gmane.ietf.general

Re: Re: IETF Diversity

Warren Kumari — 2013-06-19T21:19:30

On Jun 19, 2013, at 2:35 PM, Dave Crocker <dhc< at >dcrocker.net> wrote:


Nah, I'm better than everyone else, because I don't suffer from the Dunning–Kruger effect.


Indeed.

W

Re: Is the IETF is an international organization? (was: IETFDiversity)

Douglas Otis — 2013-06-19T21:18:33

On Jun 19, 2013, at 12:07 PM, SM <sm< at >resistor.net> wrote:


Dear SM,

Are new ideas embraced without any prior geographic endorsement? While this seems to be the case, organizations with greater resources, often from various regions, will steer development.  

There be dragons empathizing about motivations to understand declared rules, stated justifications, or even what censuses really means.  Even with the best of intentions, it is very difficult to have meaningful discussions about motivations . 

In respect to privacy, organizations both sell and purchase profile information containing individual preferences and contact information.  There are also organizations that attempt offer selective relationships, often via a social network.  In deciding what is important to protect, the identity of those initiating transactions, or those receiving them are at odds. 

Even a statement females are more sensitive about security than men in respect to technology in the home can be viewed as either a real insight or

Re: IETF, ICANN and non-standards

John R. Levine — 2013-06-19T21:14:42

I'd do it if there were other interest.

Regards,
John Levine, johnl< at >iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. http://jl.ly

Re: Re: IETF,ICANN and Whois (Was Re: Last Call: (The Internet Numbers Registry System) to Informational RFC)

Warren Kumari — 2013-06-19T21:14:31

On Jun 19, 2013, at 4:29 PM, Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpenter< at >gmail.com> wrote:


+ lots.

If these are not developed in the IETF, we run the risk of ICANN doing technical stuff.

As someone whose time is now[0] split between ICANN and IETF, I can tell you something -- you[1] *really* don't want ICANN developing technical standard.


Yup. This message needs to be properly communicated though -- Suzanne Woolf has been attempting (and being fairly effective) to do so.

W
[0]: I, along with some other IETF folk, serve on the SSAC under Patrik. 
[1]: You in the general sense, not you as in Brian or Patrik -- although I'm guessing you don't either. Are you confused yet with which you you are?


--
She'd even given herself a middle initial - X - which stood for "someone who has a cool and exciting middle name".

    -- (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

Re: Re: IETF, ICANN and non-standards

Joe Abley — 2013-06-19T21:14:13

On 2013-06-19, at 17:03, Warren Kumari <warren< at >kumari.net> wrote:


This is also something we could dedicate ICANN staff time to.


Joe

Re: Re: IETF, ICANN and non-standards

Warren Kumari — 2013-06-19T21:03:55

On Jun 19, 2013, at 3:43 PM, "John Levine" <johnl< at >taugh.com> wrote:


I realize you were asking a larger question, but..

If we do, I volunteer to help collect, review, clean up, check and push them along.

W


--
"Working the ICANN process is like being nibbled to death by ducks,
it takes forever, it doesn't make sense, and in the end we're still dead in the water." 
    -- Tom Galvin, VeriSign's vice president for government relations.

Re: Is the IETF is an international organization?

Melinda Shore — 2013-06-19T20:52:10

Binational.  Thanks for asking.

Melinda

Re: Last Call:(ResourceRecordsfor EUI-48 and EUI-64 Addresses in the DNS) to ProposedStandard

Randy Bush — 2013-06-19T20:45:33

the recent changes resolved my issue.  thanks joe and joel.

randy

Re: IETF, ICANN and non-standards

Ted Lemon — 2013-06-19T20:42:44

The only way that something like this can happen is for some current or future IETF participants to do it.   "The IETF" doesn't spin up working groups.   IETF participants do.

Re: Is the IETF is an international organization? (was: IETFDiversity)

Ted Lemon — 2013-06-19T20:40:47

Sorry.   That was directed largely at Melinda who is, to the best of my understanding, an American.   The point was that in fact the civil rights movement started with individuals, not the government.

Re: IETF,ICANN and Whois (Was Re: Last Call: (The Internet Numbers Registry System) to Informational RFC)

Brian E Carpenter — 2013-06-19T20:29:12

A pre-condition for that is that technical and operational problem statements
are formulated, which could be sent to appropriate WGs or used to justify
a BOF. If ICANN could focus on that instead of solutionism or committeeism,
progress should be possible.

    Brian

Re: IETF Diversity

Aaron Yi DING — 2013-06-19T20:24:41


That sounds similar to "new bottles but still filled with the old type 
wine" - long lasting old Chinese saying :)

Personally speaking, mentoring is a viable one to start with, although 
some colleagues told me it has been here for quite a while.. Anyway, as 
we still got several unsolved questions, such as what Doug mentioned,  
"until we understand what WE are dealing with (as opposed to what other 
organizations are dealing with) we're not going to make any actual 
progress.", unless our community come up with better ones soon 
addressing those, diversity won't make to IETF in a couple months.

Thanks for Brian and folks taking their time to setup the whole thing.

Re: IETF Diversity

Doug Barton — 2013-06-19T20:08:12

Of course, but we have to be sure that the problems really are similar 
first.


Yeah, but so what? That's like saying that avocados and oranges are more 
similar than avocados and rocks. But if I want to make guacamole I 
better be able to differentiate the different kinds of fruit.

I'm not trying to be pedantic for its own sake here. It is genuinely 
important to understand the population you are working with if you're 
going to address social issues. Concepts (and more importantly 
solutions) that are relevant for one group may very well not be 
applicable to another group because the populations differ in subtle but 
important ways.

Doug

Re: IETF Diversity

Yoav Nir — 2013-06-19T19:56:32

On Jun 19, 2013, at 6:26 PM, Brian Haberman <brian< at >innovationslab.net> wrote:


This may be helpful in getting first-time attendees to stay on with the IETF. That is a laudable goal in itself, but I'm not sure if it will help diversity. Just bringing in new white male employees of US router companies will not increase diversity. It might work if the pool of newcomers is considerably more diverse than the pool of veterans, but having been in the last two meet-and-greets, I see a lot of the same, except that the newcomer group has more people from China. I see few women, hardly any Africans (from Africa or the US), and not a lot of company names I recognize as operators.

So unless we find a way to get a more diverse group to the meetings, such a mentoring program will only help us get some new blood - same as the old blood, but new.

Re: IETF Diversity

Peter Saint-Andre — 2013-06-19T19:47:52

Very well said.

Peter

Re: IETF Diversity

Doug Barton — 2013-06-19T19:47:32

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]."

To be clear, I'm not trying to be critical of your point, I'm simply 
asking you to compare apples to apples.


Yes, you've made the point rather amply that you think there is an 
institutional problem with lack of women in leadership roles _in the 
IETF_. My experience has been considerably different however, and as a 
result I find it hard to accept your premise unconditionally. At this 
moment in time I think it's correct to say that women are 
underrepresented, but I don't think it's proven yet that this represents 
any kind of institutional bias.

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

Re: IETF, ICANN and non-standards

John Levine — 2013-06-19T19:43:38

As a concrete example, the EPP systems used in production by TLD
registries use extensions that are documented only in I-Ds, often
expired I-Ds, or in dusty I-D like web documents.  If you look at the
applications for new TLDs on the ICANN web site at
https://gtldresult.icann.org/application-result/applicationstatus you
will find that nearly all of them plan to use EPP extensions not
described in an RFC.  Most of these extensions should be utterly
uncontroversial, e.g., one to synchronize renewal dates among multiple
domains, or another to tell a client that its credit balance has
dropped below a threshold.

Assuming we care about stability and interoperability, wouldn't it
make sense for the IETF to spin up a WG, collect these drafts, clean
up the language, make sure they agree with the widely implemented
reality, and publish them?

R's,
John

Re: IETF Diversity

Doug Barton — 2013-06-19T19:27:50

I thought I made it clear that I'm not saying, "there is no problem." I 
am only saying that pointing to other, unrelated situations and saying 
"They seem to have a problem, so we must have a problem" is a waste of 
everyone's time.

The more interesting questions are whether or not the current makeup of 
the IETF leadership is reflective of the population (nee "membership") 
of the IETF as a whole; and whether or not the IETF population reflects 
the larger population of the tech community it draws from. Those are 
problems that outreach, mentorship, etc. can make concrete impacts on.

But until we understand what WE are dealing with (as opposed to what 
other organizations are dealing with) we're not going to make any actual 
progress.

Doug

Re: IETF Diversity

Yoav Nir — 2013-06-19T19:21:25

On Jun 19, 2013, at 10:12 PM, Doug Barton <dougb< at >dougbarton.us>
 wrote:

Looking at how similar problems were solved in other places could help us figure out how to solve such problems in the IETF.

And Academia is much more similar to the IETF than is the state of Alabama.

Yoav

RE: Is the IETF is an international organization? (was: IETFDiversity)

Romascanu, Dan (Dan — 2013-06-19T19:19:55

Well, this is a cultural thing :-) Some of our American colleagues cannot avoid using examples related to the American constitution, history or academy, forgetting that out-of-the-US interlocutors may not that familiar with them. Luckily, they did not mention any baseball rule in this discussions (yet) :-) 

Regards,

Dan

Re: Is the IETF is an international organization? (was: IETFDiversity)

Yoav Nir — 2013-06-19T19:18:35

On Jun 19, 2013, at 10:07 PM, SM <sm< at >resistor.net>
 wrote:


Yeah, and "act" is what Americans call statutes, and Selma is a city in Alabama where there was some controversy about voting rights. You sure need to know a lot of Americana to participate meaningfully in some of these discussions.