--On Thursday, April 11, 2013 20:09 +0000 Yoav Nir
<ynir(_at_)checkpoint(_dot_)com> wrote:
On Apr 11, 2013, at 6:11 PM, Ray Pelletier
<rpelletier(_at_)isoc(_dot_)org> wrote:
All
The IETF is concerned about diversity. As good engineers, we
would like to attempt to measure diversity while working on
addressing and increasing it. To that end, we are
considering adding some possibly sensitive questions to the
registration process, for example, gender. Of course, they
need not be answered and would be clearly labeled as optional.
...
Seems like I'm in a minority among responders, but I think
it's a bad idea.
First, what is suggested is not a survey. It's part of the
registration form. This makes it totally non-anonymous. These
sensitive questions are going to be linked to name and
...
Dave Crocker suggested getting an expert. I don't think that
would help. Such an expert would tell you that the questions
you can ask depends on the group you are asking. Questions
that would be acceptable in one country, would be
inappropriate in another. In Israel people are likely to
answer sensitive questions truthfully, while in Germany
concern for privacy might make these questions seem too
personal. So how do you fit such a questionnaire to a, well,
diverse group such as meeting attendants?
I think skewed surveys are a worse basis for planning policy
than just using common sense (yes, I know that's just another
name for our biases). Surveys lend a scientific aura to data
that is effectively non-representative.
I'm a little more optimistic about the right sort of expert than
Yoav is, but generally agree with his point of view (so not that
small a minority). An additional observation and a suggestion:
-- Part of my non-IETF life/history permits me to claim some
expertise in survey design and avoiding or compensating for
various threats to validity, including some of those to which
Dave referred. But I won't touch the sort of stuff you are
wanting to ask about -- it is just too sensitive, too
subjective, too tied up with national laws, and so on for a
rather long list. Yoav and Ted have identified some of the
reasons, as have others.
-- If you are going to do something like this, I suggest that
you include an option on the registration form that, if checked,
will branch the registrant off to a separate survey that would
be appropriately anonymized (be sure you can explain the
method(s) you use to do that to this sometimes-suspicious
community). If one cannot easily get to the survey without
registering, the IETF and the results are protected from several
varieties of nonsense. You will lose a few people who might
have participated in an inline survey, but will pick up some who
would be reluctant to answer the same questions if they were
integral to the registration documents. You may also get
better/more reliable answers to possibly-sensitive questions, at
least if the questions themselves are well-designed.
best,
john