Subject: [Diversity] Comments on draft-crocker-diversity-conduct-00

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 05 Mar 2014 22:21:23 -0800

Hi Dave, Narelle,

Thank you for writing draft-crocker-diversity-conduct-00.  It is in 
good shape for a -00 draft.

In Section 2.2:

   "However the IETF has a long history of tolerating aggressive and even
    hostile behavior by participants."

It has been said that:

   "The IETF culture of openness also tends to tolerate participants who,
    whilst understanding the principles of the IETF, disagree with them
    and actively ignore them."

In Section 3.4:

   "It's track record with management and process documentation"

There is a typo, "Its".

The draft raises questions about the IETF as an unbiased 
organization.  The following text:

   "Historically participation in the IETF and its antecedent was almost
    entirely composed of well-funded, American, white, male engineers."

is controversial.  It can be rationalized that it is how the world 
works.  Does it follow that:

   "management the IETF can be significantly in-bred, favoring selection
    of well-known, white, male, American technicians"

According to the statistics presented yesterday participation from 
the United States is below 50%.  According to the statistics 70% of 
the authors for recent RFCs are from the United States.  There is an 
even higher percentage involved in management-related discussions, 
whether it is at meetings or on the ietf@ mailing list.

   "However the results of the systers experiment were not encouraging.
    In spite of their engineering a disproportionately high
    number of female candidates, not a single one was selected."

It can be problematic if specific groups of people ran experiments 
such as the above to test NomCom.

   "Getting to a face to face meeting costs a great deal of money and
    time; remote participation often incurs time-shifting that include
    very early or very late hours."

It is a huge challenge in terms of money and (time) scheduling.  It 
can be difficult for a person to understand the decisions if the 
person does not follow the (audio) discussions.    That has an impact 
on whether a person has, in practice, a fair opportunity to object to 
a decision.

The overtly aggressive style in the IETF is intimidating.  This is 
where a person has to decide whether to adopt the same style or walk 
away from the IETF.  It could be said that it does not pay to be 
nice.  The following was written in 2004:

   "Members of this affinity group tend to talk more freely to each other
    and former members of the affinity group - this may be because the
    affinity group has also come to share a cultural outlook which
    matches the dominant cultural ethos of the IETF (North American,
    English speaking).  Newcomers to the organization and others outside
    the affinity group are reluctant to challenge the apparent authority
    of the extended affinity group during debates and consequently
    influence remains concentrated in a relatively small group of people."

A person, who is not from the dominant culture, would be very 
reluctant to participate in the debates.  That person could be given 
a label which is humiliating.  It is discouraging to see such 
behavior going unchallenged.

Section 5 of the draft mentions that:

   "The security of the IETF's role in the Internet community depends
    upon its credibility as an open and productive venue for
    collaborative development of technical documents."

Discussions which might not happen on ietf@ will happen in other 
venues.  That can affect the credibility of the organization.

Quoting from an article which was published today:

   'The way in which the Internet operates is based on an implied social
    contract [1] between 1,400 engineers (and their employers) and 2 billion
    users.  That "contract" has not kept pace with the evolution of the
    Internet. It is now broken. It is up to "who?" to fix it before the
    consequences cause business and regulatory models to unravel - as users
    withdraw their consent to be treated as commodities to be bought, sold
    and told what to do, with no effective voice or choice.'

Regards,
-sm

1. an actual or hypothetical agreement among the members of an 
organized society or between a community and its ruler that defines 
and limits the rights and duties of each

---

From: Abdussalam Baryun <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2014 08:19:25 +0100

On Thursday, March 6, 2014, SM wrote:

> Hi Dave, Narelle,
>
> Thank you for writing draft-crocker-diversity-conduct-00.  It is in good
> shape for a -00 draft.
>
> In Section 2.2:
>

The object is different in the two paragraph above. The first is related to
personal behavior against another. The IETF culture is open on disagreeing
behavior against documents/policies/technologies but not open to personal
issues.

> The draft raises questions about the IETF as an unbiased organization.
>  The following text:
>
> is controversial.  It can be rationalized that it is how the world works.
>  Does it follow that:
>
> According to the statistics presented yesterday participation from the
> United States is below 50%.  According to the statistics 70% of the authors
> for recent RFCs are from the United States.  There is an even higher
> percentage involved in management-related discussions, whether it is at
> meetings or on the ietf@ mailing list.

That is due to meetings location is in USA, new technologies start mostly
in USA and that IETF started in USA so it is a normal known bias. In future
it can change if IETF is considering more attraction. Don't forget that
companies are international so it has no region so new technology now is
every where in the world and no bias.

> It can be problematic if specific groups of people ran experiments such as
> the above to test NomCom.

Yes nomcom should be audit evaluated from  time to time.

> It is a huge challenge in terms of money and (time) scheduling.  It can be
> difficult for a person to understand the decisions if the person does not
> follow the (audio) discussions.    That has an impact on whether a person
> has, in practice, a fair opportunity to object to a decision.

Yes female don't mostly object quick to a decision that is a male behaviour
may be. However, if they were trained they will follow easily.

>
> The overtly aggressive style in the IETF is intimidating.  This is where a
> person has to decide whether to adopt the same style or walk away from the
> IETF.  It could be said that it does not pay to be nice.

There are many alternatives to what a person will decide against
aggressive. There is a possibility in future we see two IETF people in the
police station because of such behaviours as in football games that many
humans like.

The following was written in 2004:
>    and former members of the affinity group

Agree

> - this may be because the

Disagree. It is about diversity and way of thinking, not about new group or
old, new come or old.  There is no good reasons for above
paragraph conclusion. The new comers have open mind more than the group
closed mind or follow mind. The new comer is more easy to see out of the
box. Now organisations in all the world always try to think out of the BOX.
I think IETF is doing such method but still not quickly because lacks
diversity.

> A person, who is not from the dominant culture, would be very reluctant to
> participate in the debates.

> Disagree

> That person could be given a label which is humiliating.  It is
> discouraging to see such behavior going unchallenged.

Agree, but why such organisation is watching and not responding. Does the
organisation care about work progress (team work) or not?

> Discussions which might not happen on ietf@ will happen in other venues.
>  That can affect the credibility of the organization.

Agree because IETF has competitors. However, There is possibility that
competitors are causing internal problems already to IETF.

>    and told what to do, with no effective voice or choice.'

Yes. That is the future coming now and facing companies or IETF. The good
behaviour internet community is always stronger than any group or
organisation.

AB

>
> Regards,
> -sm
>
> 1. an actual or hypothetical agreement among the members of an organized
> society or between a community and its ruler that defines and limits the
> rights and duties of each
>
> _______________________________________________
> diversity mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/diversity
>

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 00:23:47 -0800

Hi Abdussalam,
At 23:19 05-03-2014, Abdussalam Baryun wrote:
>Agree, but why such organisation is watching and not responding. 
>Does the organisation care about work progress (team work) or not?

It is not possible for a mailing list moderator to watch a mailing 
list twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

I cannot speak for the organisation.

>Yes. That is the future coming now and facing companies or IETF. The 
>good behaviour internet community is always stronger than any group 
>or organisation.

http://www.wired.com/business/2012/06/youtube-commenters/
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-09/why-were-shutting-our-comments

The internet is not known for good behavior.

It is only possible to know what caused a fracture (of the internet) 
after it happened.  Nobody really knows how to fix that fracture.

Regards,
-sm

---

From: Abdussalam Baryun <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2014 10:57:57 +0100

Hi SM,

It is interesting discussing with you, hope to get reply from Dave, I tried
to meet him and you but no much time I had available in the IETF meeting it
was only one day for me. However, hopefully in future we meet in next
IETF meetings. Comments below,

On Thursday, March 6, 2014, SM wrote:

> It is not possible for a mailing list moderator to watch a mailing list
> twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

Each list has a WG chair or a list Chair, each meeting has a chair,
otherwise we don't call an organisation an organisation if it is not
organised ;-)

> The internet is not known for good behavior.

The community has majority good and minority bad. The internet
environment is not like the film of; Good, Bad and the Ugly. The internet
environment is a virtual land that people/community should organise to make
the land progress. The organised good community is always stronger as I
said in my previous message.

> It is only possible to know what caused a fracture (of the internet) after
> it happened.  Nobody really knows how to fix that fracture.

Disagree, it is very possible easy to know causes, if happens and if still
did not happen. If we are smart organisation or smart managers or smart
chairs or smart directors, we don't wait until bad things happen. We act
before things happen and we know where things will go in future by looking
at what is happening and the causes. Therefore we prevent the bad and
encourage the good, we don't look for money and shoot like the film
movie mentioned above (we should look for good technologies, best
practices, and good progress, and never shoot who disagree).

Best regards

AB

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 09:58:33 +0000

SM,

Thanks for the comments.

Inline.

>     and actively ignore them."

1. We can't know whether they understand or not.

2. It doesn't matter whether they understand.  In either case the 
behavior is problematic.

3. In a paper that expresses concern about focusing on the human rather 
than the issues, we should be very judicious about any discussion of 
what goes on inside a person...

> is controversial.

I don't think it's controversial, though of course it is uncomfortable 
by virtue of the nature of the topic.

It's making a statistical assertion about demographic characteristics of 
the original community.

While there were sprinklings of woman, europeans, and non-caucasians, 
each was in very short supply.

>  It can be rationalized that it is how the world

No it doesn't follow and it isn't offer as following.  It is meant as an 
independent assertion of bias.  Perhaps it needs some justification 
language and citations and perhaps some elaboration of current 
realities, per the details you supplied.

> It can be problematic if specific groups of people ran experiments such
> as the above to test NomCom.

No one claimed this was scientific.  I also haven't heard any serious 
claims that the results with the experiment were worthy of being ignored.

> The overtly aggressive style in the IETF is intimidating.  This is where
> a person has to decide whether to adopt the same style or walk away from
> the IETF.  It could be said that it does not pay to be nice.  The
> following was written in 2004:
>

Citation details?

> A person, who is not from the dominant culture, would be very reluctant
> to participate in the debates.  That person could be given a label which
> is humiliating.  It is discouraging to see such behavior going
> unchallenged.

Yup.

> Quoting from an article which was published today:

Citation details?

http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/when-it-meets-politics/2014/03/the-conspiracy-of-silence-over.html 
?

d/
-- 
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net

-- 
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 05:54:33 -0800

Hi Abdussalam,
At 01:57 06-03-2014, Abdussalam Baryun wrote:
>It is interesting discussing with you, hope to get reply from Dave, 
>I tried to meet him and you but no much time I had available in the 
>IETF meeting it was only one day for me. However, hopefully in 
>future we meet in next IETF meetings. Comments below,

I am not in London.  Hopefully, we might meet in future.

>Disagree, it is very possible easy to know causes, if happens and if 
>still did not happen. If we are smart organisation or smart managers 
>or smart chairs or smart directors, we don't wait until bad things 
>happen. We act before things happen and we know where things will go 
>in future by looking at what is happening and the causes. Therefore 
>we prevent the bad and encourage the good, we don't look for money 
>and shoot like the film movie mentioned above (we should look for 
>good technologies, best practices, and good progress, and never 
>shoot who disagree).

Following the IETF does not provide a good view of the 
internet.  There are many forums where internet-related issues are 
discussed.  There is a wide range of economic, political, social, 
etc. interests.  It is nearly impossible to keep track the different opinions.

Regards,
-sm

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 08:11:06 -0800

Hi Dave,

This comment may be unrelated to the topic.

   "The key issue I think is this that we've got an adversarial system and that
    means that the prosecution must put up its best case and the defence then
    challenge that robustly,"

I vaguely recall that you commented about that something along those 
lines some time back.  I don't recall the context.  In an adversarial 
system discussions can take a wrong turn, e.g. turn personal, become 
antagonistic, etc.  On the positive side, the system can help bring 
out the better outcome or improve the technical quality of the work.

>2. It doesn't matter whether they understand.  In either case the 

Yes.

>I don't think it's controversial, though of course it is 
>uncomfortable by virtue of the nature of the topic.

I'll put it differently: bring the issues into the open, manage it, 
and choose an alternative.  The problem with an uncomfortable topic 
is that it is not always well-managed.

>It's making a statistical assertion about demographic 
>characteristics of the original community.
>
>While there were sprinklings of woman, europeans, and 
>non-caucasians, each was in very short supply.

Yes. In my opinion there isn't a sustained effort to reach out to 
potential contributors.

>No it doesn't follow and it isn't offer as following.  It is meant 
>as an independent assertion of bias.  Perhaps it needs some 
>justification language and citations and perhaps some elaboration of 
>current realities, per the details you supplied.

Ok.

>Citation details?

That would be RFC 3774.

>http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/when-it-meets-politics/2014/03/the-conspiracy-of-silence-over.html 

That was the article.

Regards,
-sm

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 17:04:54 +0000

On 3/6/2014 4:11 PM, SM wrote:
> antagonistic, etc.  On the positive side, the system can help bring out
> the better outcome or improve the technical quality of the work.

We have competing goals, competing understandings of capabilities and 
limitations, and competing proposals.  Each of these competitions is 
inherent.  So I do not believe we can avoid a fundamentally adversarial 
framework, for any "interesting" situation.

The question is whether participants treat the competition as a basis 
for healthy debate -- where the ultimate goal is the best result for the 
community -- or whether they focus on the politics of winning.

> I'll put it differently: bring the issues into the open, manage it, and
> choose an alternative.  The problem with an uncomfortable topic is that
> it is not always well-managed.

That implies that we reliably have good management for /comfortable/ 
topics...  (smiley)

d/

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 09:56:53 +0000

SM,

Thanks for the comments.

Inline.

Citation details?

Yup.

Citation details?

d/

---

From: Abdussalam Baryun <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 10:42:06 +0000

On Thursday, March 6, 2014, Dave Crocker wrote:

>> the system can help bring out

Many participants work for companies so their primary goals are their
companies goals, then they can see IETF goals. Is their diversity in
companies participating?

>
> The question is whether participants treat the competition as a basis for
> healthy debate -- where the ultimate goal is the best result for the

The issue is that IETF participants are not only individually
participants volunteering but includes companies participation. So it is
not about only debate-winning nor only IETF-competition, but includes
getting some companies technologies/implementations as an IETF standard.

> That implies that we reliably have good management for /comfortable/

The IETF management is progressing (of IETF areas and WGs), and
they may need more cooperation rules. However, management need to encourage
diversity in discussions and in reviews, that will make IETF outputs more
reliable and used worldwide.

AB/