Subject: [hrpc] the diversity of contributions

From: Sandra Braman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 5 May 2021 09:32:12 -0500

As I've said before, all of my efforts to contribute to the development of
Internet drafts has been with the goal maximizing their utility and
efficacy, both within the IETF and beyond. Participants in the HRPC bring
different resources to it. I have nothing to offer on the technical side,
but do bring strengths in scholarship, social science and legal research,
and conceptualization and theorization.

Struggles with interdisciplinary matters have a long history within the
IETF. The first research done on users of the Internet, in the 1970s, was
designed by computer scientists and studied only computer science graduate
students. Ideally a multidisciplinary group such as the HRPC takes
advantage of the diverse strengths of those who are willing to spend the
time and effort to the analysis and conversation, but group cultures differ
and the goals of group participants -- what they are actually pursuing as
outcomes for themselves and others from what the group produces -- differ
as well.

I will be doing the research I've described on ways in which human rights
considerations have been discussed and used, on the genetic drift across
efforts in this domain, and on related matters. If anyone would like to see
the one or more publications that will result, let me know and I'll make
sure to share.

Sandra Braman