On Apr 15, 2013, at 6:50 AM, Ted Lemon <Ted(_dot_)Lemon(_at_)nominum(_dot_)com>
wrote:
On Apr 15, 2013, at 4:44 AM, t.p. <daedulus(_at_)btconnect(_dot_)com> wrote:
So perhaps, to reduce the bias, e.g. towards "western white", any system
of choosing should give preference to the views of those who do not
attend IETF meetings, for whom judgement is based solely on the
contributions the person in question is seen to make - via the mailing
lists - towards open standards and running code.
We could also all be assigned masks, vocoders and randomly-generated numbers
at the beginning of each IETF, and go around wearing burlap robes.
The problem with your solution is that at the moment it's actually pretty
hard to participate in IETF without going to meetings. It's a source of
some frustration to me that despite having basically invented the Internet,
the IETF still does business as if we were living in the pre-Internet era.
Three face-to-face meetings a year is a lot of carbon, and I think it also
creates barriers for participation that are only readily surpassed by people
who for whatever reason happen to have a great deal of advantage. The
degree of good fortune that allows me to participate in IETF as I do is
breathtaking in its improbability.
Dear Ted,
Well said. This speaks directly to what is limiting diversity, costs the
Internet should remedy. Although resources necessary to host meetings online
are substantial, they pale in comparison with physical presence requirements.
I would have preferred if more females were in my all male engineering classes.
Lowering cost should reduce average participant age which should offer better
gender/ethnic balance.
IMHO, diversity is more sensitive to a predominance of those wanting to
generate ad revenue with a preference for dancing fruit, at the expense of
security. This has introduced i-frames, pdf with javascript, java, and many
other types of unauthenticated active and proprietary content that remain major
security issues.
How can the IETF increase the preference for clean, simple, open, and secure
working code?
Perhaps registration forms could ask about roles as related to marketing,
engineering, management, or support. From this, perhaps needed outreach can be
better determined.
Regards,
Douglas Otis