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

[Eric Rescorla <[e-mail]>]

On Wed, Nov 22, 2023 at 1:50 PM Brian E Carpenter <
[e-mail]> wrote:

> On 23-Nov-23 10:18, Eric Rescorla wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Nov 22, 2023 at 1:09 PM Brian E Carpenter <
> [e-mail] <mailto:[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]> <mailto:
> [e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]>>> wrote:
> >      >
> >      >
> >      >      > On Nov 21, 2023, at 8:37 PM, Martin Thomson <
> [e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]> <mailto:[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
>
> I think you're right. I'm OK with it, but it does need to be made explicit
> in the draft, I think, so that people are fully informed.
>
> On the question of 8 vs 9 as the trigger, I'm open-minded on that choice.
>

I didn't mean to be taking a position on this; it's just what I did.

-Ekr


>
>      Brian
>
>