RE: NOMCOM 2013-14 Volunteering - 3rd and Final Call for Volunteers

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

Allison,

Just one or two observations...

--On Tuesday, July 02, 2013 13:50 +0800 rex corpuz
<[e-mail]> wrote:

>...
> The more volunteers we get, the better chance we have of
> choosing a  random yet representative cross section of the
> IETF.  Respond to this  challenge and strengthen our
> statistical significance...

You must know that statement isn't true and I think it would
actually help the IETF is we stopped kidding ourselves about it.
>From an almost-elementary statistical standpoint, increasing the
sample proportion within a particular subset of a population has
nothing to do with strengthening the statistical significance or
representativeness of the total population.

As other recent conversations have illustrated, that particular
subset excludes those who don't attend lots of meetings f2f, it
excludes those who are wiling to serve in positions the Nomcom
appoints (and who believe that they have or could obtain the
resources and support to do so), and it excludes anyone who
lacks the time, support, and resources to make a major
commitment to the Nomcom for an extended period.  Some of the
community would argue that those restrictions are A Good Thing
and create a better Nomcom than we would have with a
representative cross section of the IETF.  Others would (and
have) argued that those restrictions are both a problem in
themselves and an important contributor to less diversity than
they think desirable.  But it is, IMO, impossible to argue that
a group selected under those restrictions represents a
statistically-valid sample of the community (or, in different
language, a cross-section of that community).  Selecting more
people from that same pool doesn't increase the odds of getting
a valid cross-section of the community, it just increases the
odds of getting a valid cross-section of the pool.

Again, I'm not arguing, at least in this note, that the pool
from which you are soliciting volunteers isn't appropriate
and/or the absolutely best we can do or even what we want
whether it is or not.  But we should stop pretending that it
represents a statistically-valid cross-section of the community,
much less that getting more volunteers has anything to do with
that.

best,
  john