Hi Nico,
At 12:47 PM 11-09-2019, Nico Williams wrote:
Did the SAAs call out Sayre's post as off-topic?? I didn't notice. But
you know, there's so much noise on this list lately... If they said
nothing even privately, then frankly that would be another stain on
their recent performance. We can't quite know if they objected
privately, of course, so it's hard to say.
I don't know whether the Sergeant-at-arms pointed out that the
message wsa off-topic. My comment was about the message which I was
sending instead of the message from Mr Sayre. The aftermath of the
last intervention(s) made it very difficult to discourage postings to
the mailing list.
Not quite so. We're a VOLUNTEER organization. That means we're
self-selected. ADs don't get to select participants. ADs may get to
select or help select chairs for WGs, but that's about it.
I gather that the point in the above is that participation in the
organization is voluntary. I was reading a 2013 message in which it
is mentioned that the organization has a bad reputation in other
communities. People who are unfamiliar with the IETF style of
discussion would be reluctant to get involved in mailing list
discussions. When I look at the mailing list, I see emails from
about the same persons as in 2013.
Now, some volunteers are asked by their employers to work on IETF
matters, some by their customers, and others do it for other reasons.
Ok.
In principle the IETF could ask employers to be more, er, discriminating
as to who they assign to work at the IETF. I wonder what the EEOC in
the U.S. would think of that, were the IETF to do such a thing. I can
imagine lawsuits. So before the IETF does any such thing, I'd recommend
talking to lawyers. In any case, that leaves all other self-selected
volunteers free to self-select.
The person(s) transmitting that message on behalf of the IETF might
end up getting the IETF involved in the internal matters of some
other organization(s). A lawyer might ask why the person is even
doing that as it does sound like a bad idea at the outset.
IETF leadership is another story. Though again, one wonders what the
EEOC would think of the NomCom discriminating on bases for which
discrimination in employment is forbidden -- the NomCom isn't an
employer, so perhaps "nothing" is what the EEOC would think, but maybe
Congress would think something else entirely. Again, speak to a lawyer
before you think of engaging in such discrimination at the NomCom!
I'll leave it to anyone familiar with the (U.S.) EEOC to comment
about the above.
Even so, the NomCom selects from among the group of self-selected
volunteers.
We can have a self-selected volunteer organization with zero control
over its volunteers diversity scores, or we can have a non-volunteer
organization that might be able to have an effect on the diversity of
its actual participants through bylaws and governance that would have
to.. not run afoul of American laws (the IETF, ISOC, and related
entities being American legal entities).
The relevant laws is one of the topics which is rarely, if ever,
discussed in public.
Who here can imagine the IETF no longer being a volunteer organization?
I can, with effort anyways. I can imagine the IETF being like the
Unicode Consortium, the IEEE, OASIS, ISO/ANSI, ITU-T -- pay-big-bucks-
to-play. It's somewhat surprising that the IETF has not yet become a
pay-to-play organization, or that it exists at all instead of the ITU-T
taking over its functions. The IETF becoming pay-to-play would be the
simplest way to put an end to all the recent bickering on this list, so
there's that.
The recent quarrels are not directly related to the IETF functioning
as a volunteer organization. The IETF is, indirectly, and with some
exceptions, pay-to-play, e.g. there is an attendance fee for
meetings. In my opinion, the current model does not work well in the
Southern Hemisphere. That opinion is based on the feedback which I
received over the years. I am not arguing for changing the model as
it would be unrealistic [1].
Regards,
S. Moonesamy
1.
https://www.ietf.org/media/documents/2019-06-ietf-monthly-statement_-_June2019.pdf
