Subject: Re: [Diversity] Attracting people from emerging regions into the IETF

From: Steve Conte <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2013 00:47:37 +0000

SM,

I'm moving this back to the diversity thread where the active conversation
is taking place. I'm unsure why you changed the distribution to be outside
of the thread.  I note that you didn't include the full context of my
message when you changed the distribution.

I also don't feel that you answered my question. How does the mechanisms
of the ISOC Fellowship to the IETF affect the question of increasing the
diversity of the IETF?

Looking at your draft, you make several references to 'active
participation'. As I mentioned in my previous mail (which I'm reattaching
to capture the full context), active participation could mean many things:

- Author an RFC
- Contribute to discussions on mailing lists
- Review drafts
- Comment on Last Calls
- Serve as Jabber Scribe
- Contribute to WG minutes
- Serve as a WG Chair or AD

But in the scope of the fellowship, it could also include:

- Actively follow drafts and discussions to better understand your
network/application implementation
- Provide awareness to the IETF and encourage involvement
- Provide workshops on how to get involved in the IETF
- Help local communities better understand the value of Open Standards

No definition is any less worthy of the other, and almost all of them
contribute back to the IETF, either directly or indirectly. The goal of
the programme is to provide an opportunity for engineers from emerging and
developing economies to experience an IETF meeting and 'actively
participate' in the way that is suitable to both a newcomer to the IETF as
well as contribute to their local community's increased involvement in the
Open Standards development process.

Steve

--

This has been a very interesting thread and I'm certainly tracking this
discussion. I'd like to say +1 to many comments that have been made,
specifically by Lars, Vinayak, and Adiel.

One of the goals of the ISOC Fellowship to the IETF programme is to
increase IETF participation in emerging and developing economies, and thus
it contributes to increasing diversity within the IETF. ISOC also has and
supports other activities surrounding the increase of awareness and
participation in the IETF. The fellowship is just one component.

I would like to better understand how the implementation and operation of
this ISOC-driven programme speaks to the larger challenge question of
increasing diversity at IETF.

The diversity discussion at IETF is much broader than just bringing
engineers from developing and emerging economies. Given that, the
fellowship can contribute to addressing one aspect of the diversity
challenge.

One of the expectations of the fellowship programme is that the
participant bring back the work and importance of the IETF and share it
with their broader community. Whether it is individuals becoming directly
involved in the IETF process, a university professor changing their
curriculum in order to introduce the open standards development process to
their students, or an ISOC chapter holding a local workshop on how to get
involved, each has its own definition of 'success' as well as
'participation'.

However, at the end, the fellowship programme is just a component.
Although we do have the support and participation (both as selection
committee members as well as mentors) of some of the IETF community, it
remains an external programme with its own set of goals and motivations.

Steve

-----
Steve Conte
Internet Leadership Programme
The Internet Society
[email-masked]

On 10/2/13 8:36 AM, "S Moonesamy" <[email-masked]> wrote:

>Hi Steve,
>At 14:18 01-10-2013, Steve Conte wrote:
>>One of the goals of the ISOC Fellowship to the IETF programme is to
>>increase IETF participation in emerging and developing economies, and
>>thus
>>it contributes to increasing diversity within the IETF.  ISOC also has
>>and
>>supports other activities surrounding the increase of awareness and
>>participation in the IETF.  The fellowship is just one component.
>>
>>I would like to better understand how the implementation and operation of
>>this ISOC-driven programme speaks to the larger challenge question of
>>increasing diversity at IETF.
>
>There is a one-page overview of the IETF provided
>by the Internet Society [1].  According to the document:
>
>   "The IETF seeks broad participation.  The work
>of the IETF takes places online,
>    largely through email lists, reducing
>barriers to participation and maximizing
>    contributions from around the world.  IETF
>Working Groups (WGs) are organized
>    by topic into several areas (e.g. routing, transport, security,
>etc.)."
>
>The document then has a title about "mission and principles" which I'll
>quote:
>
>   "The mission of the IETF is make the Internet work better by producing
>high
>    quality, relevant technical documents that influence the way people
>design,
>    use, and manage the Internet."
>
>I read an article written by the Chair of the
>IETF.  I'll do some selective quoting of that article:
>
>   "The IETF can benefit of untapped potential and bring even more energy
>to
>    the work."
>
>   "We think of diversity as something that covers international
>participation,
>    different cultures, gender, age,
>organisational background, and so on. While
>    I am very proud of the IETF as a very international organisation 
>with
>    participants from 60 countries working on documents, for instance 
>there
>    are many aspects of diversity where we could do much better.  Overall
>    participation is concentrated in some areas of the world, with little
>    participation from Africa and South America, for instance.  Similarly,
>    while the IETF has some very active female participants and leadership
>    members, the numbers are very small."
>
>   "The diversity team is a design team tasked with understanding the
>issues
>    we are facing, drawing in experience from other organizations
>affected by
>    similar issues, identifying obstacles to us having the widest breadth
>of
>    talented participants and leaders, and making practical
>recommendations
>    that could help us improve the situation."
>
>The Chair of the IETF asked for practical
>recommendations.  It is not for me to make
>recommendations.  I can only make suggestions
>(see 
>http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg82776.html
>).  If the IETF Area Directors believe that the
>suggestions are unpractical or useless they are welcome to ignore them.
>
>In my humble opinion the challenge of the IETF is
>to produce high quality, relevant technical
>documents.  The Chair of the IETF mentioned that
>there is very little participation from Africa
>and South America.  The main point raised during
>the discussions about the draft is on-going and
>active participation.  The question is what can
>be done in practice to improve on-going and
>active participation from, for example, Africa
>and South America without making it even more
>difficult for the IETF to produce high quality, relevant technical
>documents.
>
>I would like to see five Working Groups Chairs
>who are residing in South America within a few
>years.  They will have to earn the role based on
>merit and not because they are from South
>America.  They will have to work hard.  They will
>have to learn by themselves what John Klensin
>means when he says: The "I" in the IETF is not I.
>
>Regards,
>S. Moonesamy
>
>1. http://www.ietf.org/about/about-the-ietf-en.pdf
>

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 03 Oct 2013 02:44:47 -0700

Hi Steve,
>message when you changed the distribution.

I mentioned previously that the work on the draft is a volunteer 
effort and not a work-related effort.  I cannot afford to spend years 
on such efforts.  In my opinion the draft is ready for IETF Community 
input (I have to get back to Dave Crocker and make some changes).  I 
send it to the relevant mailing list and move on.

>of the ISOC Fellowship to the IETF affect the question of increasing the

That is an answer for the IETF Community to find.  I contacted the 
Chair of the ISOC Board of Trustees.  He responded quickly.  If my 
request was unrelated to the diversity of the IETF he would have told me so.

Here's a comment from Michael StJohns:

   "Who have you mentored in the past 5 years?  Have  they ended up as
    working group chairs, or ADs or IAB members?   Do they mostly represent
    under-represented groups?  How many of them were employed by your employer
    (e.g. was this a work related task?)?

    During your time as an AD, how many women did you arm twist/recruit
    specifically  (or ask nicely) to take WG positions in your area
    (as opposed to them coming to you or your co-AD)?"

My answers to those questions are at 
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg78939.html

As you have been helpful I can try to get you a formal reply (see 
question above) from the IETF.  Let me know if you would like me to 
look into that.

>- Serve as a WG Chair or AD

Dave Crocker suggested using "on-going active participation" as it 
may not be clear to the average reader what the IETF means by 
participation.  It has been pointed out to me that serving as Jabber 
Scribe is not considered as active participation.  Please note that I 
have volunteered as Jabber Scribe.  Contributing to WG minutes is not 
active participation.  Please note that I have taken WG minutes.  As 
an example I edited the minutes at 
http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/85/minutes/minutes-85-spfbis

The draft says:

   "Can be objectively said to have actively participated in IETF
    activities for more than six months, and subjectively, such that
    those contributions are considered useful."

>- Help local communities better understand the value of Open Standards

I see.  That explains why Lars Eggert has the impression that:

   "ISOC is focusing on bringing folks to the IETF who may become allies on
    the political layer - regulators, state-run telco people, government
    officials, etc."

   "But in terms of increasing IETF participation by engineers wanting to help
    build the Internet, the ISOC program may not be very effective. And that's
    fine, because it wasn't designed to be."

Now I understand why some IETF participants look down on people from 
emerging regions.  It does not bother me if some IETF participants 
look down on me.  It might prove to be quite entertaining. :-)

>Open Standards development process.

The above clarifies why Lars Eggert mentioned that the programme 
wasn't designed to be efficient.

I don't understand why people are commenting about open standards 
development process.  My reading of a message from Stephen Farrell is that

   "all the predicting the future stuff (how this'll make me/the world better)"

is not a good idea.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: "Eggert, Lars" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2013 16:19:38 +0000

Hi,

On Oct 3, 2013, at 2:44, S Moonesamy <[email-masked]> wrote:
> Now I understand why some IETF participants look down on people from emerging regions.  It does not bother me if some IETF participants look down on me.  It might prove to be quite entertaining. :-)

ahem. Just for the record: I don't look down on participants from emerging reasons.

I'm saying that some of the people ISOC brings in, they are brought in for other reasons than hoping they will start contributing to the technical IETF work. And that's fine.

> The above clarifies why Lars Eggert mentioned that the programme wasn't designed to be efficient.

Where did I say that?

Efficiency is related to how much effort one needs to spend to perform at a certain level for a certain metric.

What I'm saying is that at least part of ISOC's programs (thanks, Arturo, for clarifying that there are several) have a metric that is different from the one you seem to think should be primary. (Grooming potential allies for the political debate vs. grooming future technical IETF contributors.) And that is fine.

I'm not saying we shouldn't think about how we can attract more IETF contributors from emerging regions (or academia, or non-white-males, or beardless folks, etc.) All I'm saying is that there are different motivations to sponsor someone's attendance, and we need to be clear about that.

Lars

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 03 Oct 2013 09:51:18 -0700

Folks,

Please permit a small attempt to re-focus this thread away from some 
apparent controversy and towards a simpler, gentler view.  And as one 
who is entirely comfortable criticizing problematic activities, I'll 
stress that what follows isn't meant merely as polite form, but as a 
strong suggestion that there is no "problem" in the current situation, 
only opportunity for more and better...

      ISOC is a separate organization from the IETF.  We often forget 
that, because ISOC is so tightly integrated into the fabric of IETF 
activity.  However every now and again, we get examples of the fact that 
it is separate, which means that it can and does sometimes see a 
different picture of things than the IETF does.  In this case, different 
means broader, not conflicting.  These differences don't demonstrate 
anything bad or even problematic, but merely difference.  (For a 
discussion on diversity, we might want to consider the challenge of 
distinguishing 'difference' from 'problem' and how naturally we seem to 
get confused about it...)

      ISOC's Fellowship program is ISOC's program, started at run by 
ISOC, not the IETF, no matter how delighted we are with the existence of 
the program.  Again, it's easy to get confused about this, since its 
venue is the IETF.  From the description ISOC provides, it has several 
goals, one of which is to help get more diverse IETF participation.  I'd 
characterize the other goals as serving larger Internet benefits, beyond 
the IETF.  Again -- and yes, I think the repetition is needed -- not 
only is there nothing wrong with ISOC's effort here, there is only goodness.

      The IETF diversity effort and SM's draft have the narrower scope 
of increasing diversity in IETF participation.  Again, nothing 'bad' 
about that narrower scope; and again, only goodness:  it permits us to 
focus on a shared need for a broader base of participation.

So any changes that SM's draft might propose are not to fix a problem 
with the ISOC effort, but rather to build upon the excellent initiative 
they have taken, albeit build upon one particular aspect of that initiative.

In other words, there really is neither need nor basis for using any 
critical language about the current effort.   Let's just focus on 
augmenting what we've got.

d/
-- 
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 03 Oct 2013 11:06:54 -0700

Hi Lars,
>ahem. Just for the record: I don't look down on participants from 

I don't think that you look down on participants.

>I'm saying that some of the people ISOC brings in, they are brought 
>in for other reasons than hoping they will start contributing to the 
>technical IETF work. And that's fine.

It is better not to mention them in IETF diversity discussions if 
that is the case.

>Where did I say that?

http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/diversity/current/msg00374.html

>Efficiency is related to how much effort one needs to spend to 
>perform at a certain level for a certain metric.

Ok.

>What I'm saying is that at least part of ISOC's programs (thanks, 
>Arturo, for clarifying that there are several) have a metric that is 
>different from the one you seem to think should be primary. 
>(Grooming potential allies for the political debate vs. grooming 
>future technical IETF contributors.) And that is fine.

I am aware that there are several programmes.  The draft has 
references to the technical programme.  It is okay if I am told that 
it is a non-technical programme.

>I'm not saying we shouldn't think about how we can attract more IETF 
>contributors from emerging regions (or academia, or non-white-males, 
>or beardless folks, etc.) All I'm saying is that there are different 
>motivations to sponsor someone's attendance, and we need to be clear 
>about that.

Ok.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: "Eggert, Lars" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2013 18:22:39 +0000

Hi,

On Oct 3, 2013, at 11:06, S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
 wrote:
> It is better not to mention them in IETF diversity discussions if that is the case.

why not? They do (also) make the IETF more diverse, by bringing in different viewpoints and experiences, even if only for a few meetings and more indirectly than if they made actual engineering contributions.

> http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/diversity/current/msg00374.html

I'm sorry, but you wrote "Lars Eggert mentioned that the programme wasn't designed to be efficient". The email you point to has me say:

   But in terms of increasing IETF participation by engineers
   wanting to help build the Internet, the ISOC program may not
   be very effective. And that's fine, because it wasn't designed to be.

So let's not quibble about effective vs. efficient. But I was still careful to say that I believed the ISOC program was not designed to be effective ***in terms of increasing IETF participation by engineers wanting to help build the Internet***. It is (probably) much more effective in fulfilling the metric is *was* designed to target. That's a much more carefully qualified statement than your broad generalization/misrepresentation.

I think I'm going to stop responding to this thread now.

Lars

---

From: Alejandro Acosta <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 03 Oct 2013 14:22:17 -0430

Hi SM,
  Regardless of the other comments or threads I agree with Steve
suggestions and it worth to mention them in your draft, I would have
liked to read it when accepting my first ISOC fellowship :)

Thanks,

Alejandro,

On 03/10/13 05:14, S Moonesamy wrote:
> I mentioned previously that the work on the draft is a volunteer effort
> and not a work-related effort.  I cannot afford to spend years on such
> efforts.  In my opinion the draft is ready for IETF Community input (I
> have to get back to Dave Crocker and make some changes).  I send it to
> the relevant mailing list and move on.
> 
> That is an answer for the IETF Community to find.  I contacted the Chair
> of the ISOC Board of Trustees.  He responded quickly.  If my request was
> unrelated to the diversity of the IETF he would have told me so.
> 
> question above) from the IETF.  Let me know if you would like me to look
> into that.
> 
> Dave Crocker suggested using "on-going active participation" as it may
> not be clear to the average reader what the IETF means by
> active participation.  Please note that I have taken WG minutes.  As an
> example I edited the minutes at
> emerging regions.  It does not bother me if some IETF participants look
> down on me.  It might prove to be quite entertaining. :-)
> 
> _______________________________________________
> diversity mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/diversity