On 04/29/2013 07:53 AM, Margaret Wasserman wrote:
> Hi Tom,
>
> On Apr 19, 2013, at 6:03 AM, t.p. <daedulus(_at_)btconnect(_dot_)com> wrote:
>> If we required the IETF to reflect the diversity of people who
>> are, e.g., IT network professionals, then the IETF would fall apart
>> for lack of ability.
> […]
>> If the ADs of the IETF have to represent the diversity of the world
>> - which could in extremes..
>
> Has anyone even suggested that IESG should reflect the diversity of
> these groups? Where is this coming from? You are putting up
> strawmen, so that you can tear them down…
>
> The question that people are asking is why the diversity of the IETF
> leadership doesn't reflect the diversity of _the IETF_.
>
> There is no inherent reason why 40+-year-old, white, western males
> who work at large networking equipment vendors are inherently more
> capable of serving on the IESG than people from other groups within
> the IETF, and there would be _considerable internal benefit_ to
> having an IESG that was more diverse, because diverse groups make
> better decisions and better represent the needs of the whole
> organization. Therefore, if there is something about our culture,
> our structure, our selection process, or the way we run our meetings
> that is causing us to predominantly select our leadership from a
> restricted group, we would have _more capable_ and _better_
> leadership if we could find a way to broaden that pool.
It seems like everybody in the IETF is already in that pool. After all,
any participant can self-nominate for an AD position; how can the pool
get any bigger?
>
> _That_ is what this discussion is about.
Really? It appeared to me that the discussion arose because some people
were unhappy about the makeup of the IESG, not the selection pool.
However, if what you're saying is true, that's great: since the
selection pool is already universally inclusive, problem solved & we can
turn our seemingly limitless capacity for bickering to other purposes ;-) .
This is not an effort to meet some externally imposed notion of
> diversity.
>
> Margaret
>
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