Note 1: This is currently not a framework for a draft, but just a summary of discussions I've noted around diversity at the IETF.
Note 2: I think the draft will be useful if it (i) makes a solid case why greater diversity is need (ii) makes concrete recommendations as to how to increase diversity in IETF participation.
Some discussions about diversity were held in 2013 on the general ietf list. [^1] [^2]
The diversity design team was set up in April 2013 to "work on identifying diversity related issues that the IETF faces and making practical recommendations that can help in this regard." [^3]
Several discussions were held on the mailing list, from concerns about gender diversity to geopolitical and geographical diversity, sectoral diversity, how participants from different social groups have been perceived in the IETF, etc. (Lots of interesting stuff to browse through) [^4]
Some previous work in the domain:
-
RFC7704 is "An IETF with Much Diversity and Professional Conduct", [^5] which, I think, stemmed from the discussions in the diversity list. (need to confirm)
-
IAOC made a decision to collect meeting registration data, but I have not been able to find these figures publicly. [^6]
Some concerns related to connectivity are regularly ignored because a basic assumption seems to be a high speed internet connection, which is not neccessarily true for the developing world. For example, a consensus at IETF to pushing encryption everywhere has led to most websites being inaccessible in remote areas with low bandwith connections (say only satellite internet access). Similarly, emergency and information dissemination services become harder to service and access if encryption is a mandatory requirement. Such concerns have been expressed in the past, [^7][^8][^9] but I am not sure if such a discussion has been had on IETF mailing lists. If we had more participation from developing countries, such concerns can be brought to notice and discussion in the standardisation process.
(My two paise: The point is made stronger because amusingly, strong security is foregone for standards that deal with the IoT and embedded class of devices, because constraints make it neccessary to sacrafice encryption for connectivity and relability. However, the main argument is not against the push for strong encryption everywhere, but rather for the same push but with exceptions wherever neccessary.)
Recommendation 1: While the organisers make a concious effort to try and hold the IETF meetings in three different continents each year, there is much to be done to increase participation from developing countries. An easy-to-implement reccommendation is to do with the cost of registration fee: IETF102 in Montreal and IETF103 in Bangkok had the same registration fee, whereas as expenses incurred would be wildly different for the cities. Simply adjusting registration fee according to the approximate expenses incurred might greatly increase local participation in developing countries.
[^1] https://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg78379.html [^2] https://www.ietf.org/blog/diversity/ [^3] https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/diversity [^4] https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/diversity/ [^5] https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7704#section-3 [^6] https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf-announce/bzL2QHgRAosd1KXFI7BY9vJM5fU [^7] https://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2018/08/07/securing-sites-made-them-less-accessible/ [^8] https://twitter.com/pranesh/status/605828421902434304; https://twitter.com/pranesh/status/605828665218199552 [^9] https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2716278
Also see [a] https://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg78882.html