[Eligibility-discuss] Re: draft-knodel-nomcom-gender-representation-05

["Rob Wilton (rwilton)" <[e-mail]>]

Hi Rich,

I might have misinterpreted what John was saying, always easy over email.  I didn't interpret his comments as saying that we should be doing this, only that the document itself doesn't articulate the broader problem that it trying to solve, hence my previous suggestion of adding a background section.

I.e., the current text explains "the how", but not really "the why".  Well, the current "why" from the introduction appears to be "this is to avoid the appearance of improper bias in choosing IETF leadership:", but I presume that isn't really the goal of this document, in that I presume that we care more about actual biases than the appearance of improper biases.

If folks are really opposed to also briefly documenting what problem we are trying to address then this isn't a battle that I choose to fight, but I am left somewhat perplexed as to why folks are seemingly quite opposed to briefly documenting the wider goal.

Kind regards,
Rob



From: Salz, Rich <rsalz=[e-mail]>
Date: Monday, 5 October 2026 at 14:16
To: John Levine <[e-mail]>; [e-mail] <[e-mail]>
Subject: [Eligibility-discuss] Re: draft-knodel-nomcom-gender-representation-05



On 10/4/26, 3:21 PM, "John Levine" <[e-mail]> wrote:

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Is the goal to get more women into the IETF leadership, or is it just
  *
to say see, look, we did something? Currently, it's only the latter.

Several people have posted multiple studies showing that more diverse hiring groups get more diverse hires. You don’t find that compelling?

Making the leadership more open to under-represented groups is difficult, and this won’t solve it. “Look we did something” is an unfair way to put it. I prefer to see it as showing our sincerity to address the issue. Sure, some will call it virtue signalling, but this is the only knob the IETF as a whole can tweak that does not depend on ten randomly-chosen individuals.