On Mar 11, 2013, at 1:43 PM, Arturo Servin
<arturo(_dot_)servin(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com>
wrote:
Hi,
I have been reading the comments in the list and although I am not
making a specific reply to any message I would like to make some comments.
So far I have read "I agree we need some diversity" or "I agree that
more diversity is better". Also I have read "Please no quotas", "do not
let the nomcom do this" or "that".
My opinion is that we agree we have a situation that we should improve,
but also we shouldn't focus on the nomcom process, the problem is not
about how we select people (it may help but it is not the root problem).
The problem is to bring new people (younger people, women, from more
countries, different languages, etc.) to write RFCs, to participate/be
interested in the IETF and how we involve/prepare these people to become
our leaders and not just participants. If we do that, then we will have
more diversity in our leadership.
Agree. And so the onus is first on WG chairs to appoint members of these
under-represented groups to be document authors, and then for ADs to appoint
more of them as WG chairs and directorate members. Once we get to a better
balance within those groups, NomCom may have more possible candidates for the
I* positions. If at that point we still get only western men in the IESG/IAB,
then we can think of how we need to re-engineer the NomCom. Not now.
But both WG chairs and ADs have to work with the people who show up. Going over
the WebSec mailing list for the six months, there are exactly zero messages
sent by women, and all but one of the few non-Western names are from people who
have lived and worked in the west for years. Looking at the room during
meetings is pretty much the same.
So if and when the next WG document comes up and we're looking for authors, we
don't have much of a pool of candidates from the under-represented groups. We
would have to actively seek people who currently don't participate in WebSec
(or just participate in the email & powerstrip BoF at the back of every
session).
It's possible that WebSec is an extreme example, and that other groups may have
a larger pool, but at that level, we have to rely on society outside our control
Yoav