subject:"Re\: IETF Diversity"

Re: IETF Diversity

2013-06-23 Thread Jorge Amodio

Yup he didn't apply the Y2K patch ... those missing bits ...

-Jorge

On Jun 23, 2013, at 7:27 AM, [email protected] (Noel Chiappa) wrote:

>> From: Randy Bush 
> 
>> there appears to be a problem with your mail system. mail which is
>> clearly from the 1950s is appearing on the ietf list.
> 
> You're right about it having fallen through a time warp - but you got the
> sign wrong. It's from the future, not the past.
> 
>Noel

Re: IETF Diversity

2013-06-23 Thread Phillip Hallam-Baker

On Sun, Jun 23, 2013 at 1:36 AM, Dan Harkins  wrote:

>
> On Tue, June 18, 2013 9:52 am, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
> > I am rather disappointed that there hasn't been any followup to the
> > diversity discussion that took place at the plenary.
> >
> > I do applications and I do security and so having a diverse range of
> input
> > is critical if the final product is going to be useful. There are no
> > gender
> > or cultural issues in packet routing that I am aware of. But once we get
> > to
> > the application layer they become central.
>
>   Interesting. Can you explain what it is about the application layer
> that introduces gender and cultural issues?

Internationalization is not an issue for IPv6 or you are doing it really
wrong. If you get to the apps layer it becomes very important.

The IP layer does not interface to people, the apps layer does.

  Internet stalking? Maybe you should call for a BoF to address the issue.
> I'm not sure what protocol can be developed, or modification to an existing
> protocol, that can address the stalking problem but I'm all ears!

The issue is not necessarily lets build a protocol to stop stalking.

Rather it is a question of having that context in mind when we are
discussing privacy issues. Right now the only contexts we seem to consider
privacy in are 'how does a dissident stop the government seeing what they
are talking about to others' and 'how do we stop a government catching said
dissident'.

Since the answers to both involve steganography, I don't see an open venue
as a useful place to engage in such work. But it gets raised as it is the
sort of threat men can relate to. Meanwhile rather more common threats that
we can deal with are ignored.

It is a matter of priorities.

> At the plenary I pointed out that there have been women involved in IETF
> > ever since I started in IETF over 20 years ago now. Yet we have an IAB
> and
> > an IESG with only one female member who is not ex-officio (according to
> > their Web sites)
>
>   Can you restate that as a problem? And also explain why it is a problem?

It demonstrates that the IETF diversity problem is not due to a lack of
qualified people. There are other factors at work.

> I do not think that gender is the only diversity problem in IETF but it is
> > one that can be measured and the IETF is conspicuously failing. We also
> > have a rather severe age problem, twenty years ago EKR and myself were
> > among the youngest participants in most discussions and setting aside the
> > grad students the same is usually true today.
>
>   Gosh. I feel so left out. I'm as old as EKR (and probably you) and have
> been
> involved in the IETF for about as long as he has yet you do not include me
> in
> your measure of diversity. Do you think that maybe you have a problem with
> measurement of the problem?

My point was that there cohort ten years younger than ourselves is very
thin. The cohort ten years younger than that mostly grad students who we
seem to be unable to persuade to continue participating after they hand in
their thesis.

-- 
Website: http://hallambaker.com/

Re: IETF Diversity

2013-06-23 Thread Noel Chiappa

> From: Randy Bush 

> there appears to be a problem with your mail system. mail which is
> clearly from the 1950s is appearing on the ietf list.

You're right about it having fallen through a time warp - but you got the
sign wrong. It's from the future, not the past.

Noel

Re: IETF Diversity

2013-06-23 Thread Randy Bush

there appears to be a problem with your mail system.  mail which is
clearly from the 1950s is appearing on the ietf list.  somehow it has
current dates, so something is header mashing.  you may need help with
your male system.

randy

Re: IETF Diversity

2013-06-22 Thread Dan Harkins

On Wed, June 19, 2013 9:25 am, Melinda Shore wrote:
> On 6/19/13 8:12 AM, Peter Saint-Andre wrote:
>> On 6/19/13 10:00 AM, Melinda Shore wrote:
>>> On 6/19/13 7:56 AM, Peter Saint-Andre wrote:
 Why do you believe that my opinions are unexamined? I have been
 thinking and reading about social, cultural, and personal change
 for a very long time.
>>>
>>> You made an assertion that's at least a little ahistorical,
>>
>> That depends on which historians you've been reading.
>
> Peter, it's a fact in the US and Canada that court cases preceded
> civil rights protections which preceded social change.  This has been
> true for racial minorities, women, glbt folk, etc.  I expect that
> there are historians who'd argue otherwise but allow me to suggest
> that if so they are very, very far out of the mainstream.

  Civil rights? A "whites only" lunch counter or drinking fountain is
a matter of civil rights. When there is active prohibition on a class
there is a matter of civil rights. But the mere fact that the numbers
are overwhelmingly one-sided does not make a civil rights issue.

  Between 1995 and 2008, 84% of the people killed by lighting strikes
were male. Is that evidence of discrimination? Is that a civil rights
issue? What do you propose to do to rectify that statistic?

  Dan.

Re: IETF Diversity

2013-06-22 Thread Dan Harkins

On Tue, June 18, 2013 9:52 am, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
> I am rather disappointed that there hasn't been any followup to the
> diversity discussion that took place at the plenary.
>
> I do applications and I do security and so having a diverse range of input
> is critical if the final product is going to be useful. There are no
> gender
> or cultural issues in packet routing that I am aware of. But once we get
> to
> the application layer they become central.

  Interesting. Can you explain what it is about the application layer
that introduces gender and cultural issues?

> We seem to have interminable discussions about how to help some
> hypothetical dissident in (pick your authoritarian state). But I can't
> remember the last time we discussed Internet stalking which has been an
> issue women have been complaining about since I started getting involved
> in
> IETF. This is just one security issues that has a big gender bias and it
> is
> a problem that I think can be usefully addressed in an open consensus
> seeking organization.

  Internet stalking? Maybe you should call for a BoF to address the issue.
I'm not sure what protocol can be developed, or modification to an existing
protocol, that can address the stalking problem but I'm all ears!

> It does not take 100 people to write a specification but it does take a
> large number of people to adequately gather requirements. Taking
> requirements from 100 people from almost the same background and
> perspective is not very productive. I am aware that I have a limited
> personal perspective which is why I actively seek out other perspectives.

  Some backgrounds and perspectives aren't all that helpful. Would you
like my liddite father's perspective? How about the brother of a friend
of mine who has been institutionalized and is quite insane? We need to
get requirements from people who understand and will use our protocols.
If those people are all the same background then oh well, but creating
"diversity" by just adding people of the correct background will not make
our standards better.

  Which says nothing about having more women in I* leadership positions.
That may be great. Or it might not be. It depends on whether the people
have clue or not.

  See, that's the thing. IETF needs people who have clue not people who
are members of some protected group that has been declared to be
underrepresented.

> At the plenary I pointed out that there have been women involved in IETF
> ever since I started in IETF over 20 years ago now. Yet we have an IAB and
> an IESG with only one female member who is not ex-officio (according to
> their Web sites)

  Can you restate that as a problem? And also explain why it is a problem?

> The IETF is a community known for valuing consensus rather than seeking
> diverse views. I see a real risk that the consensus being built here is a
> false consensus built by excluding opposing views rather than a real
> consensus built on reconciling them. Bringing opposing views to this forum
> is invariably a thankless task. The assumption is that if you can't hack
> it
> here well that is your fault and your problem. Case in point,  each time I
> get something wrong in RFC2HTML and I get the error message 'You Lose', my
> natural response is 'why the heck am I bothering wasting my time here'.

  An opposing view is one that thinks this whole diversity issue is crap.
Do you want to ensure that people who view the diversity issue as crap are
included in the consensus being built? How many people who are currently
on the diversity mailing list view the whole endeavor as crap? If it's zero
(which is my prediction), then isn't that a problem with the diversity of the
diversity group? Won't the output of that group suffer because they are
all of the same mindset?

> I do not think that gender is the only diversity problem in IETF but it is
> one that can be measured and the IETF is conspicuously failing. We also
> have a rather severe age problem, twenty years ago EKR and myself were
> among the youngest participants in most discussions and setting aside the
> grad students the same is usually true today.

  Gosh. I feel so left out. I'm as old as EKR (and probably you) and have
been
involved in the IETF for about as long as he has yet you do not include me in
your measure of diversity. Do you think that maybe you have a problem with
measurement of the problem?

> The perspective is going to need to change. Rather than looking for ways
> to
> encourage a few token women to work their way up through the existing
> selection regime we need to look at what sort of selection and
> participation and representation structures will encourage diversity.

  The IETF is a weird lot. We are predominantly "type A" personalities. There
are quite a few Asbergers cases and many more borderline functional
Asbergers cases. There are probably also quite a bit of people who have
OCD and maybe a mild case of Tourettes). So you have to explain how the

Re: IETF Diversity

2013-06-20 Thread Scott Brim

On Thu, Jun 20, 2013 at 3:12 AM, Noel Chiappa wrote:

> > From: Doug Barton 
>
> > their work has been ignored and/or shouted down since it doesn't fit
> > the narrative.
>
> The usual fate of those who care more about the data than the herd-meme of
> the
> moment. For a good example of this in action, those who are unfamiliar with
> the work of Barbara McClintock should try looking her up. (She actually
> stopped publishing because the reception given to her work was so
> negative.)
>

But she won huge praise in the end, which says something ultimately good
about the process of science, that it can overcome the shortcomings of its
practitioners.


> (In honour of the thread, I have carefully picked a female example. Is that
> being sensitive, or patronizing?


Yes.

Re: IETF Diversity

2013-06-20 Thread Noel Chiappa

> From: Doug Barton 

> their work has been ignored and/or shouted down since it doesn't fit
> the narrative.

The usual fate of those who care more about the data than the herd-meme of the
moment. For a good example of this in action, those who are unfamiliar with
the work of Barbara McClintock should try looking her up. (She actually
stopped publishing because the reception given to her work was so negative.)

(In honour of the thread, I have carefully picked a female example. Is that
being sensitive, or patronizing? Left as an exercise for the reader...)

Noel

Re: IETF Diversity

2013-06-19 Thread Doug Barton


On 06/19/2013 10:13 PM, Randy Presuhn wrote:

Hi -

It seems as though participants in this thread are operating
with different understandings of what constitutes "institutional
bias."  A critical difference is whether *intent* is necessary
for bias to exist.  As I understand it, institutional bias
can exist in the absence of ill intent, and can even be an
unintended consequence of efforts to *reduce* bias.


I would disagree with your definition, but that's a minor issue. I don't 
care if you want to call it a "barrier to entry," as you did later in 
your post, bias, or whatever other term is trendy atm. Personally, I 
have been explicitly addressing the issue of intent, which has rather 
strongly been hinted at, if not an accusation directly leveled.


Meanwhile, I personally have said explicitly that we can do better at 
removing the barriers to entry that unquestionably do exist, so one 
wonders what your point may be.


Most importantly however, the reason I think we need to focus more on 
positive actions around outreach and equal opportunity is that by 
focusing on "bias" we run the very real risk of making self-flagellation 
its own goal.


Doug (and its own reward)

Re: IETF Diversity

2013-06-19 Thread Randy Presuhn

Hi -

It seems as though participants in this thread are operating
with different understandings of what constitutes "institutional
bias."  A critical difference is whether *intent* is necessary
for bias to exist.  As I understand it, institutional bias
can exist in the absence of ill intent, and can even be an
unintended consequence of efforts to *reduce* bias.

If something about the way we do business makes it more difficult
for otherwise qualified individuals from some group to participate
at a given level, then we have to admit the possibility that
we have a case of institutional bias.  The available remedies
might be worse than the problem, but we shouldn't fool ourselves
into thinking that we're any better at this stuff than any other
well-meaning bunch of people, and we shouldn't pretend that
privilege doesn't exist, no matter how much that conflicts
with our self-image fantasy of being a meritocracy.  Embracing
an ideal does not mean ignoring reality.

For a hopefully non-controversial example, consider how excessively
idiomatic English, over-reliance on sports metaphors, and obscure
cultural references all serve as barriers to participation.
It doesn't matter whether I intend to exclude anyone through,
for example, my use of long sentences.  But if my long sentences
make it too much harder for others to participate, then I *am*
part of the problem, and need to think about how that effect might
be mitigated.

Randy

Re: IETF Diversity

2013-06-19 Thread Moriarty, Kathleen

Thanks, Medel.

I just wanted to clarify that my closing 'in this space' was intended for 
diversity improvements.  Getting more users, operators, and vendors involved 
will help.  Having diverse input will help us have better solutions come out of 
the WG.

Thanks,
Kathleen 


Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 20, 2013, at 11:42 AM, "GT RAMIREZ, Medel G."  
wrote:

> Kathleen,
> Thanks, well understood  indeed... I hear you.
> 
> Medel Ramirez
> Globe Telecom, Inc.
> Manila , Philippines.
> +++
> 
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
> Moriarty, Kathleen
> Sent: Thursday, June 20, 2013 12:11 AM
> To: Melinda Shore; Peter Saint-Andre
> Cc: [email protected]
> Subject: RE: IETF Diversity
> 
> A little earlier in the thread, ways to improve things came up.  I
> presented at an international conference in Bangkok this week on the
> subject area covered by MILE.  While the focus was intended to be more
> on how we can look at the problem space to make faster/more effective
> progress, standards will enable some of those activities.  The second
> half of the talk provided background on MILE, what we are trying to do
> and gave the audience a general challenge as well as had specific
> requests for help.  My last slide was on how to engage in the IETF.
> Outreach and helping people understand how they can be effective within
> the IETF may be useful for other WGs as well and could help improve
> diversity.  I had 2 requests following the talk to give the same
> presentation at other conferences and will likely do them to assist in
> this area as well as to make faster progress (and hopefully drive people
> to think about how to share information more effectively.  There are
> many opportunities for people to help in this space.  
> 
> Best regards,
> Kathleen
> 
> From: [email protected] [[email protected]] On Behalf Of Melinda
> Shore [[email protected]]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2013 12:00 PM
> To: Peter Saint-Andre
> Cc: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: IETF Diversity
> 
> On 6/19/13 7:56 AM, Peter Saint-Andre wrote:
>> Why do you believe that my opinions are unexamined? I have been 
>> thinking and reading about social, cultural, and personal change for a
> 
>> very long time.
> 
> You made an assertion that's at least a little ahistorical, you used it
> to support an argument against organizational change, and when I
> disagreed you went to the "Let's not talk about it" place.
> 
> Melinda
> 
> This e-mail message (including attachments, if any) is intended for the use 
> of the individual or the entity to whom it is addressed and may contain 
> information that is privileged, proprietary, confidential and exempt from 
> disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that any 
> dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly 
> prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify 
> the sender and delete this E-mail message immediately.
>

RE: IETF Diversity

2013-06-19 Thread GT RAMIREZ, Medel G.

Kathleen,
Thanks, well understood  indeed... I hear you.

Medel Ramirez
Globe Telecom, Inc.
Manila , Philippines.
+++

-Original Message-
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
Moriarty, Kathleen
Sent: Thursday, June 20, 2013 12:11 AM
To: Melinda Shore; Peter Saint-Andre
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: RE: IETF Diversity

A little earlier in the thread, ways to improve things came up.  I
presented at an international conference in Bangkok this week on the
subject area covered by MILE.  While the focus was intended to be more
on how we can look at the problem space to make faster/more effective
progress, standards will enable some of those activities.  The second
half of the talk provided background on MILE, what we are trying to do
and gave the audience a general challenge as well as had specific
requests for help.  My last slide was on how to engage in the IETF.
Outreach and helping people understand how they can be effective within
the IETF may be useful for other WGs as well and could help improve
diversity.  I had 2 requests following the talk to give the same
presentation at other conferences and will likely do them to assist in
this area as well as to make faster progress (and hopefully drive people
to think about how to share information more effectively.  There are
many opportunities for people to help in this space.  

Best regards,
Kathleen

From: [email protected] [[email protected]] On Behalf Of Melinda
Shore [[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2013 12:00 PM
To: Peter Saint-Andre
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: IETF Diversity

On 6/19/13 7:56 AM, Peter Saint-Andre wrote:
> Why do you believe that my opinions are unexamined? I have been 
> thinking and reading about social, cultural, and personal change for a

> very long time.

You made an assertion that's at least a little ahistorical, you used it
to support an argument against organizational change, and when I
disagreed you went to the "Let's not talk about it" place.

Melinda

This e-mail message (including attachments, if any) is intended for the use of 
the individual or the entity to whom it is addressed and may contain 
information that is privileged, proprietary, confidential and exempt from 
disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that any 
dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly 
prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the 
sender and delete this E-mail message immediately.

Re: IETF Diversity

2013-06-19 Thread Doug Barton


On 06/19/2013 05:09 PM, Pete Resnick wrote:

On 6/19/13 2:47 PM, Doug Barton wrote:

On 06/19/2013 11:31 AM, Melinda Shore wrote:

Even in fields in which the overwhelming majority of
practitioners, the majority of people in leadership or
management positions are men.


So again, it's not at all clear how that relates to the IETF (given
that we don't fall into the category of "the overwhelming majority of
practitioners [are women]."


I think the point was that if organizations that have a majority of
women in the ranks have trouble getting women into leadership roles
(where one would think, ceterus paribus, women would have an easier time
moving up as against other organizations), then an organization that has
a majority male population won't fare much better unless there's some
reason to believe it is interestingly different.


Yes, Pete, I understand what the point was supposed to be. The point *I* 
am making is that unless you have a solid understanding of the 2 
populations the comparison is not only at best meaningless, it is almost 
certainly actively harmful because it leads to a short-circuit of the 
very path to understanding that is required to actually address the 
problem. I could count all of the unfounded assumptions you're making 
just in the paragraph above for you, but you're a smart guy, I'm sure 
you can take that on as a side project if you're interested.



Institutional biases in organizations are not uncommon. We almost
certainly have *some* brand of it here, whether it's Americo-centrism
(cf. SM's comments about Selma and Dan's comments about baseball),


So again, there is absolutely zero evidence that those kinds of comments 
are a form of institutional bias. The fact that people use cultural 
references that they are familiar with IS evidence that they are human, 
but you cannot extrapolate from Ted's comment (directed at Melinda who 
Ted had a reasonable belief would be familiar with it) that Ted is de 
facto biased against non-Americans. In fact, one of the things I enjoy 
about working in the I* realm is being exposed to other cultures, and 
learning a bit about their culture, idioms, humor, etc. And $DEITY 
forbid we actually achieve some of that diversity stuff, how are you 
going to react to even MORE people bringing their own cultural 
experience to bear in the IETF?!? The nerve of them!



or
one of gender. I'd be (happily) shocked if there were some reason to
believe that we're different than other organizations when it comes to
gender,


For the Nth time now, let me be clear that I do not think we have zero 
problems in this area. But "we can improve" is different from "we have a 
widespread and deep-seated problem with institutional bias." More about 
the importance of the distinction below.



but I haven't seen much to convince me we're all that different.


... remember what you said to me about anecdotes vs. data? :)


Certainly we should look for evidence of the existence and nature of any
biases that exist in our institutional practices, but given how
prevalent such biases are elsewhere, I'm not uncomfortable presuming
prima facia that we do have some and doing some things that might
(again, surprisingly to me) turn out unnecessary.


I find this perspective highly disturbing, and potentially very dangerous.


I look at women like Leslie Daigle, Allison Mankin, Margaret
Wasserman, Lynn St. Amour, Joyce Reynolds ... those are just off the
top of my head; certainly not my intention to slight anyone ... all of
whom have now, or have had significant leadership roles, and made
lasting impacts on the IETF both in its work product and culture.


As the saying goes, the plural of "anecdote" is not "data", but it might
be interesting to discuss with each of the people you noted their
experiences getting into leadership and their experiences in it.


Assuming they (and other similar folks) are willing, I agree. Just to be 
clear, I was not volunteering anyone for anything. :)



Can we (and should we) do better? Absolutely. I would love to see more
participation by different groups, nationalities, genders, etc. And I
have a vested interest here. I have a daughter who is smart as a whip,
and when it comes time for her to find a job I want to be sure that
every door is open to her.


Agree wholeheartedly.


But I also think it's possible for us to agree that we have room to
improve without constantly banging the drum that we have a deep-seated
institutional bias, especially when that point is far from proven.


Even if such a bias does not exist, it can come across a bit
self-serving to complain about the banging drum.


Agreed, which is why I have waited so long to speak up.


So someone has said
there is an institutional bias against the (minority and not in
leadership) group they are in and for the (majority and in leadership)
group you are in... No use in getting insulted or complaining about the
words used to express that perception.


Well I'm sorry to say, I

Re: IETF Diversity vs. White Male ??

2013-06-19 Thread Fred Baker (fred)

On Jun 19, 2013, at 3:57 PM, Aaron Yi DING wrote:

> Well, if the dominant ones later being replaced by other groups, do we need
> to revamp again? What will be the end?

I'm told that white babies are now a minority of the population in the US.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2341066/Whites-soon-minority-American-children-age-5.html

It's all about political correctness. It is not politically correct to comment
on women unless you are one and hate men. It is not politically correct to
comment on whatever-they're-called-this-week, black, negro, afro-americans, or
whatever. It is not politically correct to comment on hispanics, or to note
that they are not a race; they might be a culture, but for the most part they
are people who grew up outside spain but speak - or whose parents speak - some
derivative of spanish as a native language. Or Asians, for that matter. But it
is absolutely politically correct to make racist and sexist remarks - the same
remarks that would draw outrage and umbrage if made about any of a list of
other groups - about people who happen to be caucasian and male.

A conversation from the 1993 movie Gettysburg comes to mind.

Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain: Tell me something, Buster... What do you
think of Negroes?
Sergeant 'Buster' Kilrain: Well, if you mean the race, I don't really know.
This is not a thing to be ashamed of. The thing is, you cannot judge a race.
Any man who judges by the group is a pea-wit. You take men one at a time.

I would replace "man" or "men" with "person" or "people" in the observation,
and would agree with it. There are a lot of pea-wits in the world. Some of them
are white males. Many are not.

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