On Apr 11, 2013, at 6:11 PM, Ray Pelletier <rpelletier@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > All > > The IETF is concerned about diversity. As good engineers, we would like > to attempt to measure diversity while working on addressing and increasing > it. To that end, we are considering adding some possibly sensitive > questions to the registration process, for example, gender. Of course, > they need not be answered and would be clearly labeled as optional. > > The IAOC would like to hear from the community on this proposal. It plans to > make a decision on its 18 April call in order to make the changes in time for the > Berlin registration and will consider all input received by 17 April. Seems like I'm in a minority among responders, but I think it's a bad idea. First, what is suggested is not a survey. It's part of the registration form. This makes it totally non-anonymous. These sensitive questions are going to be linked to name and affiliation on the form. There is good reason why such studies are always done through anonymous survey. People answer questions differently when they're anonymous vs when they're not, skewing the results. Alfred Kinsey would not have gotten the results he got in his sexuality surveys without strict anonymity for the responders. Definitely not in the 1940s. The other issue is that this will produce statistically invalid results because of non-response bias. Non-responders may be positively or negatively correlated with several groups the survey would like to measure. Dave Crocker suggested getting an expert. I don't think that would help. Such an expert would tell you that the questions you can ask depends on the group you are asking. Questions that would be acceptable in one country, would be inappropriate in another. In Israel people are likely to answer sensitive questions truthfully, while in Germany concern for privacy might make these questions seem too personal. So how do you fit such a questionnaire to a, well, diverse group such as meeting attendants? I think skewed surveys are a worse basis for planning policy than just using common sense (yes, I know that's just another name for our biases). Surveys lend a scientific aura to data that is effectively non-representative. Yoav