Re: Comments on Composition and Comportment of the IETF Nominating Committee draft

On 27 Jul 2026, at 5:27, [email protected] wrote:

> I commented during the tenure of that chair previously, and my view 
> of actions then being taken was somewhat dismal.
>
> https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf/j0KGyHu-BPia_XpZ8U9uHlBDTIU/

Yes, except that's not what you did in this case, was it? The text 
(misattributed) to which you replied was about some possible actions:

>>>> We need to work on making the IETF as a whole more welcoming
>>>> to as wide a range of people as practical. I know it's possible 
>>>> because I've
>>>> seen it happen at M3AAWG and (for all its faults) ICANN, both of 
>>>> which have way
>>>> more women in leadership roles than we do.

And instead of talking about those actions, you instead talked about a 
person.

> It can be argued that there is nothing that be concluded 
> -statistically- from a single sample.

Then why did you refer to a single person?

> But a lot can be concluded from what a chair pushes for, and 
> disagreeing with either what is being pushed for, or how it is being 
> pushed for, is entirely reasonable to do.

Except, again, that's not what you did. You could have said, "I don't 
think we need to work on making the IETF as a whole more welcoming...". 
You could have made your case against possible actions to be taken. But 
instead you said:

>>> Mallory, having a female chair of the IETF... wasn't a great 
>>> experience.

That's not about actions. That's about an individual. And it was 
completely gratuitous.

> Insulting? no. It's a pushback against promoted policy...

Of course it's insulting. And it is in no way about a promoted policy.  
It's about a person. And the policy on the table wasn't (AFAICT) 
promoted by the person to whom you referred. The best you might be able 
to say is that the policy on the table is one that might lead to (gasp) 
another female chair. In which case you're not being insulting to an 
individual, but to an entire group.

Stop digging. Simply apologize (to the individual and to the rest of the 
list) for your backhanded comment and move on.

> ...and is itself political in nature.

I am not at all sure whether you meant that your pushback or John's 
statement was political. Or was it the policy implicit in John's 
statement? I don't get it.

> I note that the TERM workgroup was not created to police 
> language, and that we do still have mailing lists.

And what does that have to do with either the issue at hand or your 
supposed lack of a "great experience"?

> (Although much discussion now happens privately in focused 
> github spaces when it should imo be more visible to a broader 
> audience on lists...

You seem to really be losing the thread now. What does that have to do 
with "making the IETF more welcoming", or increasing the gender makeup 
in leadership or the NomCom? I thought perhaps you were trying to 
justify your earlier statement by actually referring to an action on the 
part of that person, but...

> - I'm not attributing any lack of action on that to any 
> particular chair...

Nope. You seem to be just on about a different topic.

> ...but a study group on what github is doing to ietf discussions 
> across disparate workgroups might be a good idea, if it hasn't been 
> done already.)

Well, I might be on board with that, but again, what at all does this 
have to do with the discussion at hand?

> putting decent leaders in leadership roles is nomcom's job. where 
> should specifying gender come into it?

If the gender makeup of the NomCom is leading to implicit bias in the 
selection process, then thinking about the gender makeup of the NomCom 
surely should "come into it". Now, is it absolutely clear that this is 
the case with our leadership selection process? Well, I suppose it might 
not, but I would be pretty surprised that we are the exception to all of 
the literature in this area.

But having a conversation about that would be far more interesting than 
having you simply insult a previous IETF chair. Talk about the proposed 
actions, not about people (who in this case don't appear to be the one 
of the people proposing said action).

And again, perhaps apologize instead of making excuses.

pr
-- 
Pete Resnick https://www.episteme.net/
All connections to the world are tenuous at best