tech skill, admin skill, works with others and something else).
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 12:01:41PM -0700, Dan Harkins wrote: For candidates wherein the above things are roughly equal - or have exceeded the requirements - diversity is a possible tie-breaker. If the intent is to emphasize diversity (for some metric) over one of the core skills, that's certainly possible. By that, I take it you mean it's certainly possible to discriminate in favor some metric of diversity and against a core skill. So? Is that the intent? There is quite a bit of dancing around this subject and it would be nice to say what we all mean here. If you're proposing that IETF start the practice of discriminating against certain people then say so. Have care, you're close to putting words in my mouth. :-) If what you mean is that emphasizing diversity over a core skill with respect to selection of people for positions of responsibility is a form of discrimination, that's how some people have presented it. I.e. affirmative action. If you're asking for my personal opinion, I think we should stick to meeting core criteria minimums and that among candidates that meet those requirements consider diversity as one of the criteria. You snipped my other question. So let me ask again. What do we do if, after ensuring that there's a diverse candidate pool that satisfies the minimum core skills needed for positions, Good start for a presumption. the end result is more white men? I believe you, and many others, are inferring over much with regard to diversity from the black box that is NomCom. Unfortunately that is a big ugly part of this whole discussion. Part of the perception here is the the NomCom is fed a candidate pool and the output mostly matches beliefs that diversity is not an input. It's like any other job interview - you only know you don't get the job. You may know who did. Without getting someone on the hiring committe to talk about why the person in question is selected, you can only speculate as to why you weren't selected. If instead you (or someone else) is going to argue that given an input of a set of candidates that match some crtieria of diversity that it is a requirement that the output include something that meets that diversity criteria, then pick your word for that result. Do we stop with the pretense of ensuring diversity of opportunity and just proceed to diversity of result? Do we enshrine the soft bigotry of low expectations? Or we define our requirements for the outputs of the process and stop speculating about the black box. C.f. the tsvarea discussion on what they want out of an AD. -- Jeff
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On 3/20/13 12:17 PM, Scott Brim wrote: On 03/20/13 15:16, Jorge Contreras allegedly wrote: I would strongly recommend that legal counsel be consulted before any such list is produced or used by IETF/IESG/Nomcom. Or don't generate it at all. Trying to have a complete list of human attributes to diversify to looks like an engineer's reflex. We know what we want to do in principle. +1 Please, do not go to bureaucracy and legal side of this. Let's keep it simple and based on our principles and not in legalities. as
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 03:13:01PM -0400, Sam Hartman wrote: Part of what I meant when I signed the diversity letter was to state a belief that within a pool of qualified candidates, I believe diversity is important enough that it is valuable to select for diversity even if this does not maximize the skills that you enumerated (tech skill, admin skill, works with others and something else). Maximize overstates my position. My belief is once the base requirements are met that diversity is an appropriate tie-breaker. Maximizing the four I mentioned is different. -- Jeff
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 03:59:34PM -0400, Jeffrey Haas wrote: On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 03:13:01PM -0400, Sam Hartman wrote: Part of what I meant when I signed the diversity letter was to state a belief that within a pool of qualified candidates, I believe diversity is important enough that it is valuable to select for diversity even if this does not maximize the skills that you enumerated (tech skill, admin skill, works with others and something else). Maximize overstates my position. My belief is once the base requirements are met that diversity is an appropriate tie-breaker. Maximizing the four I mentioned is different. I think that diversity is already taken into account much more than just as a tie-breaker. Nomcon does look at a lot of the factors influenced by the candidates background / diversity stats already as actual job qualifications: Knowlege/presence of geographic regions, collaborative influencing leadership stle, ability to engage with other cultures, etc. pp. Cheers Toerless
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On Mar 12, 2013, at 2:24 PM, Dan Harkins dhark...@lounge.org wrote: I'd love to get out of this rat hole. Perhaps the signatories of the open letter can restate the problem they see so it isn't made in terms of race and gender. The letter specifically mentioned the axes of race, gender, geographic location and corporate affiliation, so the letter was not only about race and gender. Other people have mentioned other pertinent axes in the e-mail discussion, such as industry segment and background/experience. I don't think it is possible for remove race and gender from the list of axes, though, since there is a notable lack of diversity in those areas. Margaret
RE: Diversity of IETF Leadership
I suspect that the often-subtle differences in technical perception on IETF technologies between sexes, races, and languages are much less pronounced than the substantial differences in technical orientation between vendors, ISPs, academics, governments, and end users. If we are consistently seeing individuals from the same corporation or governmental entity dominating processes then that is a Red Flag. Do we have a Red Flag? If not, then I will resume hoping that this email thread will end soon.
RE: Diversity of IETF Leadership
At 1:54 PM + 3/12/13, Adrian Farrel wrote: increasing diversity on the IESG by appointing a few rocks and a mollusc OK, that is funny. -- Randall Gellens Opinions are personal;facts are suspect;I speak for myself only -- Randomly selected tag: --- [Y]ou must clear out old thinking in order to make room for new thinking. The ability to unlearn and the ability to forget some of what has been taught are fundamental skills for creative thinking. --Elaine Dundon, in 'The Seeds of Innovation'
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On 11/03/2013 20:02, Dan Harkins wrote: In addition to the moral and social issues involved, diversity of leadership across several axes (race, geographic location, gender and corporate affiliation) is important for three practical reasons: - It is a well-established fact that diverse groups are smarter and make better decisions than less-diverse groups. I would really like to see this statement either backed up by peer-reviewed apolitical scientific research or withdrawn by the signatories of the open letter. It is highly offensive. Speaking for myself, I do not find this statement in the least offensive. It turns out that there's a book on the topic, for anyone who can get hold of it: http://books.google.co.uk/books/princeton?hl=enq=vid=ISBN9780691128382redir_esc=y Brian
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On Mon, March 11, 2013 10:08 pm, Margaret Wasserman wrote: On Mar 11, 2013, at 6:54 PM, Dan Harkins dhark...@lounge.org wrote: In other words, the statement that gender and racial diversity in groups makes them smarter has no basis in fact. Do you feel that an all-female group is stupider than a similarly sized group that is equal parts male and female? Really? Actually, Dan, there are well-regarded academic studies that show that groups that contain women are smarter than all-male groups, regardless of the relative intelligence of the group members. Surprising, perhaps, but true. Here is a pointer to a discussion of one of them: http://www.antonioyon.com/group-intelligence-and-the-female-factor There are also numerous studies, of various types, that show that more diverse groups make better decisions and/or perform better than less diverse groups. Here is a description of one such study: http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/better_decisions_through_diversity So, as illogical as these statements may seem on the surface, they are well-established facts. Both of the articles I've sited give some insight into why this is true. I will readily admit that a group whose members have diverse backgrounds, diverse experience, and diverse opinions will generally produce better decisions than a group whose members are all of the same background, experience, and opinion. That is generally what the Northwestern article promotes (and what the papers that Rhys pointed me to earlier) say. But that is far different from saying that having less white males would make for a better IETF. In fact, the makeup of the IESG is already diverse. If it was entirely comprised of security people it would make horrible decisions. It's not, and that's because diversity is good. Regarding the CMU/MIT study, that is very provocative. There is converging evidence from 2 studies of groups of 2-5 people who scored higher in general collective intelligence when social sensitivity was higher in the group, when group conversation was done in turns, and there were more females in the group. OK. We can all draw our own conclusions about that and more women = smarter certainly does get your study reported in Forbes and Business Weekly et cetera. I believe there is also a bell curve of human intelligence that shows a preponderance of men at both ends-- i.e. there are more male idiots and male geniuses. Which would seem to suggest that adding women to a group of men would, on average, increase the group's intelligence. That study also showed that east asians scored higher than whites and whites scored higher than blacks on IQ tests. An that current immigrants to the USA are less hard-working and less imaginative than past immigrants. Also very provocative. Now before anyone accuses me of any more -isms, let me say that these studies make very bad social policy recommendations. I don't think we should strive to make groups more east asian or less black or to favor past immigrants over recent immigrants. That would be wrong, and I hope we are in agreement there. It would also be wrong to strive to make groups more female for exactly the same reason. While these studies are interesting and thought provoking, I think it is wrong, and very dangerous, to use these studies to justify blanket statements about intelligence, group or otherwise. If there's some bias involved in the Nomcom's selection process then point it out and let's address it. The mere fact that there are is preponderance of white males being selected does not mean bias exists and the notion that a cherry-picked study (or selectively interpreting the results of a cherry-picked study) justifies imposing bias on the selection process to derive some ideal diversity is crazy. regards, Dan.
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
Speaking as a successful by-product of the american Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunities programs of the 70s and early 80s, I would suggest the IETF needs to work two small baby steps: - Improving its Marketing, - What is its products? - What will attract all/any groups? - Reaching out to diverse groups. - Don't assume they will come to you. Recruit! -- HLS On 3/12/2013 7:56 AM, Dan Harkins wrote: On Mon, March 11, 2013 10:08 pm, Margaret Wasserman wrote: On Mar 11, 2013, at 6:54 PM, Dan Harkins dhark...@lounge.org wrote: In other words, the statement that gender and racial diversity in groups makes them smarter has no basis in fact. Do you feel that an all-female group is stupider than a similarly sized group that is equal parts male and female? Really? Actually, Dan, there are well-regarded academic studies that show that groups that contain women are smarter than all-male groups, regardless of the relative intelligence of the group members. Surprising, perhaps, but true. Here is a pointer to a discussion of one of them: http://www.antonioyon.com/group-intelligence-and-the-female-factor There are also numerous studies, of various types, that show that more diverse groups make better decisions and/or perform better than less diverse groups. Here is a description of one such study: http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/better_decisions_through_diversity So, as illogical as these statements may seem on the surface, they are well-established facts. Both of the articles I've sited give some insight into why this is true. I will readily admit that a group whose members have diverse backgrounds, diverse experience, and diverse opinions will generally produce better decisions than a group whose members are all of the same background, experience, and opinion. That is generally what the Northwestern article promotes (and what the papers that Rhys pointed me to earlier) say. But that is far different from saying that having less white males would make for a better IETF. In fact, the makeup of the IESG is already diverse. If it was entirely comprised of security people it would make horrible decisions. It's not, and that's because diversity is good. Regarding the CMU/MIT study, that is very provocative. There is converging evidence from 2 studies of groups of 2-5 people who scored higher in general collective intelligence when social sensitivity was higher in the group, when group conversation was done in turns, and there were more females in the group. OK. We can all draw our own conclusions about that and more women = smarter certainly does get your study reported in Forbes and Business Weekly et cetera. I believe there is also a bell curve of human intelligence that shows a preponderance of men at both ends-- i.e. there are more male idiots and male geniuses. Which would seem to suggest that adding women to a group of men would, on average, increase the group's intelligence. That study also showed that east asians scored higher than whites and whites scored higher than blacks on IQ tests. An that current immigrants to the USA are less hard-working and less imaginative than past immigrants. Also very provocative. Now before anyone accuses me of any more -isms, let me say that these studies make very bad social policy recommendations. I don't think we should strive to make groups more east asian or less black or to favor past immigrants over recent immigrants. That would be wrong, and I hope we are in agreement there. It would also be wrong to strive to make groups more female for exactly the same reason. While these studies are interesting and thought provoking, I think it is wrong, and very dangerous, to use these studies to justify blanket statements about intelligence, group or otherwise. If there's some bias involved in the Nomcom's selection process then point it out and let's address it. The mere fact that there are is preponderance of white males being selected does not mean bias exists and the notion that a cherry-picked study (or selectively interpreting the results of a cherry-picked study) justifies imposing bias on the selection process to derive some ideal diversity is crazy. regards, Dan.
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
As a minority raised thru the corporate rank, as stated below I think it is offensive too and unfair to historical facts. But overall, I think it is just the wrong choice of words. All it could suggest is that there are more different views and experiences in the synergistic effect of final results, and not necessarily imply that wrong decisions were made by less diverse groups or in fact, in history where non-diversity was the norm. -- HLS On 3/12/2013 4:57 AM, Brian E Carpenter wrote: On 11/03/2013 20:02, Dan Harkins wrote: In addition to the moral and social issues involved, diversity of leadership across several axes (race, geographic location, gender and corporate affiliation) is important for three practical reasons: - It is a well-established fact that diverse groups are smarter and make better decisions than less-diverse groups. I would really like to see this statement either backed up by peer-reviewed apolitical scientific research or withdrawn by the signatories of the open letter. It is highly offensive. Speaking for myself, I do not find this statement in the least offensive. It turns out that there's a book on the topic, for anyone who can get hold of it: http://books.google.co.uk/books/princeton?hl=enq=vid=ISBN9780691128382redir_esc=y Brian
RE: Diversity of IETF Leadership
I kind of promised I would not get sucked into this particular rat hole, but... The problem is with the poorly scoped use of the word diversity. It is clear from some research that certain types of increased diversity do increase the quality of decision-making. It is also clear from rational thought that the diversity has to be scoped by obvious criteria such as ability to be informed about the issues, ability to express opinions, and ability to make decisions. One could argue that increasing diversity on the IESG by appointing a few rocks and a mollusc would improve the current IESG (and you might not find me arguing), but I don't believe this type of diversity is what was intended by the signatories. I think that the intention was to increase diversity within a set of unmentioned parameters. It might be helpful if the signatories could set out their thoughts on those parameters. Adrian -Original Message- From: ietf-boun...@ietf.org [mailto:ietf-boun...@ietf.org] On Behalf Of Brian E Carpenter Sent: 12 March 2013 08:58 To: Dan Harkins Cc: ietf@ietf.org Subject: Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership On 11/03/2013 20:02, Dan Harkins wrote: In addition to the moral and social issues involved, diversity of leadership across several axes (race, geographic location, gender and corporate affiliation) is important for three practical reasons: - It is a well-established fact that diverse groups are smarter and make better decisions than less-diverse groups. I would really like to see this statement either backed up by peer-reviewed apolitical scientific research or withdrawn by the signatories of the open letter. It is highly offensive. Speaking for myself, I do not find this statement in the least offensive. It turns out that there's a book on the topic, for anyone who can get hold of it: http://books.google.co.uk/books/princeton?hl=enq=vid=ISBN9780691128382 redir_esc=y Brian
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
At 07:56 AM 3/12/2013, Dan Harkins wrote: While these studies are interesting and thought provoking, I think it is wrong, and very dangerous, to use these studies to justify blanket statements about intelligence, group or otherwise. I'm laughing a bit about this thread. For example, there's also substantial evidence that young women and young men do better in gender segregated schools because the women's IQs plunge due to primping and displaying and men's IQs plunge due to testosterone if they're kept together. Unfortunately, there's also substantial evidence that doing things this way can lead to some socialization issues (where both groups tend to have warped views of the members of the other groups). (I myself doubt both versions of the substantial evidence) Seriously - diversity is generally good. I think we all get that. Going off and trying to support that general statement with (Dan's words, but I think I agree) cherry picked data isn't going to advance that cause much. Mike
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 10:00 AM, Michael StJohns mstjo...@comcast.net wrote: At 07:56 AM 3/12/2013, Dan Harkins wrote: While these studies are interesting and thought provoking, I think it is wrong, and very dangerous, to use these studies to justify blanket statements about intelligence, group or otherwise. I'm laughing a bit about this thread. For example, there's also substantial evidence that young women and young men do better in gender segregated schools because the women's IQs plunge due to primping and displaying and men's IQs plunge due to testosterone if they're kept together. Unfortunately, there's also substantial evidence that doing things this way can lead to some socialization issues (where both groups tend to have warped views of the members of the other groups). (I myself doubt both versions of the substantial evidence) [MB] I too find your response and some others laughable. I would agree that some of your statements with regards to all boys and girls schools are wrong, however, there is indeed research highlighting that girls do better in all girls schools due the fact that they are given the attention that often goes to the boys in math and science classes. The rest I is untrue based on my experiences, but I would certainly welcome someone pointing out research supporting your statements. Both my sons have gone to or go to all boys schools (since first grade). Their girlfriends go to all girls schools. There is no socialization issues in general. That all said, my sons' school has some of the geekiest kids in the DFW area, so it is likely that there may be *slightly* more issues with socialization than the average public school. [/MB] Seriously - diversity is generally good. I think we all get that. Going off and trying to support that general statement with (Dan's words, but I think I agree) cherry picked data isn't going to advance that cause much. [MB] The data isn't cherry picked - there has been *lots* of research on this topic over the past decade (and even those previous). Such studies are doubted because I am sure they are not of any interest to the folks that suggest they don't exist. So, these wouldn't have been on your radar. Not surprising, those that are doubting that IETF has any issue with diversity are folks that aren't in the minority- it's really hard to understand an issue if you haven't dealt with it yourself. There's lots of research showing lots of bias in our society - the fact that many have never chosen to read any of it does not mean it doesn't exist. [/MB] Mike
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
Le 2013-03-12 à 11:19, Mary Barnes mary.ietf.bar...@gmail.com a écrit : On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 10:00 AM, Michael StJohns mstjo...@comcast.net wrote: At 07:56 AM 3/12/2013, Dan Harkins wrote: While these studies are interesting and thought provoking, I think it is wrong, and very dangerous, to use these studies to justify blanket statements about intelligence, group or otherwise. I'm laughing a bit about this thread. For example, there's also substantial evidence that young women and young men do better in gender segregated schools because the women's IQs plunge due to primping and displaying and men's IQs plunge due to testosterone if they're kept together. Unfortunately, there's also substantial evidence that doing things this way can lead to some socialization issues (where both groups tend to have warped views of the members of the other groups). (I myself doubt both versions of the substantial evidence) [MB] I too find your response and some others laughable. I would agree that some of your statements with regards to all boys and girls schools are wrong, however, there is indeed research highlighting that girls do better in all girls schools due the fact that they are given the attention that often goes to the boys in math and science classes. The rest I is untrue based on my experiences, but I would certainly welcome someone pointing out research supporting your statements. Both my sons have gone to or go to all boys schools (since first grade). Their girlfriends go to all girls schools. There is no socialization issues in general. That all said, my sons' school has some of the geekiest kids in the DFW area, so it is likely that there may be *slightly* more issues with socialization than the average public school. [/MB] I think we are going out of scope of the problem we are trying to address. Marc. Seriously - diversity is generally good. I think we all get that. Going off and trying to support that general statement with (Dan's words, but I think I agree) cherry picked data isn't going to advance that cause much. [MB] The data isn't cherry picked - there has been *lots* of research on this topic over the past decade (and even those previous). Such studies are doubted because I am sure they are not of any interest to the folks that suggest they don't exist. So, these wouldn't have been on your radar. Not surprising, those that are doubting that IETF has any issue with diversity are folks that aren't in the minority- it's really hard to understand an issue if you haven't dealt with it yourself. There's lots of research showing lots of bias in our society - the fact that many have never chosen to read any of it does not mean it doesn't exist. [/MB] Mike
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
Randall == Randall Gellens ra...@qti.qualcomm.com writes: Randall selection bias. But, as several people have noted, if we Randall grow the IETF pool Randall as a whole, that helps, and if we remove barriers to Randall serving on I* that helps Randall as well. I think that finding ways to remove employer support as a limit would give us the biggest bang towards increasing and diversifying the pool of candidates. There are significant risks towards funding ADs directly: specifically with avoiding a move towards professional non-technical standards people, but if we a source for such funds, I think that we are smart enough as a community to set up/formalize certain things like term limits, so that it wouldn't have to be a problem. -- Michael Richardson -on the road- pgp0HT0z7mtdU.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On 3/12/2013 11:00 AM, Michael StJohns wrote: Seriously - diversity is generally good. I think we all get that. One of the ironies about this topic in the IETF is that our philosophy of open access to our documents and open participation in our activities is predicated on the belief that real /and unpredictable/ diversity is of benefit to our work. That anyone would believe in local optimization along one or two specific diversity parameters, such as technical expertise or company affiliation -- rather than seeking diversity along many different axes -- runs counter to that premise. d/ -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
+1 There lies the fine line of conflict of interest that I believe the IETF has done a tremendous job in keeping in control with diverse disciplines and philosophies well considered. The RFC format by definition, its style, the open WGs, is all geared towards diverse audiences. On 3/12/2013 11:45 AM, Dave Crocker wrote: On 3/12/2013 11:00 AM, Michael StJohns wrote: Seriously - diversity is generally good. I think we all get that. One of the ironies about this topic in the IETF is that our philosophy of open access to our documents and open participation in our activities is predicated on the belief that real /and unpredictable/ diversity is of benefit to our work. That anyone would believe in local optimization along one or two specific diversity parameters, such as technical expertise or company affiliation -- rather than seeking diversity along many different axes -- runs counter to that premise. d/
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On 2013-03-12, at 12:59, Hector Santos hsan...@isdg.net wrote: There lies the fine line of conflict of interest that I believe the IETF has done a tremendous job in keeping in control with diverse disciplines and philosophies well considered. The RFC format by definition, Were you referring the fact that the RFC series by definition is only written in English, or that it is restricted to US-ASCII? Joe (running away)
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
At 2:03 PM -0500 3/11/13, Mary Barnes wrote: To suggest that someone is not qualified to be an AD because they shed tears in a contentious situation is unacceptable IMHO. I'm confused as to why that would be considered a reason not to appoint someone, regardless of gender. Is it because tears makes others uncomfortable or is it seen as an inability to be tough when needed? It doesn't make sense to me. Especially because we've had ADs who screamed, yelled, threw things in WG meetings. -- Randall Gellens Opinions are personal;facts are suspect;I speak for myself only -- Randomly selected tag: --- There is always an easy solution to every human problem -- neat, plausible, and wrong.--H.L. Mencken
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On 03/11/2013 03:33 PM, Arturo Servin wrote: ISOC is doing a great job with the fellowship program. There is just a few people each meeting but it is a good start. I'm glad they are doing it but it is a drop in the bucket. Our processes are considerably biased against anyone who is not funded by a large company, and is not independently wealthy. It's not just people on certain continents who are under-represented, it's the vast majority of the Internet developer and user community.
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 12:07 PM, Randall Gellens ra...@qti.qualcomm.com wrote: At 2:03 PM -0500 3/11/13, Mary Barnes wrote: To suggest that someone is not qualified to be an AD because they shed tears in a contentious situation is unacceptable IMHO. I'm confused as to why that would be considered a reason not to appoint someone, regardless of gender. Is it because tears makes others uncomfortable or is it seen as an inability to be tough when needed? It doesn't make sense to me. Especially because we've had ADs who screamed, yelled, threw things in WG meetings. [MB] I made a comment earlier in this thread that we have received input to past nomcoms suggesting that would be the reason not to appoint female nominees as opposed to males. And, I highlighted that the behavior you note is more typical (although not exclusive) behavior of men when they get upset. I do believe it is because tears make many here far more uncomfortable then the screaming which seems to be far more the norm here in my experience. [/MB] -- Randall Gellens Opinions are personal;facts are suspect;I speak for myself only -- Randomly selected tag: --- There is always an easy solution to every human problem -- neat, plausible, and wrong.--H.L. Mencken
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
At 3:54 PM -0700 3/11/13, Dan Harkins wrote: Do you feel that an all-female group is stupider than a similarly sized group that is equal parts male and female? Based on my own experience, I believe that a broad range of background and experience improves the quality of decision making of a group. This is not to say that administering a standardized IQ test to a group would result in outcomes predictable by gender diversity of the group. But it is to say that, for example, having some people with implementation experience is a good thing in protocol design discussions. We've been veering into narrow discussions of race and gender diversity, but earlier messages in this thread discussed diversity along other lines, for example, type of employer (large, small, equipment vendor, university) and operational experience with networks in different geographic regions. Let's not fall into a rat-hole of narrow considerations of diversity. -- Randall Gellens Opinions are personal;facts are suspect;I speak for myself only -- Randomly selected tag: --- [C]reativity [requires] the discomfort of confusion, uncertainty, anxiety and ambiguity. --Jeff Mauzy and Richard Harriman, in 'Creativity Inc.'
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
Hi - From: Dan Harkins dhark...@lounge.org To: Margaret Wasserman m...@lilacglade.org Cc: ietf@ietf.org Sent: Tuesday, March 12, 2013 3:56 AM Subject: Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership ... If there's some bias involved in the Nomcom's selection process then point it out and let's address it. The mere fact that there are is preponderance of white males being selected does not mean bias exists ... If I understand this thread correctly, the result of the process has been consistently less diverse than the pool from which the process has been making selections. I can only see three interpretations: (1) that white males are more likely than other participants to be sufficiently qualified (2) that the selection process (or the Nomcom) itself functions (unintentionally, unconsciously) to favor white males. (3) that past performance is just a massive statistical fluke I doubt that it's (1) or (3). Think a little about social networks and (2) becomes even more plausible. I suggest concentrating on how the system *functions*, rather than inferring hidden accusations of evil intent. Randy
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On Tue, March 12, 2013 10:35 am, Randall Gellens wrote: At 3:54 PM -0700 3/11/13, Dan Harkins wrote: Do you feel that an all-female group is stupider than a similarly sized group that is equal parts male and female? Based on my own experience, I believe that a broad range of background and experience improves the quality of decision making of a group. This is not to say that administering a standardized IQ test to a group would result in outcomes predictable by gender diversity of the group. But it is to say that, for example, having some people with implementation experience is a good thing in protocol design discussions. I share your belief that diversity of background and experience makes a group function better. I'm glad you mentioned implementation experience. The small corner of the IETF that I lurk in seems to be becoming less diverse in that respect and I think it's to the detriment of our protocols. We've been veering into narrow discussions of race and gender diversity, but earlier messages in this thread discussed diversity along other lines, for example, type of employer (large, small, equipment vendor, university) and operational experience with networks in different geographic regions. Let's not fall into a rat-hole of narrow considerations of diversity. The problem was stated in the open letter thusly: In February of 2013, there were 32 members of the IETF leadership (12 IAB members, 15 IESG members and 5 IAOC members). Of those 32 members, there was one member of non-European descent, there were no members from countries outside of North America or Europe, and there was only one woman. There were only 19 companies represented (out of a total of 32 seats). Out of 32 members there's only 1 who is of non-European descent (i.e. not white) and only 1 woman. So the problem, aside from corporate representation, is that the IETF leadership is too white and too male. I'd love to get out of this rat hole. Perhaps the signatories of the open letter can restate the problem they see so it isn't made in terms of race and gender. regards, Dan.
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
Title: Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership At 1:08 AM -0400 3/12/13, Margaret Wasserman wrote: On Mar 11, 2013, at 6:54 PM, Dan Harkins dhark...@lounge.org wrote: In other words, the statement that gender and racial diversity in groups makes them smarter has no basis in fact. Do you feel that an all-female group is stupider than a similarly sized group that is equal parts male and female? Really? Actually, Dan, there are well-regarded academic studies that show that groups that contain women are smarter than all-male groups, regardless of the relative intelligence of the group members. Surprising, perhaps, but true. Here is a pointer to a discussion of one of them: http://www.antonioyon.com/group-intelligence-and-the-female-factor When I started reading that I thought that it was counter-intuitive that having smarter people in the group doesn't make it smarter, but having more women (regardless of individual intelligence) does. Reading further, I see that the apparent counter-intuitiveness was really a difference in the meaning of smarter as applied to groups. The link seems to be only to an abstract, so I don't know if an all-female group would be smarter than, say, one that was 75% female or 95% female. The abstract did discuss specific attributes that females seemed to bring to groups that resulted in the smarter outcomes (body language differences, more openness, more effort to draw out unpopular opinions, fostering greater trust). I suppose there must be studies looking to see if people (including males) can be specifically trained to do better in these areas. I wonder if the linkage between these traits and women is equally valid for engineering disciplines, given the widely accepted stereotype of engineering types rating low in these areas? I wonder if some training along these lines might be good for WG chairs and ADs? -- Randall Gellens Opinions are personal; facts are suspect; I speak for myself only -- Randomly selected tag: --- Not far from here, by a white sun, behind a green star, lived the Steelypips, illustrious, industrious, and they hadn't a care: no spats in their vats, no rules, no schools, no gloom, no evil influence of the moon, no trouble from matter or antimatter -- for they had a machine, a dream of a machine, with springs and gears and perfect in every respect. And they lived with it, and on it, and under it, and inside it, for it was all they had -- first they saved up all their atoms, then they put them all together, and if one didn't fit, why they chipped at it a bit, and everything was just fine --Stanislaw Lem
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
Hi Margaret, At 06:00 AM 3/11/2013, Margaret Wasserman wrote: I've been thinking, for instance, that one thing we could add to our list of immediate actions is for IESG members to review their directorate membership and, if it makes sense, attempt to increase the diversity of their directorates. This would have two effects: the IESG would get better advice, and it would give the people they appoint more opportunity to interact with other senior IETF participants and demonstrate their abilities. The directorate I know about has individuals from approximately ten countries. There are now a few women. It is not easy to find volunteers. The opportunity is there. The problem is that nobody steps forward. I'll use the word perspective instead of diversity. If you ask me what it means, it means individuals who can bring in ideas, and who can look at problems from different angles, and who can get the work done. I would set the target date for results as two years from today. The question I'll ask is what are the next steps? Regards, S. Moonesamy
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
At 11:19 AM 3/12/2013, Mary Barnes wrote: On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 10:00 AM, Michael StJohns mstjo...@comcast.net wrote: At 07:56 AM 3/12/2013, Dan Harkins wrote: While these studies are interesting and thought provoking, I think it is wrong, and very dangerous, to use these studies to justify blanket statements about intelligence, group or otherwise. I'm laughing a bit about this thread. For example, there's also substantial evidence that young women and young men do better in gender segregated schools because the women's IQs plunge due to primping and displaying and men's IQs plunge due to testosterone if they're kept together. Unfortunately, there's also substantial evidence that doing things this way can lead to some socialization issues (where both groups tend to have warped views of the members of the other groups). (I myself doubt both versions of the substantial evidence) [MB] I too find your response and some others laughable. I would agree that some of your statements with regards to all boys and girls schools are wrong, however, there is indeed research highlighting that girls do better in all girls schools due the fact that they are given the attention that often goes to the boys in math and science classes. I somewhat agree with this, but other studies have indicated that this has quote a lot to do with the specific teacher and general disciplinary environment of the school than being an absolute characteristic of gender divided studies. The rest I is untrue based on my experiences, but I would certainly welcome someone pointing out research supporting your statements. Both my sons have gone to or go to all boys schools (since first grade). Their girlfriends go to all girls schools. There is no socialization issues in general. That all said, my sons' school has some of the geekiest kids in the DFW area, Sorry - geekiness *is* a socialization issue. I say that as one of the more geeky people at my school. With respect to supporting research - didn't you note the quotation marks? And the statement I myself doubt both versions of substantial evidence I've read a few main stream press articles on the gender divided schooling issue and socialization was mentioned pretty much in the same breath (paragraph?) as the girls do better in all girl schools. I considered both of the statements somewhat suspect for the same reasons. But I mentioned them - with the quotation marks - to indicate that cherry picking data to support a conclusion is generally problematic. Here's where I'm at: The school studies were done with random (e.g. public school) and non-self-selected (e.g. parent selected) groups as the subjects. AFAIK the IETF is pretty much a completely self-selected group of people and most especially the women are self-selected - and I wouldn't consider that the school study applies much given those difference. I mentioned it because its conclusion - that women and men are smarter when separate (yup - paraphrasing) seems to be at odds with the other mentioned conclusion that groups are smarter the more women in them. For the other study mentioned by Margaret (Wolley et al) it actually said this: Finally,c was positively and significantly correlated with the proportion of females in the group (r=0.23,P=0.007).However, this result appears to be largely mediated by social sensitivity (Sobel z=1.93,P =0.03), Which actually says that the more sensitive people in the group, the better the result, and by the way women tend to be more sensitive. But the problem set for the study bears not a lot of resemblance to the problem set for the IETF. So again, I'd claim it's mostly inapplicable, hence cherry picking. so it is likely that there may be *slightly* more issues with socialization than the average public school. [/MB] Seriously - diversity is generally good. I think we all get that. Going off and trying to support that general statement with (Dan's words, but I think I agree) cherry picked data isn't going to advance that cause much. [MB] The data isn't cherry picked - there has been *lots* of research on this topic over the past decade (and even those previous). Such studies are doubted because I am sure they are not of any interest to the folks that suggest they don't exist. So, these wouldn't have been on your radar. Not surprising, those that are doubting that IETF has any issue with diversity are folks that aren't in the minority- it's really hard to understand an issue if you haven't dealt with it yourself. There's lots of research showing lots of bias in our society - the fact that many have never chosen to read any of it does not mean it doesn't exist. [/MB] I've read it (them) or things like it. What I've gleaned from each and every study is that their conclusions are suspect when you try to generalize them to groups not constituted like the study group or to problem sets not tested by the study. If you want to
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
I see some rough consensus that more diversity/a wider spectrum of viewpoints (across various metrics) in various ISTF groups would be helpful, with support for Arturo's language: The problem is to bring new people (younger people, women, from more countries, different languages, etc.) to write RFCs, to participate/be interested in the IETF and how we involve/prepare these people to become our leaders and not just participants. This is a goal that everyone can help carry out, and there's no reason not to start working individually at this now - especially if you are a company that understands the IETF's work. However, the original message raised two other points: - Lack of diversity in our leadership becomes a self-perpetuating problem, because people who are not represented in the IETF leadership are less likely to dedicate their time and effort to the IETF. - The lack of diversity in the IETF leadership undermines our credibility and challenges our legitimacy as an International Standards Development Organization. It's telling that the third point wasn't mentioned by anyone else, as far as I saw - in fact, the words credibility and legitimacy have not appeared in this thread since it's inception. The governance of the internet has been an recent topic of international discussion (as far as I can see as a news consumer), and this group's leadership composition may be a relevant aspect of that discussion. It makes Arturo's point even more compelling. -Will PS: The school studies were done with random (e.g. public school) and non-self-selected (e.g. parent selected) groups as the subjects. AFAIK the IETF is pretty much a completely self-selected group of people and most especially the women are self-selected - and I wouldn't consider that the school study applies much given those difference. I mentioned it because its conclusion - that women and men are smarter when separate (yup - paraphrasing) seems to be at odds with the other mentioned conclusion that groups are smarter the more women in them. In fact, the random nature of the participants is the reason we can generalize studies across broad populations. The standard you set would render pretty much any study applicably irrelevant unless it was made of IETF participants. But I think that entire discussion leads us astray - this is not a listserve of social scientists, and these issues and their citations are charged in various ways across the world, along with ways we can define diversity. We all also carry some of our own viewpoints into these discussions; for example, I would initially treat a less diverse slate of chosen leaders from a more diverse pool of candidates as suspect. I would be happy to engage anyone 1-on-1 if they have further questions about this area (or point #2) from my own experience as a student on several hiring and governance committees with university administrators, dealing with the exact issues raised on this thread, or as a young person that joined up thanks to the open membership policies and legitimacy discussed elsewhere.
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On 11/03/2013 02:47, Randall Gellens wrote: At 2:45 PM -0800 3/10/13, Melinda Shore wrote: And I'll go on record requesting that folks think pretty carefully before saying that including something other than white western guys means lowering standards. I don't think anyone has suggested that. Rather, the concern regards how we get diversity in the I*. Increasing the pool (both in general and among those now under-represented) is one way that has been suggested. We have to recognise a couple of awkward facts. One is that the people who participate in the IETF are to a large extent self-selected, or selected by social and economic pressures that we don't control. The other is that the same largely applies to those who are considered by the NomCom - yes, we (the community) can nominate anybody, but they have to agree, and their employers have to agree. That makes the problem harder to solve. We *should* try to solve it, which is why I was happy to sign the letter. Brian
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On Mar 10, 2013, at 10:20 PM, S Moonesamy sm+i...@elandsys.com wrote: Diversity of IETF Leadership begins at the bottom. It is challenging for reasons which I unfortunately cannot describe. I am supportive of the effort. I am not comfortable with quotas. My preference is to see that the IETF is accessible. I'll describe that as reaching out to individuals at the point of entry and see what can be done for them to have a lesser barrier within the IETF. This is an excellent point. More diversity in top-level leadership begin with more a more diverse set of active participants, followed by a more diverse set of document editors, directorate members and WG chairs. The diversity of our active participants (as judged by the diversity of meeting attendees) has gone up significantly over the years, but we need to figure out why that has not been fully reflected in diversity among WG chairs, document authors, etc. I've been thinking, for instance, that one thing we could add to our list of immediate actions is for IESG members to review their directorate membership and, if it makes sense, attempt to increase the diversity of their directorates. This would have two effects: the IESG would get better advice, and it would give the people they appoint more opportunity to interact with other senior IETF participants and demonstrate their abilities. It is important that people realize that if we have a selection process (from beginning to end, not just the NomCom) that is picking a less-diverse group of leaders from a more-diverse group of participants, that selection process _is not_ selecting the best possible candidates. Figuring out the root cause of that problem is hard -- it is not something we can pin on the NomCom, because the NomCom may not end-up with the best candidate pool to choose from for various reasons. It is something we should fix, though, because the result will be _better_ leadership and a more effective organization. Margaret
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
I'm not sure I have enough data to evaluate the comments in this letter. I don't disagree with the general goal diversity is good. I do believe that the proposed actions are not realistic in that they would tend to make the Nomcom process even more moribund. I will note that Appendix A suggests, but does not require the Nomcom to consider diversity in the appointment of IAB members (and doing diversity on a company basis can sometimes fight with doing diversity on a minority, gender or geographic basis). But I have a more fundamental set of questions with respect to the data on trend stated by the letter - that we're becoming less diverse. 1) Is there a statistically significant difference in the composition of the set of the working group chairs and the set of the members of the IESG and IAB taken together for the 10 years mentioned? It was pointed out to me that it is pretty much a hard requirement that members of those bodies have previous experience as a WG chair, so THAT is the set with which the IESG and IAB membership should be compared, not the IETF as a whole. 2) Of the people who signed this letter a) Who have been working group chairs? b) Who would be willing to volunteer for i) the Nomcom ii) the IAB iii) the IESG? c) Whose employers (or other supporting organization) would be willing to support their participation in i) the Nomcom ii) the IAB iii) the IESG? 3) Same set of questions for the IETF as a whole. I'd really like to get an understanding of the size and composition of the intersection of the set of current/past WG chairs and the set of my employer will support me doing the IESG job. I've had a few conversations on this topic already at the current meeting and at least three conversations went: I don't have time (or support) for the IESG, but I really think I could be an asset to the IAB. E.g. the IESG takes significantly more time than the IESG. My take is that a) WG chair and b) employer support are the two objective criteria in the Nomcom process. I would hesitate to eliminate the must have been a WG chair as criteria as its one of the few internal-to-the-IETF opportunities to observe or evaluate candidate abilities. But then we need to figure out if we're doing what we can to diversify the WG chairs without adversely affecting the WGs. For employer support - we're either stuck with the current situation, or we shrink the job to increase the number of people (and employers) willing to do the job, or we figure out how to get third party support for given positions. Unless and until we do this, we have to live with the set of candidates for things like the IESG being a lot smaller than the IETF as a whole. What ever we come up with, I'd really like it to be actionable and objective. Mike At 06:22 AM 3/10/2013, IETF Diversity wrote: The letter below was sent to the IESG, the IAB, the IAOC and the ISOC Board this morning, in an attempt to open a discussion of how to increase the diversity of the IETF Leadership. We are sharing the letter here to encourage community discussion of this important topic. If you support this letter and would like to be added as a signatory, please send e-mail to mailto:ietf.divers...@gmail.comietf.divers...@gmail.com, and your name will be added to the list of signatures. --- ** An Open Letter to the IESG, the IAB, the IAOC and the ISOC Board ** Dear Members of the IETF Leadership, We would like to call your attention to an issue that weakens the IETF's decision-making process and calls into question the legitimacy of the IETF as an International Standards Development Organization: the lack of diversity of the IETF leadership. In addition to the moral and social issues involved, diversity of leadership across several axes (race, geographic location, gender and corporate affiliation) is important for three practical reasons: - It is a well-established fact that diverse groups are smarter and make better decisions than less-diverse groups. - Lack of diversity in our leadership becomes a self-perpetuating problem, because people who are not represented in the IETF leadership are less likely to dedicate their time and effort to the IETF. - The lack of diversity in the IETF leadership undermines our credibility and challenges our legitimacy as an International Standards Development Organization. Unfortunately, despite a substantial increase in the number of IETF leadership positions (from 25 to 32) and increasingly diverse attendance at IETF meetings, the diversity of the IETF leadership has not improved. In fact, it seems to have dropped significantly over the past ten years. For example, ten years ago, in February of 2003, there were 25 members of the IETF leadership (12 IAB members and 13 IESG members). Of those 25 members, there was one member of non-European descent, there was one
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On Mar 10, 2013, at 1:57 PM, Spencer Dawkins spen...@wonderhamster.org wrote: On 3/10/2013 5:22 AM, IETF Diversity wrote: I'm listed as a signatory and agree that this is important. There are several steps that could be taken, in the short-term within our existing BCPs, to address this problem: - Each of the confirming bodies (the ISOC Board for the IAB, the IAB for the IESG, and the IESG for the IAOC) could make a public statement at the beginning of each year's nominations process that they will not confirm a slate unless it contributes to increased diversity within the IETF leadership, or it is accompanied by a detailed explanation of what steps were taken to select a more diverse slate and why it was not possible to do so. I'd ask that people think about what the confirming bodies should be willing to say, along these lines. It seems a bit strong to me, but I'm not sure what the community is comfortable with. Personally, I'm uncomfortable with the above statement. Yes, diversity is a good thing, and I'm all for it. However, I don't think it is a fundamental goal; the fundamental goal is (as Jari said) to get the best people for the job from the available talent pool. I don't know that political correctness automatically helps there. For the noncom, if there is a choice between two people of equal capability, diversity considerations can be useful in selection (pick the person who is not a north american or european white male). But when it comes to confirmation of a slate, the confirming body is not being asked whether there are enough little green women, it's being asked whether the individuals selected and the resulting committees (the IAB, the IESG, or whatever) will be effective and competent in the role. A statement like Send us more little green women from a confirming body to the noncom makes some important assumptions: that there were little green women to choose from, that they were equally or more competent than the person selected, and so on. The confirming body is not privy to the discussions of the noncom, and isn't told why a given individual was not selected, only the arguments for those selected. That makes all such assumptions pretty dubious. I'd prefer that confirmation processes stick to fundamental goals, not political correctness. If you want to encourage the noncom to consider diversity in its deliberations, fine. But not the confirming bodies.
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
Le 2013-03-11 à 12:41, Fred Baker (fred) f...@cisco.com a écrit : On Mar 10, 2013, at 1:57 PM, Spencer Dawkins spen...@wonderhamster.org wrote: On 3/10/2013 5:22 AM, IETF Diversity wrote: I'm listed as a signatory and agree that this is important. There are several steps that could be taken, in the short-term within our existing BCPs, to address this problem: - Each of the confirming bodies (the ISOC Board for the IAB, the IAB for the IESG, and the IESG for the IAOC) could make a public statement at the beginning of each year's nominations process that they will not confirm a slate unless it contributes to increased diversity within the IETF leadership, or it is accompanied by a detailed explanation of what steps were taken to select a more diverse slate and why it was not possible to do so. I'd ask that people think about what the confirming bodies should be willing to say, along these lines. It seems a bit strong to me, but I'm not sure what the community is comfortable with. Personally, I'm uncomfortable with the above statement. Yes, diversity is a good thing, and I'm all for it. However, I don't think it is a fundamental goal; the fundamental goal is (as Jari said) to get the best people for the job from the available talent pool. I don't know that political correctness automatically helps there. For the noncom, if there is a choice between two people of equal capability, diversity considerations can be useful in selection (pick the person who is not a north american or european white male). But when it comes to confirmation of a slate, the confirming body is not being asked whether there are enough little green women, it's being asked whether the individuals selected and the resulting committees (the IAB, the IESG, or whatever) will be effective and competent in the role. A statement like Send us more little green women from a confirming body to the noncom makes some important assumptions: that there were little green women to choose from, that they were equally or more competent than the person selected, and so on. The confirming body is not privy to the discussions of the noncom, and isn't told why a given individual was not selected, only the arguments for those selected. That makes all such assumptions pretty dubious. I'd prefer that confirmation processes stick to fundamental goals, not political correctness. If you want to encourage the noncom to consider diversity in its deliberations, fine. But not the confirming bodies. agree completly. Confirming body does have (some) information of one candidate. Marc.
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On 3/11/2013 11:41 AM, Fred Baker (fred) wrote: On Mar 10, 2013, at 1:57 PM, Spencer Dawkins spen...@wonderhamster.org wrote: On 3/10/2013 5:22 AM, IETF Diversity wrote: I'm listed as a signatory and agree that this is important. There are several steps that could be taken, in the short-term within our existing BCPs, to address this problem: - Each of the confirming bodies (the ISOC Board for the IAB, the IAB for the IESG, and the IESG for the IAOC) could make a public statement at the beginning of each year's nominations process that they will not confirm a slate unless it contributes to increased diversity within the IETF leadership, or it is accompanied by a detailed explanation of what steps were taken to select a more diverse slate and why it was not possible to do so. I'd ask that people think about what the confirming bodies should be willing to say, along these lines. It seems a bit strong to me, but I'm not sure what the community is comfortable with. Personally, I'm uncomfortable with the above statement. Yes, diversity is a good thing, and I'm all for it. However, I don't think it is a fundamental goal; the fundamental goal is (as Jari said) to get the best people for the job from the available talent pool. I don't know that political correctness automatically helps there. Hi, Fred, I'm not sure which above statement you're uncomfortable with - my original e-mail was saying that I was uncomfortable with the proposed actions for the confirming bodies, and was asking if there were any other actions that might make sense for the confirming bodies to take. One possible answer is no. Another possible answer is not yet. I've seen both of those go past in this thread. I'm just if there are other possible answers. For the noncom, if there is a choice between two people of equal capability, diversity considerations can be useful in selection (pick the person who is not a north american or european white male). But when it comes to confirmation of a slate, the confirming body is not being asked whether there are enough little green women, it's being asked whether the individuals selected and the resulting committees (the IAB, the IESG, or whatever) will be effective and competent in the role. A statement like Send us more little green women from a confirming body to the noncom makes some important assumptions: that there were little green women to choose from, that they were equally or more competent than the person selected, and so on. The confirming body is not privy to the discussions of the noncom, and isn't told why a given individual was not selected, only the arguments for those selected. That makes all such assumptions pretty dubious. Agreed. I'd prefer that confirmation processes stick to fundamental goals, not political correctness. If you want to encourage the noncom to consider diversity in its deliberations, fine. But not the confirming bodies. I'm listening - thanks for sharing your thoughts. Spencer
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 12:41 PM, Fred Baker (fred) f...@cisco.com wrote: Yes, diversity is a good thing, and I'm all for it. However, I don't think it is a fundamental goal; the fundamental goal is (as Jari said) to get the best people for the job from the available talent pool. I don't know that political correctness automatically helps there. So, I said this once before on a previous thread, but I still believe that this analysis is wrong. From an organiational perspective, the aim of fostering diversity isn't political correctness, it's enabling a larger pool of candidates. Here's how I put this before: I think the analysis here is subtly wrong. If you have two candidates who can clearly do the job, it seems to imply that you should always still stack rank them and pick the higher ranked. But that's a very local optimization. Efforts to increase to diversity are a very different optimization--by making more visible that opportunities are present for all, these initiatives attempt to increase the pool of talent over time. If people who would previously have left a field stay or folks who had not thought of entering a field do so, that field wins. The scale of that win can be the field of Science, Technology, Engineering, Math or it can be working group leadership or the IETF. But a bigger pool of talent to draw from is a big win for almost any sized field. Note that this is true for many different kinds of diversity--regional, gender, and company origin all can benefit from efforts to improve the overall pool size of candidates. It's also true long before we get to the point of selecting I* folks--it is just as true for working group chairs and other positions. By picking competent candidates from a variety of backgrounds, we encourage participation by those with those backgrounds; that can be more important than a strict stack rack among the competent candidates. Just my personal two cents, Ted Hardie
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On 3/11/2013 9:23 AM, Ted Hardie wrote: So, I said this once before on a previous thread, but I still believe that this analysis is wrong. From an organiational perspective, the aim of fostering diversity isn't political correctness, it's enabling a larger pool of candidates. I tend to think of it as an effort to remove bias from the system, which is probably consistent with the notion of enabling more candidates. I think that right now there's a far narrower set of perspectives being represented among the I* than among the IETF participants. That's necessarily the case when the I* is 30-odd people and there are several thousand participants, but notably lacking among the leadership are people who don't work for large manufacturers and people who have first-hand knowledge of network architectures and management practices in non-western countries. I think that makes us weaker. Melinda
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
Hi, I have been reading the comments in the list and although I am not making a specific reply to any message I would like to make some comments. So far I have read I agree we need some diversity or I agree that more diversity is better. Also I have read Please no quotas, do not let the nomcom do this or that. My opinion is that we agree we have a situation that we should improve, but also we shouldn't focus on the nomcom process, the problem is not about how we select people (it may help but it is not the root problem). The problem is to bring new people (younger people, women, from more countries, different languages, etc.) to write RFCs, to participate/be interested in the IETF and how we involve/prepare these people to become our leaders and not just participants. If we do that, then we will have more diversity in our leadership. Best wishes, as On 10/03/2013 06:22, IETF Diversity wrote: The letter below was sent to the IESG, the IAB, the IAOC and the ISOC Board this morning, in an attempt to open a discussion of how to increase the diversity of the IETF Leadership. We are sharing the letter here to encourage community discussion of this important topic. If you support this letter and would like to be added as a signatory, please send e-mail to ietf.divers...@gmail.com mailto:ietf.divers...@gmail.com, and your name will be added to the list of signatures. --- ** An Open Letter to the IESG, the IAB, the IAOC and the ISOC Board ** Dear Members of the IETF Leadership, We would like to call your attention to an issue that weakens the IETF's decision-making process and calls into question the legitimacy of the IETF as an International Standards Development Organization: the lack of diversity of the IETF leadership. In addition to the moral and social issues involved, diversity of leadership across several axes (race, geographic location, gender and corporate affiliation) is important for three practical reasons: - It is a well-established fact that diverse groups are smarter and make better decisions than less-diverse groups. - Lack of diversity in our leadership becomes a self-perpetuating problem, because people who are not represented in the IETF leadership are less likely to dedicate their time and effort to the IETF. - The lack of diversity in the IETF leadership undermines our credibility and challenges our legitimacy as an International Standards Development Organization. Unfortunately, despite a substantial increase in the number of IETF leadership positions (from 25 to 32) and increasingly diverse attendance at IETF meetings, the diversity of the IETF leadership has not improved. In fact, it seems to have dropped significantly over the past ten years. For example, ten years ago, in February of 2003, there were 25 members of the IETF leadership (12 IAB members and 13 IESG members). Of those 25 members, there was one member of non-European descent, there was one member from a country outside of North America or Europe, and there were four women. There were 23 companies represented in the IETF leadership (out of a total of 25 seats). In February of 2013, there were 32 members of the IETF leadership (12 IAB members, 15 IESG members and 5 IAOC members). Of those 32 members, there was one member of non-European descent, there were no members from countries outside of North America or Europe, and there was only one woman. There were only 19 companies represented (out of a total of 32 seats). It is important to the continued relevance and success of the IETF that we address this issue and eliminate whatever factors are contributing to the lack of diversity in our leadership. We believe that this is an important and urgent issue that requires your immediate attention. There are several steps that could be taken, in the short-term within our existing BCPs, to address this problem: - Each of the IETF leadership bodies (the IESG, IAB and IAOC) could update the qualifications that they submit to the Nominations Committee (through the IAD) to make it clear that the Nominations Committee should actively seek to increase the diversity of that body in terms of race, geographic location, gender and corporate affiliation. - Each of the confirming bodies (the ISOC Board for the IAB, the IAB for the IESG, and the IESG for the IAOC) could make a public statement at the beginning of each year's nominations process that they will not confirm a slate unless it contributes to increased diversity within the IETF leadership, or it is accompanied by a detailed explanation of what steps were taken to select a more diverse slate and why it was not possible to do so. - The ISOC President could continue to select Nominations
RE: Diversity of IETF Leadership
This is a great suggestion. Bonnie L. Gorsic -Original Message- From: ietf-boun...@ietf.org [mailto:ietf-boun...@ietf.org] On Behalf Of Arturo Servin Sent: Monday, March 11, 2013 10:43 AM To: ietf@ietf.org Subject: Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership Hi, I have been reading the comments in the list and although I am not making a specific reply to any message I would like to make some comments. So far I have read I agree we need some diversity or I agree that more diversity is better. Also I have read Please no quotas, do not let the nomcom do this or that. My opinion is that we agree we have a situation that we should improve, but also we shouldn't focus on the nomcom process, the problem is not about how we select people (it may help but it is not the root problem). The problem is to bring new people (younger people, women, from more countries, different languages, etc.) to write RFCs, to participate/be interested in the IETF and how we involve/prepare these people to become our leaders and not just participants. If we do that, then we will have more diversity in our leadership. Best wishes, as On 10/03/2013 06:22, IETF Diversity wrote: The letter below was sent to the IESG, the IAB, the IAOC and the ISOC Board this morning, in an attempt to open a discussion of how to increase the diversity of the IETF Leadership. We are sharing the letter here to encourage community discussion of this important topic. If you support this letter and would like to be added as a signatory, please send e-mail to ietf.divers...@gmail.com mailto:ietf.divers...@gmail.com, and your name will be added to the list of signatures. --- ** An Open Letter to the IESG, the IAB, the IAOC and the ISOC Board ** Dear Members of the IETF Leadership, We would like to call your attention to an issue that weakens the IETF's decision-making process and calls into question the legitimacy of the IETF as an International Standards Development Organization: the lack of diversity of the IETF leadership. In addition to the moral and social issues involved, diversity of leadership across several axes (race, geographic location, gender and corporate affiliation) is important for three practical reasons: - It is a well-established fact that diverse groups are smarter and make better decisions than less-diverse groups. - Lack of diversity in our leadership becomes a self-perpetuating problem, because people who are not represented in the IETF leadership are less likely to dedicate their time and effort to the IETF. - The lack of diversity in the IETF leadership undermines our credibility and challenges our legitimacy as an International Standards Development Organization. Unfortunately, despite a substantial increase in the number of IETF leadership positions (from 25 to 32) and increasingly diverse attendance at IETF meetings, the diversity of the IETF leadership has not improved. In fact, it seems to have dropped significantly over the past ten years. For example, ten years ago, in February of 2003, there were 25 members of the IETF leadership (12 IAB members and 13 IESG members). Of those 25 members, there was one member of non-European descent, there was one member from a country outside of North America or Europe, and there were four women. There were 23 companies represented in the IETF leadership (out of a total of 25 seats). In February of 2013, there were 32 members of the IETF leadership (12 IAB members, 15 IESG members and 5 IAOC members). Of those 32 members, there was one member of non-European descent, there were no members from countries outside of North America or Europe, and there was only one woman. There were only 19 companies represented (out of a total of 32 seats). It is important to the continued relevance and success of the IETF that we address this issue and eliminate whatever factors are contributing to the lack of diversity in our leadership. We believe that this is an important and urgent issue that requires your immediate attention. There are several steps that could be taken, in the short-term within our existing BCPs, to address this problem: - Each of the IETF leadership bodies (the IESG, IAB and IAOC) could update the qualifications that they submit to the Nominations Committee (through the IAD) to make it clear that the Nominations Committee should actively seek to increase the diversity of that body in terms of race, geographic location, gender and corporate affiliation. - Each of the confirming bodies (the ISOC Board for the IAB, the IAB for the IESG, and the IESG for the IAOC) could make a public statement at the beginning of each year's nominations process that they will not confirm a slate unless it contributes
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
Le 2013-03-11 à 13:43, Arturo Servin arturo.ser...@gmail.com a écrit : Hi, I have been reading the comments in the list and although I am not making a specific reply to any message I would like to make some comments. So far I have read I agree we need some diversity or I agree that more diversity is better. Also I have read Please no quotas, do not let the nomcom do this or that. My opinion is that we agree we have a situation that we should improve, but also we shouldn't focus on the nomcom process, the problem is not about how we select people (it may help but it is not the root problem). The problem is to bring new people (younger people, women, from more countries, different languages, etc.) to write RFCs, to participate/be interested in the IETF and how we involve/prepare these people to become our leaders and not just participants. If we do that, then we will have more diversity in our leadership. agree. Marc. Best wishes, as On 10/03/2013 06:22, IETF Diversity wrote: The letter below was sent to the IESG, the IAB, the IAOC and the ISOC Board this morning, in an attempt to open a discussion of how to increase the diversity of the IETF Leadership. We are sharing the letter here to encourage community discussion of this important topic. If you support this letter and would like to be added as a signatory, please send e-mail to ietf.divers...@gmail.com mailto:ietf.divers...@gmail.com, and your name will be added to the list of signatures. --- ** An Open Letter to the IESG, the IAB, the IAOC and the ISOC Board ** Dear Members of the IETF Leadership, We would like to call your attention to an issue that weakens the IETF's decision-making process and calls into question the legitimacy of the IETF as an International Standards Development Organization: the lack of diversity of the IETF leadership. In addition to the moral and social issues involved, diversity of leadership across several axes (race, geographic location, gender and corporate affiliation) is important for three practical reasons: - It is a well-established fact that diverse groups are smarter and make better decisions than less-diverse groups. - Lack of diversity in our leadership becomes a self-perpetuating problem, because people who are not represented in the IETF leadership are less likely to dedicate their time and effort to the IETF. - The lack of diversity in the IETF leadership undermines our credibility and challenges our legitimacy as an International Standards Development Organization. Unfortunately, despite a substantial increase in the number of IETF leadership positions (from 25 to 32) and increasingly diverse attendance at IETF meetings, the diversity of the IETF leadership has not improved. In fact, it seems to have dropped significantly over the past ten years. For example, ten years ago, in February of 2003, there were 25 members of the IETF leadership (12 IAB members and 13 IESG members). Of those 25 members, there was one member of non-European descent, there was one member from a country outside of North America or Europe, and there were four women. There were 23 companies represented in the IETF leadership (out of a total of 25 seats). In February of 2013, there were 32 members of the IETF leadership (12 IAB members, 15 IESG members and 5 IAOC members). Of those 32 members, there was one member of non-European descent, there were no members from countries outside of North America or Europe, and there was only one woman. There were only 19 companies represented (out of a total of 32 seats). It is important to the continued relevance and success of the IETF that we address this issue and eliminate whatever factors are contributing to the lack of diversity in our leadership. We believe that this is an important and urgent issue that requires your immediate attention. There are several steps that could be taken, in the short-term within our existing BCPs, to address this problem: - Each of the IETF leadership bodies (the IESG, IAB and IAOC) could update the qualifications that they submit to the Nominations Committee (through the IAD) to make it clear that the Nominations Committee should actively seek to increase the diversity of that body in terms of race, geographic location, gender and corporate affiliation. - Each of the confirming bodies (the ISOC Board for the IAB, the IAB for the IESG, and the IESG for the IAOC) could make a public statement at the beginning of each year's nominations process that they will not confirm a slate unless it contributes to increased diversity within the IETF leadership, or it is accompanied by a detailed explanation of what steps were taken to select a more diverse slate and why it was not possible to do
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
I'd agree to the more general statement that people from large commercial organisations are dominating, and I'd argue that this is due to the cost (in time and finanically) of doing reasonably high level IETF work. This also restricts the available pool, and furthermore means our leadership is at most as diverse as those large commercial organisations. This means that we're not only locking ourselves out of having comparatively pure academics in leadership positions, but also locking ourselves out of the kinds of independent web developers doing much of the practical protocol work these days, which in turn means that the IETF influences that work less than it might, or indeed should. On Sun, Mar 10, 2013 at 7:46 PM, Keith Moore mo...@network-heretics.comwrote: One aspect of IETF leadership diversity that seems to have considerably decreased over the years that I've been working with IETF is the number of people from academic/research relative to the number of people from the commercial sector. I believe that this has been extremely harmful to IETF. Keith
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On Mar 11, 2013, at 1:43 PM, Arturo Servin arturo.ser...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, I have been reading the comments in the list and although I am not making a specific reply to any message I would like to make some comments. So far I have read I agree we need some diversity or I agree that more diversity is better. Also I have read Please no quotas, do not let the nomcom do this or that. My opinion is that we agree we have a situation that we should improve, but also we shouldn't focus on the nomcom process, the problem is not about how we select people (it may help but it is not the root problem). The problem is to bring new people (younger people, women, from more countries, different languages, etc.) to write RFCs, to participate/be interested in the IETF and how we involve/prepare these people to become our leaders and not just participants. If we do that, then we will have more diversity in our leadership. Agree. And so the onus is first on WG chairs to appoint members of these under-represented groups to be document authors, and then for ADs to appoint more of them as WG chairs and directorate members. Once we get to a better balance within those groups, NomCom may have more possible candidates for the I* positions. If at that point we still get only western men in the IESG/IAB, then we can think of how we need to re-engineer the NomCom. Not now. But both WG chairs and ADs have to work with the people who show up. Going over the WebSec mailing list for the six months, there are exactly zero messages sent by women, and all but one of the few non-Western names are from people who have lived and worked in the west for years. Looking at the room during meetings is pretty much the same. So if and when the next WG document comes up and we're looking for authors, we don't have much of a pool of candidates from the under-represented groups. We would have to actively seek people who currently don't participate in WebSec (or just participate in the email powerstrip BoF at the back of every session). It's possible that WebSec is an extreme example, and that other groups may have a larger pool, but at that level, we have to rely on society outside our control Yoav
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On 03/11/2013 01:43 PM, Arturo Servin wrote: My opinion is that we agree we have a situation that we should improve, but also we shouldn't focus on the nomcom process, the problem is not about how we select people (it may help but it is not the root problem). The problem is to bring new people (younger people, women, from more countries, different languages, etc.) to write RFCs, to participate/be interested in the IETF and how we involve/prepare these people to become our leaders and not just participants. If we do that, then we will have more diversity in our leadership. Agree. And I suspect that a large part of the answer is make effective participation in IETF substantially less expensive than it is now (I didn't say it was an easy problem to solve.) Keith
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
My opinion is that we agree we have a situation that we should improve, but also we shouldn't focus on the nomcom process, the problem is not about how we select people (it may help but it is not the root problem). The problem is to bring new people (younger people, women, from more countries, different languages, etc.) to write RFCs, to participate/be interested in the IETF and how we involve/prepare these people to become our leaders and not just participants. If we do that, then we will have more diversity in our leadership. Agree. And I suspect that a large part of the answer is make effective participation in IETF substantially less expensive than it is now +1
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On Mar 10, 2013, at 1:57 PM, Spencer Dawkins spen...@wonderhamster.org wrote: On 3/10/2013 5:22 AM, IETF Diversity wrote: I'm listed as a signatory and agree that this is important. There are several steps that could be taken, in the short-term within our existing BCPs, to address this problem: - Each of the confirming bodies (the ISOC Board for the IAB, the IAB for the IESG, and the IESG for the IAOC) could make a public statement at the beginning of each year's nominations process that they will not confirm a slate unless it contributes to increased diversity within the IETF leadership, or it is accompanied by a detailed explanation of what steps were taken to select a more diverse slate and why it was not possible to do so. I'd ask that people think about what the confirming bodies should be willing to say, along these lines. It seems a bit strong to me, but I'm not sure what the community is comfortable with. Personally, I'm uncomfortable with the above statement. Yes, diversity is a good thing, and I'm all for it. However, I don't think it is a fundamental goal; the fundamental goal is (as Jari said) to get the best people for the job from the available talent pool. I don't know that political correctness automatically helps there. For the noncom, if there is a choice between two people of equal capability, diversity considerations can be useful in selection (pick the person who is not a north american or european white male). But when it comes to confirmation of a slate, the confirming body is not being asked whether there are enough little green women, it's being asked whether the individuals selected and the resulting committees (the IAB, the IESG, or whatever) will be effective and competent in the role. A statement like Send us more little green women from a confirming body to the noncom makes some important assumptions: that there were little green women to choose from, that they were equally or more competent than the person selected, and so on. The confirming body is not privy to the discussions of the noncom, and isn't told why a given individual was not selected, only the arguments for those selected. That makes all such assumptions pretty dubious. I'd prefer that confirmation processes stick to fundamental goals, not political correctness. If you want to encourage the noncom to consider diversity in its deliberations, fine. But not the confirming bodies.
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On 3/11/2013 1:03 PM, Keith Moore wrote: On 03/11/2013 01:43 PM, Arturo Servin wrote: My opinion is that we agree we have a situation that we should improve, but also we shouldn't focus on the nomcom process, the problem is not about how we select people (it may help but it is not the root problem). The problem is to bring new people (younger people, women, from more countries, different languages, etc.) to write RFCs, to participate/be interested in the IETF and how we involve/prepare these people to become our leaders and not just participants. If we do that, then we will have more diversity in our leadership. Agree. And I suspect that a large part of the answer is make effective participation in IETF substantially less expensive than it is now (I didn't say it was an easy problem to solve.) Keith Arturo and Keith, Thank you both for these thoughts. I've self-funded a couple of IETF meetings, but still think primarily about expensive in terms of time. Spencer
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 12:43 PM, Arturo Servin arturo.ser...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, I have been reading the comments in the list and although I am not making a specific reply to any message I would like to make some comments. So far I have read I agree we need some diversity or I agree that more diversity is better. Also I have read Please no quotas, do not let the nomcom do this or that. My opinion is that we agree we have a situation that we should improve, but also we shouldn't focus on the nomcom process, the problem is not about how we select people (it may help but it is not the root problem). The problem is to bring new people (younger people, women, from more countries, different languages, etc.) to write RFCs, to participate/be interested in the IETF and how we involve/prepare these people to become our leaders and not just participants. If we do that, then we will have more diversity in our leadership. [MB] I don't entirely agree with your conclusion. There is a problem with the nomcom process, although it's not entirely the problem of the nomcom members implementing that process. The process is designed such that the nomcom voting members consider community input as to who should be appointed to leadership positions. If the community doesn't have an ample pool of diverse nominees, then certainly, they can't possibly do anything to improve diversity. However, when they do have a pool that does include individuals that are a minority in the community, then due diligence is required in evaluating the nominees. This year's set of nominees was far more diverse than in the past and yet the IESG will still be entirely male and entirely North American/European. Of course, only people that bothered to use the tool to input comments would see that. So, indeed the nomcom process is part of the problem. [/MB] Best wishes, as On 10/03/2013 06:22, IETF Diversity wrote: The letter below was sent to the IESG, the IAB, the IAOC and the ISOC Board this morning, in an attempt to open a discussion of how to increase the diversity of the IETF Leadership. We are sharing the letter here to encourage community discussion of this important topic. If you support this letter and would like to be added as a signatory, please send e-mail to ietf.divers...@gmail.com mailto:ietf.divers...@gmail.com, and your name will be added to the list of signatures. --- ** An Open Letter to the IESG, the IAB, the IAOC and the ISOC Board ** Dear Members of the IETF Leadership, We would like to call your attention to an issue that weakens the IETF's decision-making process and calls into question the legitimacy of the IETF as an International Standards Development Organization: the lack of diversity of the IETF leadership. In addition to the moral and social issues involved, diversity of leadership across several axes (race, geographic location, gender and corporate affiliation) is important for three practical reasons: - It is a well-established fact that diverse groups are smarter and make better decisions than less-diverse groups. - Lack of diversity in our leadership becomes a self-perpetuating problem, because people who are not represented in the IETF leadership are less likely to dedicate their time and effort to the IETF. - The lack of diversity in the IETF leadership undermines our credibility and challenges our legitimacy as an International Standards Development Organization. Unfortunately, despite a substantial increase in the number of IETF leadership positions (from 25 to 32) and increasingly diverse attendance at IETF meetings, the diversity of the IETF leadership has not improved. In fact, it seems to have dropped significantly over the past ten years. For example, ten years ago, in February of 2003, there were 25 members of the IETF leadership (12 IAB members and 13 IESG members). Of those 25 members, there was one member of non-European descent, there was one member from a country outside of North America or Europe, and there were four women. There were 23 companies represented in the IETF leadership (out of a total of 25 seats). In February of 2013, there were 32 members of the IETF leadership (12 IAB members, 15 IESG members and 5 IAOC members). Of those 32 members, there was one member of non-European descent, there were no members from countries outside of North America or Europe, and there was only one woman. There were only 19 companies represented (out of a total of 32 seats). It is important to the continued relevance and success of the IETF that we address this issue and eliminate whatever factors are contributing to the lack of diversity in our leadership. We believe that this is an important and urgent issue that requires your immediate attention. There are several steps that could be taken, in the short-term within our existing BCPs, to
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
Hi Melinda, I certainly agree that there are challenges in getting those who work for smaller companies to participate in the IETF (for known reasons). I believe the IETF, however, does better than other organizations that have expensive membership fees. The country/regional participation is an interesting aspect. If you try to figure out whether the IESG / IAB leadership is dominated from US participation then the question is what do you take as a basis for that analysis. You could, for example, take a look at Jari's draft/RFC statistics (see http://www.arkko.com/tools/allstats/countrydistr.html). The stats say that 50.69% of the authors come from the US. The IETF leadership has more than 50% of persons coming from the US. The question is, however, whether this is a good measurement to consider all the published documents as a basis for such an analysis. Also, if you look through the list you see Henning as the first person in that list. Henning is German. Mark Townsley as another example, can be found in the data about authors from France. Mark, like Henning, just moved to another country. Ciao Hannes On Mar 11, 2013, at 1:32 PM, Melinda Shore wrote: On 3/11/2013 9:23 AM, Ted Hardie wrote: So, I said this once before on a previous thread, but I still believe that this analysis is wrong. From an organiational perspective, the aim of fostering diversity isn't political correctness, it's enabling a larger pool of candidates. I tend to think of it as an effort to remove bias from the system, which is probably consistent with the notion of enabling more candidates. I think that right now there's a far narrower set of perspectives being represented among the I* than among the IETF participants. That's necessarily the case when the I* is 30-odd people and there are several thousand participants, but notably lacking among the leadership are people who don't work for large manufacturers and people who have first-hand knowledge of network architectures and management practices in non-western countries. I think that makes us weaker. Melinda
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On 03/11/13 14:41, Mary Barnes allegedly wrote: This year's set of nominees was far more diverse than in the past and yet the IESG will still be entirely male and entirely North American/European. Of course, only people that bothered to use the tool to input comments would see that. So, indeed the nomcom process is part of the problem. Mary: I believe you would agree with this but your language doesn't seem to say so: just because the nomcom chose a less diverse set of nominees from a more diverse set of candidates doesn't mean there is something wrong with the nomcom or the nomcom process. It may be that this nomcom did take diversity into account, and diversity was outweighed by other factors that are at least as important. Do you have what you consider to be proof that the nomcom didn't consider diversity? I have direct experience of at least a few nomcoms that did. Are you looking for quotas? Do you think diversity is more important than e.g. demonstrated ability to lead, at the top level? Scott
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
I signed the letter and my answers to your questions are below [MB]. I would posit that a number of others have answers not unlike my own. Mary. On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 10:12 AM, Michael StJohns mstjo...@comcast.net wrote: I'm not sure I have enough data to evaluate the comments in this letter. I don't disagree with the general goal diversity is good. I do believe that the proposed actions are not realistic in that they would tend to make the Nomcom process even more moribund. I will note that Appendix A suggests, but does not require the Nomcom to consider diversity in the appointment of IAB members (and doing diversity on a company basis can sometimes fight with doing diversity on a minority, gender or geographic basis). But I have a more fundamental set of questions with respect to the data on trend stated by the letter - that we're becoming less diverse. 1) Is there a statistically significant difference in the composition of the set of the working group chairs and the set of the members of the IESG and IAB taken together for the 10 years mentioned? It was pointed out to me that it is pretty much a hard requirement that members of those bodies have previous experience as a WG chair, so THAT is the set with which the IESG and IAB membership should be compared, not the IETF as a whole. 2) Of the people who signed this letter a) Who have been working group chairs? [MB] I've chaired RAI area WGs since 2006. I have chaired DISPATCH WG since 2009 and CLUE since 2011. b) Who would be willing to volunteer for i) the Nomcom [MB] I served as Nomcom chair in the past. [/MB] ii) the IAB [MB] I currently serve as IAB executive director. [/MB] iii) the IESG? [MB] I have been a nominee for RAI (and other areas) at least 6 times. [/MB c) Whose employers (or other supporting organization) would be willing to support their participation in [MB] Obviously, I have had employers that have supported in all the roles and currently support me in the roles in which I am currently serving. [/MB] i) the Nomcom ii) the IAB iii) the IESG? 3) Same set of questions for the IETF as a whole. I'd really like to get an understanding of the size and composition of the intersection of the set of current/past WG chairs and the set of my employer will support me doing the IESG job. I've had a few conversations on this topic already at the current meeting and at least three conversations went: I don't have time (or support) for the IESG, but I really think I could be an asset to the IAB. E.g. the IESG takes significantly more time than the IESG. [MB] I think you mean IESG takes more time than IAB. I would certainly agree with that but I do not believe there was a shortage of nominees/volunteers to serve in IESG positions this year. [/MB] My take is that a) WG chair and b) employer support are the two objective criteria in the Nomcom process. I would hesitate to eliminate the must have been a WG chair as criteria as its one of the few internal-to-the-IETF opportunities to observe or evaluate candidate abilities. But then we need to figure out if we're doing what we can to diversify the WG chairs without adversely affecting the WGs. For employer support - we're either stuck with the current situation, or we shrink the job to increase the number of people (and employers) willing to do the job, or we figure out how to get third party support for given positions. Unless and until we do this, we have to live with the set of candidates for things like the IESG being a lot smaller than the IETF as a whole. What ever we come up with, I'd really like it to be actionable and objective. [MB] My personal opinion is that these are not our biggest issues in increasing diversity, with the exception of corporate/sponsor diversity. They are certainly general issues and challenges that we are faced with as a whole. [/MB] Mike At 06:22 AM 3/10/2013, IETF Diversity wrote: The letter below was sent to the IESG, the IAB, the IAOC and the ISOC Board this morning, in an attempt to open a discussion of how to increase the diversity of the IETF Leadership. We are sharing the letter here to encourage community discussion of this important topic. If you support this letter and would like to be added as a signatory, please send e-mail to ietf.divers...@gmail.com, and your name will be added to the list of signatures. --- ** An Open Letter to the IESG, the IAB, the IAOC and the ISOC Board ** Dear Members of the IETF Leadership, We would like to call your attention to an issue that weakens the IETF's decision-making process and calls into question the legitimacy of the IETF as an International Standards Development Organization: the lack of diversity of the IETF leadership. In addition to the moral and social issues involved, diversity of leadership across several axes (race, geographic location, gender and corporate
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 1:48 PM, Scott Brim s...@internet2.edu wrote: On 03/11/13 14:41, Mary Barnes allegedly wrote: This year's set of nominees was far more diverse than in the past and yet the IESG will still be entirely male and entirely North American/European. Of course, only people that bothered to use the tool to input comments would see that. So, indeed the nomcom process is part of the problem. Mary: I believe you would agree with this but your language doesn't seem to say so: just because the nomcom chose a less diverse set of nominees from a more diverse set of candidates doesn't mean there is something wrong with the nomcom or the nomcom process. It may be that this nomcom did take diversity into account, and diversity was outweighed by other factors that are at least as important. Do you have what you consider to be proof that the nomcom didn't consider diversity? [MB] I think I do - the process was quite inconsistent in terms of how certain nominees were treated during interviews, etc. Also, as I said in another email, Nomcom has a tough job as the process is based upon them considering community input. When there is a bias in that input, then of course, there may be bias in the process. [/MB] I have direct experience of at least a few nomcoms that did. [MB] In my Nomcom experience I do not believe we did as good of a job considering this as we should have. Some of the community comments about female nominees were disrespectful and showed ignorance of the fact that women are different - yes women are more likely to shed tears when we are upset than to yell or curse or physically push someone around (which I have been at these meetings). To suggest that someone is not qualified to be an AD because they shed tears in a contentious situation is unacceptable IMHO. Lack of respect for the most basic diversity that exists both between genders and cultures is a big problem IMHO. [/MB] Are you looking for quotas? [MB] Absolutely NOT!!! Do you think diversity is more important than e.g. demonstrated ability to lead, at the top level? [MB] Absolutely NOT!!! What I'm looking for is for IETF to recognize that there may be a bias in how these decisions are made and to make a conscientious decision to be aware of how this bias may impact their decisions. I realize that this is a rather bold expectation given that this is not a problem unique to IETF: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/science/bias-persists-against-women-of-science-a-study-says.html?_r=0 But, again, as an international open organization, I would expect the IETF to at least make an effort. [/MB] Scott
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On 03/11/13 15:03, Mary Barnes allegedly wrote: [MB] ... What I'm looking for is for IETF to recognize that there may be a bias in how these decisions are made and to make a conscientious decision to be aware of how this bias may impact their decisions. Sounds good. +1. Thanks.
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
A person's sex is of course only one of the recognized protected characteristics. *http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/advice-and-guidance/new-equality-act-guidance/protected-characteristics-definitions/* The full set is: Age Disability Gender ressignment Marriage and civil partnetship Pregnancy and maternity Race Religion and belief Sex Sexual orientation If we formally recognize one of the protected characteristics we surely have to formally recognize and make provision within our rules and operating procedures for all of them. Although I point to a UK site my understanding is that these protected characteristics are enacted in European Union law and thus apply across the whole of the EU. Stewart
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
ISOC is doing a great job with the fellowship program. There is just a few people each meeting but it is a good start. Now, we need to figure out how to bring more people and prepare them to write RFCs and being leaders. Not easy at all as Keith said. Regards, as On 11/03/2013 14:25, Spencer Dawkins wrote: On 3/11/2013 1:03 PM, Keith Moore wrote: On 03/11/2013 01:43 PM, Arturo Servin wrote: My opinion is that we agree we have a situation that we should improve, but also we shouldn't focus on the nomcom process, the problem is not about how we select people (it may help but it is not the root problem). The problem is to bring new people (younger people, women, from more countries, different languages, etc.) to write RFCs, to participate/be interested in the IETF and how we involve/prepare these people to become our leaders and not just participants. If we do that, then we will have more diversity in our leadership. Agree. And I suspect that a large part of the answer is make effective participation in IETF substantially less expensive than it is now (I didn't say it was an easy problem to solve.) Keith Arturo and Keith, Thank you both for these thoughts. I've self-funded a couple of IETF meetings, but still think primarily about expensive in terms of time. Spencer
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
Ted, Efforts to increase to diversity are a very different optimization--by making more visible that opportunities are present for all, these initiatives attempt to increase the pool of talent over time. Thanks for your thoughts. I thought the above was an important observation. Jari
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 2:30 PM, Stewart Bryant stbry...@cisco.com wrote: A person's sex is of course only one of the recognized protected characteristics. http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/advice-and-guidance/new-equality-act-guidance/protected-characteristics-definitions/ The full set is: Age Disability Gender ressignment Marriage and civil partnetship Pregnancy and maternity Race Religion and belief Sex Sexual orientation If we formally recognize one of the protected characteristics we surely have to formally recognize and make provision within our rules and operating procedures for all of them. Although I point to a UK site my understanding is that these protected characteristics are enacted in European Union law and thus apply across the whole of the EU. [MB] I fully agree. My experiences certainly only reflect a subset of the characteristics you identify and I fully agree they all should be equally considered in terms of ensuring that bias is minimized. However, I would never, ever advocate Affirmative Action programs or any decision making process that does not appoint the most qualified individual. [/MB] Stewart
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
In addition to the moral and social issues involved, diversity of leadership across several axes (race, geographic location, gender and corporate affiliation) is important for three practical reasons: - It is a well-established fact that diverse groups are smarter and make better decisions than less-diverse groups. I would really like to see this statement either backed up by peer-reviewed apolitical scientific research or withdrawn by the signatories of the open letter. It is highly offensive. While it should be self-evident that a group whose homogeneity was of corporate affiliation might not make the best decisions for the IETF as a whole, to say that a racially homogenous group is somehow dumber than a racially diverse group smacks of racism. The group comprised of winners of the Nobel Prize for Physics is overwhelmingly north american and european males. Just the makeup that is being asserted as a problem here in the IETF. But it is not viewed as a problem, and for good reason because science would suffer if it was subordinated in any way to any other consideration. - Lack of diversity in our leadership becomes a self-perpetuating problem, because people who are not represented in the IETF leadership are less likely to dedicate their time and effort to the IETF. Another ipse dixit fallacy! A mere assertion masquerading as a sociological fact. As if we are just sheeple who are motivated to only join groups whose makeup resembles us. We are supposed to be individuals here engaging in consensus-based work to get the best technical solution to the Internet's problems. Disparate impact theory has no place in the IETF. Dan.
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On 3/11/2013 3:03 PM, Mary Barnes wrote: yes women are more likely to shed tears when we are upset than to yell or curse or physically push someone around (which I have been at these meetings) I was on the Nomcom that Mary chaired. Nomcom's internal activities are confidential. In spite of that, I believe it within bounds for me to disclose that during Mary's chairpersonship, she never pushed anyone, nor did she cry (that I saw, though I'd claim we gave her plenty of cause.) On the other hand, she was frighteningly better organized than most males... d/ -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On 11 Mar 2013, at 16:02, Dan Harkins dhark...@lounge.org wrote: - It is a well-established fact that diverse groups are smarter and make better decisions than less-diverse groups. I would really like to see this statement either backed up by peer-reviewed apolitical scientific research or withdrawn by the signatories of the open letter. It is highly offensive. I'm in no way an expect in any of this, but I've heard it said (in other contexts than this discussion) that diversity increases the quality of decision making in groups. Your message piqued my interest as to whether there is valid evidence for whether this was actually the case or not. To cut a long story short, after a bit of investigation, I'd have to say that current scientific thought definitely leans towards this in fact being the case. A selection of references that seem to appear quite often in the various bits of literature I've had a browse around for anyone who is interested: Jackson, S. E. May, K. E. Whitney, K. (1995) Understanding the Dynamics of diversity in decision making teams in R.A. Guzzo et al, (1995) Team effectiveness and decision making in organisations: San Fransisco: Jossey-Bass. Johnson, W. B. Packer, A. E. (1987) Workforce 2000, Work and workers for the 21st century: Washington DC: Department of Labour12. Krause, S., James, R., Faria, J. J., Ruxton, G. D. and Krause, J., 2011. Swarm intelligence in humans: diversity can trump ability. Animal Behaviour, 81 (5), pp. 941-948. Lumby, J. (2006) Conceptualizing diversity and leadership: evidence from ten cases: Educational management and administration, Vol. 34, (2), 151-165. Phillips, Katherine W., Katie A. Liljenquist and Margaret A. Neale. 2009. Is the pain worth the gain? The advantages and liabilities of agreeing with socially distinct newcomers. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 35: 336-350. Mohammed, S., Ringseis, E., Cognitive Diversity and Consensus in Group Decision Making: The Role of Inputs, Processes, and Outcomes, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Volume 85, Issue 2, July 2001, Pages 310-335, Sommers, S.R. ( 2006). On racial diversity and group decision making: Identifying multiple effects of racial composition on jury deliberations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 597-612. Watson, W. E. Kumar, K. Michaelsen, L. K.(1993) Cultural Diversity impact on interaction process and performance: Comparing homogenous and diverse task groups, Academy of management Journal, 36, 590-602. Best, Rhys. -- Dr Rhys Smith Identity, Access, and Middleware Specialist Cardiff University Janet - the UK's research and education network email: sm...@cardiff.ac.uk / rhys.sm...@ja.net GPG: 0xDE2F024C
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
At 4:41 PM + 3/11/13, Fred Baker (fred) wrote: If you want to encourage the noncom to consider diversity in its deliberations, fine. If the nomcom itself is diverse, this should help with some forms of selection bias. But, as several people have noted, if we grow the IETF pool as a whole, that helps, and if we remove barriers to serving on I* that helps as well. -- Randall Gellens Opinions are personal;facts are suspect;I speak for myself only -- Randomly selected tag: --- Democracy is a government where you can say what you think even if you don't think. --Winston Churchill
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
At 9:32 AM -0800 3/11/13, Melinda Shore wrote: notably lacking among the leadership are people who don't work for large manufacturers and people who have first-hand knowledge of network architectures and management practices in non-western countries. I think that makes us weaker. So what do we do to improve this? We probably need some set of measurements (e.g., some set of diversity measurements for various sets such as I*, WG chairs/secretaries, document authors/editors, nomcom members), some idea of contributing factors, and some set of things we can do to try to improve. We can then try implementing some and remeasuring to see if they helped. -- Randall Gellens Opinions are personal;facts are suspect;I speak for myself only -- Randomly selected tag: --- It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians. --Pat Robertson on equal rights
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
At 1:43 PM -0400 3/11/13, Arturo Servin wrote: My opinion is that we agree we have a situation that we should improve, but also we shouldn't focus on the nomcom process, the problem is not about how we select people (it may help but it is not the root problem). The problem is to bring new people (younger people, women, from more countries, different languages, etc.) to write RFCs, to participate/be interested in the IETF and how we involve/prepare these people to become our leaders and not just participants. If we do that, then we will have more diversity in our leadership. Don't forget we also need a broader set of people willing to serve. It's hard for many people to devote essentially full time to the IETF. Working for a company that sees the value in sponsoring this helps tremendously, which might be part of why employees of such companies dominate the I*. -- Randall Gellens Opinions are personal;facts are suspect;I speak for myself only -- Randomly selected tag: --- DEFINITION: Computer -- A device designed to speed and automate errors.
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
From: Scott Brim s...@internet2.edu On 03/11/13 14:41, Mary Barnes allegedly wrote: This year's set of nominees was far more diverse than in the past and yet the IESG will still be entirely male and entirely North American/European. Of course, only people that bothered to use the tool to input comments would see that. So, indeed the nomcom process is part of the problem. Mary: I believe you would agree with this but your language doesn't seem to say so: just because the nomcom chose a less diverse set of nominees from a more diverse set of candidates doesn't mean there is something wrong with the nomcom or the nomcom process. That is true, but this message of Mary's is one of the few items of *data* we have on the subject: The diversity of the selected people (along the dimensions we are considering) is noticably smaller than the diversity of the pool from which they were selected. So we can conclude that there is some factor operating within the Nomcom process that we should examine and analyze and may wish to change. (As opposed to the possibility that the output of Nomcom has the same diversity characteristics as the input of Nomcom, in which case, trying to fix the Nomcom process would probably be ineffective.) In regard to data, I see that the statistics on nation of authorship for recent RFCs (http://www.arkko.com/tools/recrfcstats/d-countrydistr.html) is even more US-heavy (~70%) than the statistics for all RFCs (http://www.arkko.com/tools/allstats/countrydistr.html) (~50%). It's possible that IETF participation even at the purely technical level has become less diverse over the past decade. In regard to data, I expect that there are several levels of participation which may have very different statistics due to the difference in time/money costs involved: 1. participants in WG mailing lists 2. authors of drafts 3. regular attendees of the meetings 4. WG chairs 5. AD/IESG/IAB members My guess is that groups 3 and 4 are fairly similar, but that group 3/4 may differ strongly from group 5 and groups 1 and 2. Dale
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On Mon, March 11, 2013 1:39 pm, Rhys Smith wrote: On 11 Mar 2013, at 16:02, Dan Harkins dhark...@lounge.org wrote: - It is a well-established fact that diverse groups are smarter and make better decisions than less-diverse groups. I would really like to see this statement either backed up by peer-reviewed apolitical scientific research or withdrawn by the signatories of the open letter. It is highly offensive. I'm in no way an expect in any of this, but I've heard it said (in other contexts than this discussion) that diversity increases the quality of decision making in groups. Your message piqued my interest as to whether there is valid evidence for whether this was actually the case or not. Well, you snipped the part where I copied the explicit mention of race and gender as being axes of diversity. To cut a long story short, after a bit of investigation, I'd have to say that current scientific thought definitely leans towards this in fact being the case. I detect a bait and switch here. We're told that there is a lack of diversity at the IETF involving race, gender, geographic location and corporate affiliation and that this is a problem because diverse groups are smarter than non-diverse groups. Yet these studies talk about diversity in a much broader sense that includes things like formal credentials and attention and recall and seeking and receiving social information and support as well as age, membership in a formal religion and, yes, race. So unless this diversity problem at the IETF also involves the makeup of Catholics, teenagers, people with just a grammar school education, and those with attention deficit disorder, in the general IETF population, I don't think these studies lean towards the statement in the open letter as being a fact. A selection of references that seem to appear quite often in the various bits of literature I've had a browse around for anyone who is interested: I don't want to go through all of these but the first one presents a framework with which to understand the dynamics of diversity. It says, Our discussion in this chapter is guided by the heuristic of a theoretical framework that identifies primary constructs and connects them to form a meaningful territorial map. Within this framework, diversity is placed as a construct that appears early in the causal chain of phenomena considered. What happens if diversity is placed as a construct that appears later in the causal chain of phenomena? Dunno. But it should be unremarkable that diversity strongly affects the causal chain of phenomena because it has been designed to be that way. Not very scientific. Scanning down to the one study that mentioned race, I see the abstract describes confirmation bias: Deliberation analyses supported the prediction that diverse groups would exchange a wider range of information than all-White groups. And the finding is not anything that would lead us to the conclusion that a racially diverse group is smarter than a racially homogenous group as it was related to the willingness to discuss racism and was not wholly attributed to the performance of black participants versus all-white groups. In other words, the statement that gender and racial diversity in groups makes them smarter has no basis in fact. Do you feel that an all-female group is stupider than a similarly sized group that is equal parts male and female? Really? Dan. Jackson, S. E. May, K. E. Whitney, K. (1995) Understanding the Dynamics of diversity in decision making teams in R.A. Guzzo et al, (1995) Team effectiveness and decision making in organisations: San Fransisco: Jossey-Bass. Johnson, W. B. Packer, A. E. (1987) Workforce 2000, Work and workers for the 21st century: Washington DC: Department of Labour12. Krause, S., James, R., Faria, J. J., Ruxton, G. D. and Krause, J., 2011. Swarm intelligence in humans: diversity can trump ability. Animal Behaviour, 81 (5), pp. 941-948. Lumby, J. (2006) Conceptualizing diversity and leadership: evidence from ten cases: Educational management and administration, Vol. 34, (2), 151-165. Phillips, Katherine W., Katie A. Liljenquist and Margaret A. Neale. 2009. Is the pain worth the gain? The advantages and liabilities of agreeing with socially distinct newcomers. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 35: 336-350. Mohammed, S., Ringseis, E., Cognitive Diversity and Consensus in Group Decision Making: The Role of Inputs, Processes, and Outcomes, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Volume 85, Issue 2, July 2001, Pages 310-335, Sommers, S.R. ( 2006). On racial diversity and group decision making: Identifying multiple effects of racial composition on jury deliberations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 597-612. Watson, W. E. Kumar, K. Michaelsen, L. K.(1993) Cultural Diversity impact on interaction process and
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
OK, I'll bite. I would by no means use the word stupider, but I do think that a group of females and males would take better decisions that a group of only-males or only-females. /as On 11/03/2013 18:54, Dan Harkins wrote: In other words, the statement that gender and racial diversity in groups makes them smarter has no basis in fact. Do you feel that an all-female group is stupider than a similarly sized group that is equal parts male and female? Really?
Re: Diversity of IETF Leadership
On Mar 11, 2013, at 6:54 PM, Dan Harkins dhark...@lounge.org wrote: In other words, the statement that gender and racial diversity in groups makes them smarter has no basis in fact. Do you feel that an all-female group is stupider than a similarly sized group that is equal parts male and female? Really? Actually, Dan, there are well-regarded academic studies that show that groups that contain women are smarter than all-male groups, regardless of the relative intelligence of the group members. Surprising, perhaps, but true. Here is a pointer to a discussion of one of them: http://www.antonioyon.com/group-intelligence-and-the-female-factor There are also numerous studies, of various types, that show that more diverse groups make better decisions and/or perform better than less diverse groups. Here is a description of one such study: http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/better_decisions_through_diversity So, as illogical as these statements may seem on the surface, they are well-established facts. Both of the articles I've sited give some insight into why this is true. Margaret
