[Eligibility-discuss] Re: Comments on Composition and Comportment of the IETF Nominating Committee draft

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

Mallory,

At the risk of making the first posting, I'm not nearly as negative
about this proposal (at least the original gender core) as I probably
sounded this morning.  I'm just concerned, as is my wont, about
secondary effects or, more generally, considering a proposal in
isolation rather than as part of the system it might effect.  And I
do worry about inclusion by category into a body whose character is
supposed to depend on random selection from a pool of volunteers,
regardless of the category.  Consider some things that I did not
express very well during the meeting:

(i) While it is obvious, as you pointed out, that women have been
seriously underrepresented on Nomcoms, it is less obvious that
underrepresentation has had a negative impact on Nomcom results and,
presumably, deliberations.   Certainly one cannot point to the IESG
or IAB (or other Nomcom-appointed positions) and claim that women
have been absent from those appointments or, in recent years, even
severely underrepresented.  

(ii) When I made the comment about "unqualified" or "less qualified"
(can't even remember exactly what I said, just the reaction to it), I
was not talking about some sort of professional criteria.  Instead, I
was talking about the Nomcom selection process in which the random
ordering of volunteers "qualifies" those who come out at the top of
the list.  In that sense, eliminating (disqualifying) the
lowest-ranked person on that "qualified" (selected) list and
substituting the highest-ranked woman is a matter of qualifications,
but strictly in the narrow Nomcom member selection sense.  As I did
suggest during the meeting, I think the solution to whatever issues
are there argues more strongly for efforts to expand the pool of
qualified Nomcom volunteers to include more women (so the random
selection process can work as intended) rather than carving out
positions for any particular group or category.  Interestingly (and
drawing a bit from the note from SM included below) and some other
discussions, if we want to expand the pool of volunteers for the
Nomcom, it may be important to rethink the time and resource
commitments for Nomcom participation, which have increased
considerably from what was anticipated in 1996 (cf RFC 2027).

(iii) Curiously, while I don't believe there are any women voting
members on the 2026-2027 Nomcom, that randomization process appears
to have put women on at least the two previous ones and, fwiw, the
number of women we've had as Nomcom chairs is certainly more than
trivial.  So, at least from a statistical point of view, it is less
obvious that there is a problem in need of a solution, one that could
be problematic in other ways, than your presentation and draft seem
to imply.

(iv) The geographical example was badly stated, so let me try again
and in more detail than was appropriate for a discussion about
dispatching.  I hope everyone agrees, but I think the IETF has an
obligation to consider the entire Internet in its protocol design
decisions.  However, people from areas with very poor (including slow
and intermittent) connections and general Internet experience, and
who have experienced those problems on an everyday basis, are badly
underrepresented on the IESG and IAB.  I'm not sure there is cause
and effect, and there are disagreements about what was being
suggested, but an argument was made in a recent WG discussion that a
particular protocol decision, if implemented, would cut a large
fraction of users on one continent off from service.  To me, the fact
that was not seen by the vast majority of those involved in the
discussion as a showstopper and certain to be blocked in the IESG
(even if not in the WG) indicated a serious problem, one that might
be associated with inadequate sensitivity and/or underrepresentation
somewhere.   More generally, while I don't have specific examples
that would be useful to point out here, I have the sense that too
much of our recent protocol work has assumed excellent, reliable, and
low cost connectivity and may not have adequately considered the
consequences if those assumptions are not the case.  However, those
concerns suggest at least as strong an argument for carving out a
Nomcom slot for people with experience with poor connectivity
environments (and, ideally, working on those problems) as it does on
a gender basis... especially since that group has been very poorly
represented on the IESG and IAB in recent years.

I look forward to a lively discussion.

   john



--On Wednesday, July 22, 2026 06:47 -0400 Mallory Knodel
<mallory.knodel=[e-mail]> wrote:

> Hi all,
> Following today's dispatch of this draft to
> [e-mail], I have two requests:
>  1. To the community: Please join this list to continue support
> this draft or add points for consideration.
>  2. To the gendispatch chairs and/or Roman: this is a closed WG
> which means that while there is a list, there is no chair. I
> requested in today's session that there be persons responsible for
> determining rough consensus on this document for publication. That
> request is outstanding. Please advise.
> Thanks everyone,
> -Mallory
> 
> On Mon, Jul 13, 2026 at 10:46 AM Mallory Knodel
> <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
>> Hi all,
>> Top posting to note that this document will be on the agenda for
>> gendispatch. Comments now and then are both welcome.
>> Thank you to commenters and gendispatch chairs,
>> -Mallory
>> 
>> On Wed, Jul 8, 2026 at 6:04 PM S Moonesamy
>> <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi Vittorio, Brian, George,
>>> At 07:00 AM 08-07-2026, Vittorio Bertola wrote:
>>> > This is why I did not say that you should always prefer the most
>>> > competent and expert candidates, but rather that you need to
>>> > set a minimum threshold of competence and experience, somewhere
>>> > mid-way between "at their first IETF meeting" and "been here 20
>>> > years".
>>> 
>>> I included three points in my previous comments.  The comments I
>>> have seen have been on Point 1.
>>> 
>>> I looked up the expertise required for an IESG member.  The first
>>> one I found was from 2009 [1].  It should be possible to get the
>>> information for other years as that is in the datatracker.
>>> 
>>>    "It is also imperative that IESG members attend all IETF
>>>    meetings, typically arriving one or two days early.  IESG
>>>     members also attend one, and sometimes two, IESG retreats per
>>>     year."
>>> 
>>> There is also:
>>> 
>>>    (a) Because of the large time and travel commitments, employer
>>>        support for a full two year term is essential.
>>> 
>>>    (b) Because of personal impact, including awkwardly timed
>>>        conference calls, an IESG member's family must also be
>>>        supportive.
>>> 
>>> I also looked up the results from the surveys.  Between 80% to
>>> 85% of the people who provided information were from gender A.
>>> 
>>> There has been discussions on Point (a), (b), and also the
>>> composition of attendees/participants, etc. over the years.  One
>>> of the side effects of Point (a) is that it is a disqualification
>>> factor for anyone who cannot get employer support for a full two
>>> year term.  I am not commenting on Point (b) as there are people
>>> who may be better placed to comment on that.
>>> 
>>> One of the issues in setting a high bar is that it could be
>>> viewed as a disqualification factor.  That is not to argue that
>>> there wouldn't be a minimum threshold (re. somewhat along the
>>> lines of Vittorio's comment).  If I had to explain the level of
>>> expertise in the IETF community, I would say that that a few of
>>> the subscribers to this mailing list could write and submit a
>>> review within five minutes.  I would not argue that those
>>> subscribers should go away (there is a parable from Chesterton
>>> which explains that).
>>> 
>>> > Also, in past Nomcoms I was part of in other organizations,
>>> > this was often seen as an aggregate assessment, e.g. you had to
>>> > select three people for the same board and you strived to pick
>>> > a mix of insiders and outsiders, engineers and business people,
>>> > Western and Southern, etc. It was rare to achieve balance under
>>> > all dimensions, but you tried to get as many as possible.
>>> 
>>> I agree with the above.
>>> 
>>> > This is also why I think that high level principles plus
>>> > cultural commitment work better than hard quotas.
>>> 
>>> It is not possible to see whether the high level principles
>>> worked if there are no known targets.  Setting a requirement (re.
>>> quota) would be needed if the targets are being missed
>>> repeatedly.  John Levine commented as follows: "the only
>>> applicants are (to oversimplify only slightly) two guys from the
>>> San Francisco suburbs".  A switch would be: the only applicants
>>> are two persons from same location.  The question is whether that
>>> would be a desirable change if the requirement was introduced.
>>> 
>>> At 09:35 PM 07-07-2026, George Michaelson wrote:
>>> > Admittedly this probably says as much about me as it does about
>>> > them but the point is, I think this runs against the
>>> > "incumbency" issue. Yes, because to be a WG chair demands time,
>>> > and because time as a WG chair demands prior time as an author,
>>> > by the time you meet tech goals and understanding of IETF
>>> > process to merit IESG you have been around a long time, but no,
>>> > I don't think this is an overwhelming tendency to incumbents.
>>> > 
>>> > I see new faces, new players.
>>> > 
>>> > So tendency? Yes. possible. Actual eventuating circumstance?
>>> > Less sure. Perhaps weighted by age/experience but also, a LOT
>>> > of new faces.
>>> 
>>> Nowadays, the information about whether someone has been a working
>>> group chair, RFC author, etc. can easily be found in the
>>> datatracker.  The authorship listing does not mean that the person
>>> was directly involved in the review/publication process.
>>> 
>>> I agree with George that a person may find out that he/she has
>>> been around for a long time when he/she is aware that he/she
>>> understands the finer details.  I would not use the word "merit"
>>> as it might convey that the title is an award; it's a personal
>>> choice.  The weighting (re. above comment) could be one of
>>> several factors to consider.
>>> 
>>> I don't know most of the IESG or IAB members.  I found out that a
>>> person is an IESG member when I read "DISCUSS" emails.
>>> 
>>> Regards,
>>> S. Moonesamy
>>> 
>>> 1.
>>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__datatracker.
>>> ietf.org_nomcom_ann_1969_&d=DwIBAg&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=krA
>>> NNudPSfUTEf2kXiduBUqRjXhDsKNCASr1kibHLfs&m=Lv0FWItoBoY_NDix8DYlA_
>>> hW0HyiPjx8MuKIUMx5XLeRfMAlpV-mhMt7_oWKMjoc&s=X2xkxBT8rCJ1jP4Vs5BH
>>> W_3Y6tJonr8sQrs5fTkmXok&e=
>>> 
>>> 
>>>