Subject: Re: [Diversity] Value and respect

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2016 13:08:37 -0700

Hi John,

[changed to [email-masked]]

At 16:59 11-06-2016, John Leslie wrote:
>    Keep in mind that for many, English isn't their first language.
>
>    "Discussion" being "completely OK" doesn't adequately hint that
>particular expressions of a personal opinion are NOT OK.

A person who can read a message in English without difficulty does 
not necessarily understand everything which has been written the same 
way as a person from the same country as the author of the message would.

The second point of the text quoted above could be classified under 
freedom of speech.  Is it okay to make an argument if that argument 
would be viewed as offensive?  If a person  provides a hint about 
what not to say, it may happen that a person who does not usually 
speak English  will not understand the hint.  If a person clearly 
explains what should not be said, it will be described as censorship.

Sometimes, it is useful to have a discussion to identify the 
issues.  Having a lengthy open-ended discussion on [email-masked] 
about sensitive topics is not a good idea.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: "Livingood, Jason" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2016 17:53:13 +0000

On 6/12/16, 4:08 PM, "diversity on behalf of S Moonesamy"
<[email-masked] on behalf of [email-masked]> wrote:

>speak English  will not understand the hint.

Good point. It often takes quite a lot of cultural and language context to
even understand a hint is being made, to say nothing of then discerning
what the hint was intended to mean.

But in any case, I really do hope we get to a point of understanding where
it is okay for IETF participants to respectfully disagree with one
another, discuss issues openly and with mutual respect, and come to some
consensus. We know how hard that is on technical issues, and it is surely
just as hard (or harder) on the non-technical ones.

It also seems important to remind ourselves that someone¹s position on an
issue (technical or not) is usually not fixed and unchanging. Rather, it
can change based on new information, new perspective, learning,
experience, and debate & discussion. Part of what we should do (IMHO) is
continue to encourage that sort of open environment & culture at the IETF.

JL

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2016 18:06:42 -0700

Hi Jason,
>just as hard (or harder) on the non-technical ones.

Agreed.

>continue to encourage that sort of open environment & culture at the IETF.

Adding to the above, I find it useful in getting 
acceptance on how a decision will be taken.  It requires some effort.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2016 18:55:54 -0700

Hi Melinda,

[Cc changed to [email-masked] for focus]

At 13:21 10-06-2016, Melinda Shore wrote:
>I do think that we could probably benefit from being
>a little more rigorous about what it means to be an
>organization in which the primary consideration for
>participation is the ability to make technical contributions.
>To the extent that there are conditions that exclude
>people (or make it more difficult for them) on the basis
>of matters unrelated to technical chops, we fall short
>of the goal of being both open and meritocratic.

The above mentions "ability to make technical contributions".  The 
wording might be unclear to a person who is trying to understand how 
the organization works.  One of the considerations is whether the 
participant can review [1] a technical proposal as the organization 
relies on those reviews for a technical proposal to be approved.

A person may be reluctant to comment on a public mailing list if 
he/she is unfamiliar with an environment which is excessively and 
unreasonably critical, especially of small faults.  Without feedback, 
it is not possible for the person to determine whether his/her 
comment was considered as useful.

The origins or the word "meritocracy" is from a satire published in 
1958 [2].  The conditions that exclude a person on the basis of 
matters unrelated to the person's IETF work raises questions about 
one of the goals [3] of the IETF.

I'll quote [3] an email from 2012: "One of the great aspects of the 
IETF's openness is that anyone can participate for the cost of an 
Internet connection".  I could have made that argument in response to 
the issue which was raised [5].  I would be ignoring the issue by doing that.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

1. The word "review" can also be unclear.
2. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment
3. openness and fairness
4. https://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg75940.html
5. http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg98135.html

---

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2016 18:39:33 -0800

> the issue which was raised [5].  I would be ignoring the issue by doing

I'm unclear on the relevance of *any* of this to the points I
raised.  But I'll tell you one thing for sure:  I am disturbed
by the extent to which we're an organization in which someone
can participate meaningfully while being remote when we're
talking about Singapore and the extent we're an organization
in which someone needs to attend meetings to build relationships
and move work forward the rest of the time.  Seriously, this
needs to stop.

Be that as it may, my point remains unaddressed by anything
you've written:  the extent to which we allow barriers to
participation by certain demographic groups to stand, we
are not open and we do not have our participants rise and
fall on the quality of their contributions alone.

Melinda

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2016 20:52:10 -0700

Hi Melinda,
>I'm unclear on the relevance of *any* of this to the points I

Ok.

>and move work forward the rest of the time.  Seriously, this

I am trying to understand the above.  I found two points:

   (a) someone can participate meaningfully while being remote

   (b) someone needs to attend meetings to build relationships
       and move work forward the rest of the time

I could not understand the "this needs to stop".  Is it the extent to 
which someone needs to attend meetings (please see (b)) which needs to stop?

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2016 06:09:03 -0400

On 6/15/2016 10:39 PM, Melinda Shore wrote:
> I am disturbed

If we made that stop, what would things look like?  I think we do not 
have a detailed, shared description of the alternative environment that 
would exist.  Most folk probably have their own sense of what it might 
be, but we're missing s shared specification.

Similarly, how to we get there?  What steps do we need to take, to move 
to this better environment?

d/

-- 

   Dave Crocker
   Brandenburg InternetWorking
   bbiw.net

---

From: Spencer Dawkins at IETF <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2016 08:46:17 -0500

Hi, Dave,

On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 5:09 AM, Dave Crocker <[email-masked]> wrote:

> If we made that stop, what would things look like?  I think we do not have
> a detailed, shared description of the alternative environment that would
> exist.  Most folk probably have their own sense of what it might be, but
> we're missing s shared specification.
>
> Similarly, how to we get there?  What steps do we need to take, to move to
> this better environment?

I'm not the Melinda Whisperer, but I thought Melinda meant inconsistency
between discussions about whether being in Singapore in person is critical,
versus discussions about whether being at any meeting in general in person
is critical.

But she can correct me if I misthought.

Spencer

---

From: "Adrian Farrel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2016 15:01:30 +0100

I think Spencer caught it right (but I am also not the Mouthpiece of Melinda :-)
 
However, my reading is that this is not black and white. Nothing we do is "critical", "vital", or in any other way "necessary".  There are just shades of desirable and beneficial. There are trade-offs, and missing one meeting (for whatever reason - enforced, imposed, chosen,... ) is less likely to have an impact than never attending.
 
I think SM is actually in a really good position to talk to this precise point on attendance. He has been active in the IETF for a long time and has achieved stuff. Yet he is not often physically at IETF meetings. I'd like to hear his views, but my guess is: being there is nice, interesting, and helpful, but not being there does not prevent real work from being done.
 
Adrian
 
From: diversity [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Spencer Dawkins at IETF
Sent: 16 June 2016 14:46
To: Dave Crocker
Cc: [email-masked]; Melinda Shore
Subject: Re: [Diversity] Moving to meeting attendance NOT required (was: Re: Consideration for participation)
 
Hi, Dave,

If we made that stop, what would things look like?  I think we do not have a detailed, shared description of the alternative environment that would exist.  Most folk probably have their own sense of what it might be, but we're missing s shared specification.

Similarly, how to we get there?  What steps do we need to take, to move to this better environment?
 
I'm not the Melinda Whisperer, but I thought Melinda meant inconsistency between discussions about whether being in Singapore in person is critical, versus discussions about whether being at any meeting in general in person is critical.

Spencer

---

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2016 08:55:51 -0800

> I think Spencer caught it right (but I am also not the Mouthpiece of

Yes, you're both correct.

> However, my reading is that this is not black and white. Nothing we do
> is "critical", "vital", or in any other way "necessary".  There are just
> shades of desirable and beneficial. There are trade-offs, and missing
> one meeting (for whatever reason - enforced, imposed, chosen,... ) is
> less likely to have an impact than never attending.

To be clear, as I've said again and again and again and again,
I think we've come to overemphasize meetings and it's a
contributing factor to slowed pace of work, narrower participant
base than we might have, and so on.  I also think this is in
large part due to some chairing decisions and one of the things
on my to-do list over the next few weeks is to get out a draft
describing things that can be done by chairs to de-emphasize
meetings in our work process.  I'll note that I've also missed
a lot of meetings, myself.

That said, my concern here is that people during discussions
about virtualizing meetings or reducing their number, we get
a lot of people saying meetings meetings meetings meetings
meetings meetings, but when a problem comes up that makes
it difficult for people with some demographic characteristics
to participate and that it might require the organization to
actually do something, suddenly it's "meetings, whatever -
you don't really need to be there."  I certainly don't think
it's intentional and I certainly don't think it's the result
of any animus, but it does reflect some of the difficulty
around this issue.

Melinda

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2016 09:59:03 -0700

Hi Adrian, Spencer,
At 07:01 16-06-2016, Adrian Farrel wrote:
>I think SM is actually in a really good position to talk to this 
>precise point on attendance. He has been active in the IETF for a 
>long time and has achieved stuff. Yet he is not often physically at 
>IETF meetings. I'd like to hear his views, but my guess is: being 
>there is nice, interesting, and helpful, but not being there does 
>not prevent real work from being done.

The simple answer to that being there is nice, interesting, and helpful.

I have served as Working Group Secretary, Document Shepherd, Working 
Group Chair, Team Lead of a Directorate, and Document Editor.  I am 
also a RFC Author.  Some of the considerations for being there are to 
avoid internet connectivity issues, time zone difference, or if the 
person is expected to be there.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: Abdussalam Baryun <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2016 13:20:48 +0200

Hi S. Moonesamy,

I did not understand some lines in both conversation, and sorry if it is
long email,

I think I understood the issue raised, that a participant with low
technical contribution should not be equally considered as a participant
with high quality, or what is argued is when we decide to go to a city (ex.
singapore or paris, etc.) if few high quality contributors cannot meet then
we should change, or when we decide to go to a city with majority agreeing
but that majority are low quality contributors, then we should not go to
that city. In my opinion, we should not stop equality and openess, because
what makes any smart or stupid contribution with value is that all
participants/users/people can read/understand it.
For Example, Native English speakers may think that they are best
contributors but they are wrong, because people chosen the language to be
used with no smart reason. Another Example, many new technology seem smart
in the beginning but in the future, it can be the opposite , however, what
makes it smart is the users/customers that paid for such stupid technology,
because users had less organisation contribution but they are the most
financial contribution.

I like a great statement written: If you are the smartest person in the
room then you are in the wrong room. So it is best to be open in the world
without rooms, so joining with equality can be best development strategy.
In my opinion, the smartest non-profit-organization when deciding for
meeting-issues needs to consider equally all participants and users without
looking into evaluating work contributions or into evaluating financial
contributions, or into evaluating benefits, or etc.

AB

On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 5:52 AM, S Moonesamy <[email-masked]> wrote:

> _______________________________________________
> diversity mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/diversity
>

---

From: Abdussalam Baryun <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2016 13:31:45 +0200

There is no doubt that being in meetings is critical for the organisation.
Meetings is very important, so choosing the venue is important as well. The
issue is who are attending the meeting (new users, new place, et.) can make
it more important.

AB

On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 3:46 PM, Spencer Dawkins at IETF <
[email-masked]> wrote:

>> would exist.  Most folk probably have their own sense of what it might be,
>> but we're missing s shared specification.
>>

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2016 06:25:38 -0700

Hi Abdussalam,
At 04:20 19-06-2016, Abdussalam Baryun wrote:
>I did not understand some lines in both conversation, and sorry if 
>it is long email,

There is a message from Spencer Dawkins at 
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/diversity/current/msg00808.html 
The last part of that message might explain the discussions.

>technical contribution should not be equally considered as a 
>participant with high quality, or what is argued is when we decide 
>to go to a city (ex. singapore or paris, etc.) if few high quality
>contributors cannot meet then we should change, or when we decide to 
>go to a city with majority agreeing but that majority are low 
>quality contributors, then we should not go to that city. In my 
>opinion, we should not stop equality and openess, because what makes

My comment was about whether it would be appropriate of me to tell a 
person who cannot attend a meeting because he/she would not be 
treated the same as some other group of persons that he/she can 
participate remotely.  I do not believe that it is appropriate.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: Abdussalam Baryun <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2016 16:36:36 +0200

Hi S. Moonesamy,

I think no one should tell any to be remote or present, it is the decision
of the participant to find what is best. However, the organisation needs to
do their best to treat both remote and attended participants the same. They
are not the same in their advantages and disadvantages but still both are
needed by the organisation but I don't believe that there is a problem if
most often attendees become remote participants once a year. Overall, IMHO
it is normal that many cannot attend IETF meetings while their are reasons,
but what is not normal that few attendees cannot become remote participants
once a year while the remote-facilities are available.

AB

On Sun, Jun 19, 2016 at 3:25 PM, S Moonesamy <[email-masked]> wrote:

> http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/diversity/current/msg00808.html The
> last part of that message might explain the discussions.
>
>> singapore or paris, etc.) if few high quality
>> contributors cannot meet then we should change, or when we decide to go
>> to a city with majority agreeing but that majority are low quality
>> contributors, then we should not go to that city. In my opinion, we should
>> not stop equality and openess, because what makes
>>
>
> person who cannot attend a meeting because he/she would not be treated the
> same as some other group of persons that he/she can participate remotely.
> I do not believe that it is appropriate.
>
> Regards,
> S. Moonesamy
>
>