Subject: [Diversity] draft-moonesamy-nomcom-chair-00 - Appointment of NomCom Chairs

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 09:40:40 -0800

Hello,

I posted a draft-moonesamy-nomcom-chair-00 [1] about the appointment 
of NomCom Chairs.  The document updates RFC 3777 by increasing the 
number of Chairs to two to ensure gender parity.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

1. http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-moonesamy-nomcom-chair-00

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 13:22:34 -0500

S Moonesamy <[email-masked]> wrote:
    > I posted a draft-moonesamy-nomcom-chair-00 [1] about the appointment of
    > NomCom Chairs.  The document updates RFC 3777 by increasing the number of
    > Chairs to two to ensure gender parity.

I agree 100%.

While people might thing that finding two co-chairs might be harder, being
able to spread the load across two people would make it easier.

-- 
Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>, Sandelman Software Works

---

From: Spencer Dawkins at IETF <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 16:51:08 -0600

I'm so confused about this that I can't even decide whether I'd support it
or not.

I am fine with the suggestion to have co-chairs, although I'd like to hear
discussion about the details.

I know Nomcoms vary from year to year, so might be different from the
Nomcom I was IAB liaison to, but what do Nomcom chairs do, that having a
gender-parity pair would change?

They aren't voting members, and the selection of voting members may be the
most public thing Nomcom does.

I know one of the amonymization vectors is via the chair, but can't imagine
the chair shading anonymous feedback at all, much less enough to affect the
outcome without other members being curious.

What am I missing?

Spencer

On Monday, November 11, 2013, Michael Richardson wrote:

>
> S Moonesamy <[email-masked] <javascript:;>> wrote:
> of
> Michael Richardson <[email-masked] <javascript:;>>, Sandelman
> Software Works
>
>
>

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 15:39:30 -0800

Hi Spencer,
At 14:51 11-11-2013, Spencer Dawkins at IETF wrote:
>I'm so confused about this that I can't even decide whether I'd 
>support it or not.
>
>I am fine with the suggestion to have co-chairs, although I'd like 
>to hear discussion about the details.

First of all, thanks to Michael Richardson and you for the feedback.

At the moment either a man or a woman is appointed as NomCom 
Chair.  The draft proposes appointing one man and one woman as NomCom 
Chairs.  Michael Richardson commented that it may reduce the 
workload.  I'll add that:

   (a) It is good to have a man and woman working together.

   (b) There will be a Chair who can assess whether there is gender bias.

It is left to the relevant body to grow people so that the is a 
(future) pool of candidates for the appointments.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: Klaas Wierenga <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 15:51:01 -0800

at the risk of coming across as a mysogenist (somehow that is always implied whenever one criticizes anything that has to do with gender), but isn't gender just one axes we'd like to get diversity on? I'm all for diversity, and I applaud the efforts of this group, but scoping it to gender is imo a big mistake. I can equally argue that having an American and an Asian work together, a gay and a heterosexual, a lower layers and an upper layers person etc. etc. 
Given that non-com chair is limited to one (or 2 in this proposal) persons I think it is hard to impose diversity on one axis, I'd rather propose that the composition of the whole noncom should include diversity criteria instead of just the chair. 

Klaas

Sent from my iPad

> On 11 nov. 2013, at 15:39, S Moonesamy <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Hi Spencer,
>> I'm so confused about this that I can't even decide whether I'd support it or not.
>> 
>> I am fine with the suggestion to have co-chairs, although I'd like to hear discussion about the details.
> 
> At the moment either a man or a woman is appointed as NomCom Chair.  The draft proposes appointing one man and one woman as NomCom Chairs.  Michael Richardson , commented that it may reduce the workload.  I'll add that:
> 
> It is left to the relevant body to grow people so that the is a (future) pool of candidates for the appointments.
> 
> Regards,
> S. Moonesamy  
> _______________________________________________
> diversity mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/diversity

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 18:41:42 -0800

Hi Klaas,
At 15:51 11-11-2013, Klaas Wierenga wrote:
>at the risk of coming across as a mysogenist (somehow that is always 
>implied whenever one criticizes anything that has to do with 
>gender), but isn't gender just one axes we'd like to get diversity 
>on? I'm all for diversity, and I applaud the efforts of this group, 
>but scoping it to gender is imo a big mistake. I can equally argue 
>that having an American and an Asian work together, a gay and a 
>heterosexual, a lower layers and an upper layers person etc. etc.
>Given that non-com chair is limited to one (or 2 in this proposal) 
>persons I think it is hard to impose diversity on one axis, I'd 
>rather propose that the composition of the whole noncom should 
>include diversity criteria instead of just the chair.

Please do not read anything in this message as a criticism of the above.

There isn't parity between the number or men and women attending an 
IETF meeting.  There has been comments that it is because of how 
things are in IT.  The draft does not try to solve that.  It does not 
get into the preferences of the person.  It does not get into where 
the person is from.  I agree that there are other axes.  I could 
describe the proposal as the lowest common denominator for gender parity.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 13:09:41 +0000

Hi SM,

FWIW, I don't see the benefit of this proposal, nor am
I sure its that practical - getting one nomcom chair is
afaik not easy, getting two would be harder.

S.

On 11/11/2013 05:40 PM, S Moonesamy wrote:
> NomCom Chairs.  The document updates RFC 3777 by increasing the number
> of Chairs to two to ensure gender parity.
> 
> Regards,
> S. Moonesamy
>

---

From: Spencer Dawkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 08:23:33 -0600

On 11/11/2013 5:39 PM, S Moonesamy wrote:
> At the moment either a man or a woman is appointed as NomCom Chair.  
> The draft proposes appointing one man and one woman as NomCom Chairs.  
> Michael Richardson commented that it may reduce the workload.  I'll 
> add that:
>

Yup.

>   (b) There will be a Chair who can assess whether there is gender bias.

So, keeping in mind that I'm not the interpreter of All Things Nomcom, 
as I read http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3777,

    9.  An advisor is responsible for such duties as specified by the
        invitation that resulted in the appointment.

        Advisors do not vote on the selection of candidates.

... Nomcoms have advisors, and in this text:

    10. The Chair of the prior year's nominating committee serves as an
        advisor to the current committee.

        The prior year's Chair is expected to review the actions and
        activities of the current Chair and to report any concerns or
        issues to the nominating committee Chair immediately.  If they
        can not resolve the issue between themselves, the prior year's
        Chair must report it according to the dispute resolution process
        stated elsewhere in this document.

        The prior year's Chair may select a designee from a pool composed
        of the voting volunteers of the prior year's committee and all
        prior Chairs if the Chair is unavailable.  If the prior year's
        Chair is unavailable or is unable or unwilling to make such a
        designation in a timely fashion, the Chair of the current year's
        committee may select a designee in consultation with the Internet
        Society President.

        Selecting a prior year's committee member as the designee permits
        the experience of the prior year's deliberations to be readily
        available to the current committee.  Selecting an earlier prior
        year Chair as the designee permits the experience of being a
        Chair as well as that Chair's committee deliberations to be
        readily available to the current committee.

        All references to "prior year's Chair" in this document refer to
        the person serving in that role, whether it is the actual prior
        year's Chair or a designee.

... the prior year's chair would be expected to notice problematic bias 
on any axis (including, but not limited to, gender bias), and raise this 
as an issue and in this text:

    8.  Only the prior year's Chair may request the recall of the current
        Chair.

        It is the responsibility of the prior year's Chair to ensure the
        current Chair completes the assigned tasks in a manner consistent
        with this document and in the best interests of the IETF
        community.

        Any member of the committee who has an issue or concern regarding
        the Chair should report it to the prior year's Chair immediately.
        The prior year's Chair is expected to report it to the Chair
        immediately.  If they can not resolve the issue between
        themselves, the prior year's Chair must report it according to
        the dispute resolution process stated elsewhere in this document.

... the prior year's Chair can even request the recall the current Chair if there's a problem.

If the prior year's Chair isn't enough of a watchdog, in this text:

    3.  The nominating committee comprises at least a Chair, 10 voting
        volunteers, 3 liaisons, and an advisor.

        Any committee member may propose the addition of an advisor to
        participate in some or all of the deliberations of the committee.
        The addition must be approved by the committee according to its
        established voting mechanism.  Advisors participate as
        individuals.

... any member can say "we're not paying any attention to diversity on 
some axis, and we should get (for example) one of the diversity team 
leads to advise us about that".

All this, without changes to RFC 3777, which are not quick or easy (and 
that may be for the best).

If there's a problem that the current Chair doesn't see, the prior 
year's Chair doesn't see, and the voting membership (chosen at random) 
doesn't see, and the liaisons to Nomcom from ISOC, IESG, IAB and IAOC 
don't see, we may have a bigger problem than unawareness of gender bias.

So, here's the thing. I can't know if any prior year Chair has had 
concerns with their current Chair, or whether they have discussed such 
concerns with their current Chair, and I don't even happen to know if 
any Nomcom has discussed inviting an additional advisor (for any 
reason), or invited one.  So I can't tell you there's never been a 
problem. Maybe it's possible to find out by asking past Chairs.

But even if there is a problem, you might consider reframing this as an 
Informational "advice to Nomcom" draft that doesn't update BCP 10 by 
changing the committee composition, and seeing what response you get. 
Perhaps a statement that the community expects Nomcom members to be 
aware of the concern and take appropriate action as already described in 
RFC 3777 would be sufficient, and would get consensus.

IMO, of course.

Spencer, as an individual, but also as the editor of RFCs 5078, 5633, 
and 5680, which updated BCP 10

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 10:09:45 -0500

I have been on three nomcoms.
Two were chaired by a man, and one by a women (this one).

I'm not claiming an exhaustive set of data points, but the styles have been
very different; this clearly is a 90% individual thing, rather than a gender
thing.  

HOWEVER: I think that having gender parity for the nomcom chair would change
the dynamic significantly.   I have been in other organizations where there
were always two co-chairs, and it did improve things.

There appears to be a pattern of alternating male/female on nomcom chair, but
I don't know if this is intentional or chance.

-- 
]               Never tell me the odds!                 | ipv6 mesh networks [ 
]   Michael Richardson, Sandelman Software Works        | network architect  [ 
]     [email-masked]  http://www.sandelman.ca/        |   ruby on rails    [

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 16:15:08 -0800

Hi Stephen, Spencer,
>afaik not easy, getting two would be harder.

I agree that getting two persons would be harder.

At 06:23 12-11-2013, Spencer Dawkins wrote:
>So, keeping in mind that I'm not the interpreter of All Things 
>Nomcom, as I read http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3777,
>
>... the prior year's chair would be expected to notice problematic 
>bias on any axis (including, but not limited to, gender bias), and 
>raise this as an issue and in this text:

Ok.

>... any member can say "we're not paying any attention to diversity 
>on some axis, and we should get (for example) one of the diversity 
>team leads to advise us about that".
>
>All this, without changes to RFC 3777, which are not quick or easy 
>(and that may be for the best).

There are various paths to get something done.  I did not select the easy path.

>year's Chair doesn't see, and the voting membership (chosen at 
>random) doesn't see, and the liaisons to Nomcom from ISOC, IESG, IAB 
>and IAOC don't see, we may have a bigger problem than unawareness of 
>gender bias.

Yes.

>concerns with their current Chair, or whether they have discussed 
>such concerns with their current Chair, and I don't even happen to 
>know if any Nomcom has discussed inviting an additional advisor (for 
>any reason), or invited one.  So I can't tell you there's never been 
>a problem. Maybe it's possible to find out by asking past Chairs.

I don't know either.  I prefer not to ask about whether there were 
any concerns as it might cause problems.  I am okay assuming that 
there weren't any concerns.

>But even if there is a problem, you might consider reframing this as 
>an Informational "advice to Nomcom" draft that doesn't update BCP 10 
>by changing the committee composition, and seeing what response you 
>get. Perhaps a statement that the community expects Nomcom members 
>to be aware of the concern and take appropriate action as already 
>described in RFC 3777 would be sufficient, and would get consensus.

I'll keep the above open as an alternative.

I'll provide some background about the draft.  Melinda Shore 
mentioned there wasn't much discussion on gender issues and pointed 
to the mailing list archive.  I personally agree with her conclusion.

What I like about the idea is that it is simple (on paper).  It is 
hard and it has never been tried.  I'll highlight a point from 
Michael Richardson:

   "Having gender parity for the nomcom chair would change the dynamic
    significantly"

It's the sort of practical action which creates positive and 
long-lasting effects.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy