--On Monday, April 29, 2013 09:46 -0700 Dave Crocker
<dhc(_at_)dcrocker(_dot_)net> wrote:
On 4/29/2013 9:38 AM, John C Klensin wrote:
First, our having these
discussions have, I believe, already increased sensitivities
to the issues and maybe even how the community thinks about
it.
Actually, it probably hasn't.
It has raised awareness that there are people who are
sensitive to the topic. It probably has raised some people's
awareness that there are serious issues here and that the IETF
ought to pay attention to them (better).
I seriously doubt it has afforded many folk a sense of how to
behave differently, and how to evaluate community and
management choices in terms of diversity concerns.
I am trying (temporarily) to be more optimistic than that, but I
fear that you may be correct.
If so, we may be in big trouble and/or wasting our time by even
having this discussion. If raising awareness and sensitivity
isn't enough to get people to think about and make decisions
differently and the only criteria the community will accept for
either the existence of a problem or evidence that progress is
being made is hard, frequency-based, statistical (or statistical
analyses of experimental) data then,
-- we can quibble endlessly about what should be
measured and what the measurements mean and probably
will, and
-- we will never agree on quantitative criteria for
progress or adequate diversity because such criteria
will have the odor of preferential treatment and quotas
(whether they are or not).
And that applies not just to selections by the Nomcom but to all
of the selections that are affected by the "select people whom
you know and know can do the job" behavior that has been
discussed at length in another thread.
Let's not confuse activity with progress.
Indeed. Let's also try to avoid defining progress in a way that
makes even useful activity impossible. But, again, I fear you
are correct about all of this.
john