On 20/03/2013 10:53, Margaret Wasserman wrote:
Hi Stewart,
On Mar 20, 2013, at 2:04 AM, Stewart Bryant <stbryant@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Age
Disability
Gender reassignment
Marriage and civil partnership
Pregnancy and maternity
Race
Religion and belief
Sex
Sexual orientation
The U.S. has a similar (although not identical) list, and it may vary a bit state-by-state.
If we are going to have an itemized list of diversity characteristics, we should not pick and choose, we should include the full list.
While I certainly wouldn't suggest we start discriminating based on _any_ of these factors, it is very difficult to measure our results in some of these areas, as we do not collect this information from IETF attendees, nor do we publish the age, disability status, gender status, marital status, religion or sexual orientation of our I* members.
I am not suggesting that we start collecting or publishing this information, just saying that it makes it hard to tell whether our leadership is reasonably representative of the community in some of these areas.
Also, I think there are some area where diversity is important to the IETF that are not on this list, like geographic location, corporate affiliation and industry segment (vendor, operator, researcher, etc.).
Margaret
.
There are methods of anonymously determining the profile of the IETF in
the above terms, but to preserve the anonymity of such information, and
understand its statistical significance this should probably be gathered
by a specialist organization outside the IETF but on our behalf.
The extended list needs further review and consideration. For example,
perhaps we should take a leaf from the IEEE and consider who funds work
items rather than simply use current affiliation as we do today. This
makes things more transparent both at the corporate and the consulting
level.
Stewart