Re: [Gendispatch] New Version Notification for draft-knodel-nomcom-gender-representation-00.txt

[Eric Rescorla <[e-mail]>]

On Wed, Nov 22, 2023 at 1:09 PM Brian E Carpenter <
[e-mail]> wrote:

> On 23-Nov-23 09:05, Eric Rescorla wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Nov 22, 2023 at 11:57 AM Christian Huitema <[e-mail]
> <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
> >
> >
> >      > On Nov 21, 2023, at 8:37 PM, Martin Thomson <[e-mail]
> <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
> >      >
> >      > On Wed, Nov 22, 2023, at 15:25, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
> >      >> Yes, but if (hypothetically) we had four possible responses:
> Male,
> >      >> Female, Other, Prefer-not-to-say,
> >      >> I really don't know what to do with Prefer-not-to-say.
> >      >
> >      > I have no strong preference here, but it could be reasonable to
> treat other and pnts as distinct categories.  Or both together.  Based on
> my understanding of demographics, it is unlikely that either (or both)
> would be selected for more than 8 or 9 out of 10, so while we need to write
> up firm rules, that would be the only reason we'd need that level of
> precision; it's unlikely to be a problem in practice.
> >
> >     Prefer-not-to-say amounts to opting out of gender based selection.
> That means the candidate would be selected based on random ranking only,
> and should never be selected based on "reserved for minority" preferences.
> >
> >     There are many reasons to prefer not to say anything. One is a
> general aversion for keeping personal preferences in databases, based for
> example of the history of repurposing such databases for other purposes,
> like the Gestapo did 60 some years ago. Another is because the participant
> would prefer to keep private details hidden. Yet anther is to introduce
> enough noise in the system to provide cover for those participants who want
> their private details hidden. These are all very good reasons, but they
> should not provide any priority in nomcom selection.
> >
> >
> > Just so I understand what you are proposing in practice. Suppose we have
> four
> > values: A, B, C, and PNTS, then the selection algorithm would be:
> >
> > exclude = None
> > while selected_total < 10 {
> >    candidate = draw_random()
> >    if selected(gender(x)) == 8 {
> >       exclude = gender(x)
> >    }
> >    if exclude != None {
> >      if exclude == gender(x)  {
> >         skip;
> >      }
> >      // This avoids giving pnts a preference
> >      if gender(x) == pnts {
> >         skip;
> >      }
> >
> >     select x;
> > }
>
> I think that gives PNTS a normal chance of being selected for the first 8
> slots


Once you have 8 majority, right?



> , but zero chance of being selected for the 9th or 10th slot.
>

Yes.


> If so, a member of the majority gender gains no advantage by selecting
> PNTS, which was the tactic I was concerned about. If a member of a minority
> gender selects PNTS, they do worsen their chance of selection, however.
>

They make it the same as majority gender, right? I may need more coffee,
but it's not clear to me how to not have that affect, if we were to think
it's undesirable

-Ekr


>
>     Brian
>