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

[Andrew Campling <[e-mail]>]

On 11/21/23 7:23 AM, Rob Wilton <rwilton=[e-mail]> wrote:
>  I like what you are trying to achieve here, but I would suggest that we try and go slightly further.
>  Taking the IETF 117 survey, > https://ietf.co1.qualtrics.com/results/public/aWV0Zi1VUl8zT3laRG9JQWxidUkxZ0otNjRkMjQ1MTVjYTVkZTkwMDA4OGY0Zjk1#/pages/Page_59bc7806-86fc-40ca-905f-33aaed57a8be, then the report indicates that roughly 16.5% of IETF participants are not men.
>  
> If I read your proposal correctly, then you are suggesting that there must be at least one voting member (i.e., 10%) that isn’t the dominant gender, but I would suggest that we aim for at least 2, i.e., 20% of the voting committee should not be the dominant gender.


On 11/21/23 2:46 PM, Vittorio Bertola <[e-mail]> wrote: 
> I'm all in favour, but perhaps it is due time to have a discourse on Nomcom diversity in general, and not just in terms of gender. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only diversity provision in RFC8713 at this point in time is about employers. There are several other factors that could and should be taken into consideration, such as industry sector / area, and geography, to start with. 
>   
> ICANN's Nomcom, for example, has provisions that ensure that there is at least one member from each of their five geographic regions, and is built to include all of ICANN's stakeholders, including various business groups. The ISOC Nomcom does not have mandatory diversity checks, but the charter says that it must represent "the broad range of members of the Internet community" and there is always care in ensuring gender and geographic diversity. The IETF is an outlier in this as well, and perhaps it could bring its Nomcom a bit more in line with modern Internet governance practices. 


If we are to make a change to the Nomcom selection process then I agree with Rob that being a little more ambitious and aiming for "at least 2 of the voting committee not of the dominant gender".  For completeness, we may wish to insert "and no more than 8", although this is pretty unlikely to be an issue for now given current community demographics.  

Vittorio's suggestion to include geographic diversity too would be even better, although this may raise additional concerns about the increased risk of gaming the selection process, adding complexity etc.  Perhaps this could be considered for a future enhancement.  

Andrew