RE: NomCom 2020 Announcement of Selections

["Maisonneuve, Julien (Nokia - FR/Paris-Saclay)" <[e-mail]>]

Generally agree with Fernando, but I would like to focus on a different take : there is a danger to focus on "diversity" for its own sake, and people tend to hang their particular view of diversity there (race, gender, country, religion, sexual orientation...). Picking the "right" type of diversity will always create some form of bias, there will always be unhappy people and it's not clear we can find a "satisfactory" (set of) axis.
There is also a will to align the IETF's participation or IETF's management towards some form of broad "diversity", which brings a whole set of painful questions (should we align proportions with the world's population mix ? If not which subset ? why ?). Again not sure there is a "good" solution.
I don't think this is productive. 
I think we should focus instead on the goals we want to reach for IETF, and try to understand first what the problem is today in terms of obstacles to produce relevant standards for the world (PS, anyone ?). 
It should not be about people's communities or feelings, unless this brings something specific and related to IETF goals to the table.
Julien (probably stepping in a hornet nest).
Obligatory disclaimer: Not related to my employer's views. Also as an European, alien to many North-American disputes and unwilling to engage in them.

-----Original Message-----
From: ietf <[e-mail]> On Behalf Of Fernando Gont
Sent: Thursday, January 28, 2021 5:10 AM
To: Terry Manderson <[e-mail]>
Cc: [e-mail]; Livingood, Jason <Jason_Livingood=[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: NomCom 2020 Announcement of Selections

On 28/1/21 00:48, Terry Manderson wrote:
> I feel like that the IETF spends a lot of time posturing about what it can, or can not do, to address diversity.

FWIW, I've askes the question of what kind of diversity (gender? race? 
company? geographic? all of them? ) is expected, because the answers to the problem (if any) probably depend a lot on which diversity axis you want to address.

And probably also even who you'd ask the questions.


> Perhaps a pragmatic approach (since we are engineers) might be to first survey the (apologies for the offence) the diverse and minority participants and ask them what their barriers were to contributing to the IETF and what their barriers, restrictions, or reluctance might be to seeking an IETF leadership role.
> 
> The results of that might even form a problem statement.

Agreed.

Cheers,
--
Fernando Gont
SI6 Networks
e-mail: [e-mail]
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