Re: [Diversity] IAOC -- looking for committee volunteers

S Moonesamy <sm+ietf@elandsys.com> Wed, 20 July 2016 23:23 UTC

Message-Id: <6.2.5.6.2.20160720141950.0d5c7e50@resistor.net>
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 15:34:59 -0700
To: Adam Roach <adam@nostrum.com>, Michael Richardson <mcr+ietf@sandelman.ca>, Ted Hardie <ted.ietf@gmail.com>, diversity@ietf.org
From: S Moonesamy <sm+ietf@elandsys.com>
In-Reply-To: <14b99269-9999-dc44-c42c-87b228f4f92b@nostrum.com>
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Subject: Re: [Diversity] IAOC -- looking for committee volunteers
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Hi Adam, Michael, Ted,
At 04:52 20-07-2016, Adam Roach wrote:
>One of the things that I find missing from this invitation is an 
>indication of the level of commitment required to participate: how 
>much time investment will be required? Does the position include 
>travel; and, if so, is it mandatory? What I'm most worried about 
>here is that people are going to have their own assumptions around 
>these kind of requirements, which might discourage exactly those 
>most capable of introducing diversity into the IAOC committees. (To 
>draw a clear and straight line: the people who can comfortably 
>assume that they can take on such load without worrying about 
>resources are exactly the same kind of people who currently comprise the IAOC).

Yes.

>Also, while I understand that it's something of a dead horse, I 
>think one of the things that the IETF 100 discussions threw into 
>relief is that the existing committees are quite homogeneous: unless 
>I'm mistaken, all nine Meetings Committee members are [removed] from 
>the US or Western Europe. Adding community volunteers, if done 
>right, may serve to

That is noticeable and yet nobody mentioned it.  There was a 
discussion [1] a few years ago during which the words "broader 
participation" was mentioned.  There is an assumption that financial 
ability to travel is part of the requirements as the existing members 
regularly attend meetings.  Would adding one or two persons from 
outside the usual set make much of a difference?  I watched a Working 
Group session in which what a person from the U.S. discussing about 
metrics for participation did not get any support from the other 
persons in the room.

The problem with this hopeless issue is that it is visible.  There 
was a letter [2] about it in 2013.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

1. https://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf-nomcom/current/msg00482.html
2. https://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg77723.html

Re: [Diversity] IAOC -- looking for committee vol… S Moonesamy