An IETF with Much Diversity and
Professional ConductBrandenburg InternetWorking675 Spruce DriveSunnyvaleCA94086USA+1.408.246.8253dcrocker@bbiw.netPavonis ConsultingC/- PO Box 1705North SydneyNSW2059Australia+61 412297043narelle.clark@pavonis.com.auThe process of producing today's Internet through a culture of open participation and
diverse collaboration has proved strikingly efficient and effective, and it is
distinctive among standards organizations. Historically participation in the IETF and
its antecedent was almost entirely composed of well-funded, American, white, male
engineers. No matter the intentions of the participants, such a narrow demographic
distorts group dynamics, both in management and in personal interactions. In the case of
the IETF, group interaction style can often demonstrate singularly aggressive behavior,
often including singularly hostile tone and content. Groups with greater diversity make
better decisions. Obtaining meaningful diversity requires more than generic good will
and statements of principle. Many different behaviors can serve to reduce participant
diversity or participation diversity. This paper discusses the nature and practicalities
of IETF attention to its diverse participation and to the requirement for professional
demeanor.The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) grew out of a research effort that was
started in the late 1960s, with central funding by the US Department of Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (ARPA, later DARPA), employing a collection of research sites
around the United States, and including some participation by groups of the US Military.
The community was originally restricted to participation by members of the funded
research groups. In the 1980s, participation expanded to include projects funded by
other agencies, most notably the US National Science Foundation for its NSFNet effort.
At around the time the IETF was created in its current form, in the late 1980s,
participation in the group became fully open, permitting attendance by anyone,
independent of funding, affiliation, country of origin, or the like.
Beyond the obvious effects of the resulting technology that we now enjoy, the process of
producing today's Internet through a culture of open participation and diverse
collaboration has proved strikingly efficient and effective, and it is distinctive among
standards organizations. This culture has been sustained across many changes in
participant origins, organizational structures, economic cycles, and formal processes.
However maintenance of the IETF's effectiveness requires constant vigilance. As new
participants join the IETF mix, it is increasingly easy for the IETF's operation to
gradually invoke models from other environments, which are more established and more
familiar, but are less effective.Historically participation in the IETF and its antecedent was almost entirely composed
of well-funded, American, white, male engineers. No matter the intentions of the
participants, such a narrow demographic distorts group dynamics, both in management and
in personal interactions. In terms of management the IETF can be significantly in-bred,
favoring selection of well-known, white, male, American technicians. Of course, the pool
of candidates from which selections are made suffer classic limitations of diversity
found in many engineering environment. Still there is evidence and perception of
selection bias, beyond this.In the case of the IETF, group interaction style can often demonstrate singularly
aggressive behavior, often including singularly hostile tone and content. In most
professional venues, such behavior is deemed highly unprofessional, or worse. Within the
IETF, such behavior has had long-standing tolerance. Criticizing someone's hostility is
dismissed by saying that's just the way they are, and anyone expressing concern about
the behavior is typically admonished to get thicker skin.As the IETF opened its doors to participation by anyone, its demographics have
predictably moved towards much greater variety. However the group culture has not
adapted to accommodate these changes. The aggressive debating style, and the tolerance
for personal attacks, can be extremely off-putting for participants from more polite
cultures. And the management selection processes can tend to exclude some constituencies
inappropriately.In 2013, members of an informal IETF women's interest group, called "systers", organized
a quiet experiment, putting forward a large number of women candidates for management
positions, through the IETF's "Nomcom" process. Nomcom is itself a potentially diverse
group of IETF participants, chosen almost at random. Hence its problematic choices -- or
rather, omissions -- could be seen as reflecting IETF culture generally.Over the years some women have been chosen for IETF positions as authors, working group
chairs, area directors, IAB members and IAOC members. However the results of the systers
experiment were not encouraging. In spite of their engineering a disproportionately high
number of female candidates, not a single one was selected. Although any one candidate
might be rejected for entirely legitimate reasons, a pattern of rejection this
consistent indicates an organizational bias. The results were presented at an IETF
plenary and it engendered significant IETF soul-searching, as well as creation of a
group to consider diversity issues for the IETF. Other activities around that same time also engendered IETF
consideration of unacceptable behaviors, generally classed as harassment. This resulted
in a formal IETF anti-harassment policy.This paper discusses the nature and practicalities of IETF attention to its diverse
participation and to the requirement for professional demeanor.This paper covers difficult topics that present
challenges for constructive discussion. Nonetheless, feedback is eagerly
sought to improve what it says and how it says it. The suggested forum for
this draft is the IETF's Diversity discussion list:Diversity concerns the variability of a group's composition. It can reasonably touch
every conceivable participant attribute. It includes the usual range of "identified
class" attributes, including race, creed, color, religion, gender and sexual
orientation, but also extends along with all manner of beliefs, behaviors,
experiences, preferences and economic status.Groups with greater diversity make better decisions. They perform better at diverse
tasks both in terms of quantity and quality and a great deal of research has found
that heterogeneity often acts as a conduit for ideas and innovation.,, The
implicit assumptions of one participant might not be considerations for another, and
might even be unknown by still others. And different participants can bring different
bases of knowledge and different styles of analysis. The same people from the same
education and experience will all too readily bring the same ideas forward and
subject them to the same analysis, thus diminishing the likelihood for new ideas and
methods to emerge, or underlying problems to be noted.However a desire to diligently attend to group diversity often leads to mechanical,
statistical efforts to ensure representation by every identified constituency. For
smaller populations, like the IETF and especially for small management teams, this
approach is counter-productive. First, it is not possible to identify every single
constituency that might be relevant. Second, the group size does not permit
representation by every group. Consequently, in practical terms, legitimate
representation of diversity only requires meaningful variety, not slavish
bookkeeping. In addition, without care it can lead to the negative effects of
diversity where decision making is slowed, interaction decreased and conflict
increased.Pragmatically, then, concern for diversity merely requires serious attention to
satisfying two requirements:Decisions about who is allowed into the
group require ensuring that the selection process encourages varying attributes
among members.Achieving effective generation of ideas
and reviews within a group requires ensuring that its discussions encourage
constructive participation by all members and that the views of each member are
considered seriously.In other words, look for real variety in group composition and real variety in
participant discussion. This will identify a greater variety of possible and
practical solutions.Obtaining meaningful diversity requires more than generic good will and statements of
principle. The challenges, here, are to actively:Encourage constructive diversityWork to avoid group dynamics that serve to reduce diversityWork to avoid group dynamics that serve to diminish the benefits of
diversityRemove those dynamics when they still occur It also requires education about the practicalities of diversity in an open
engineering environment; and it requires organizational processes that regularly
consider what effect each decision might have on diversity.Examples abound:Formally, an IETF working group makes its decisions on its mailing list. Since
anyone can join the list, anyone with access to the Internet can participate.
However working groups also have sessions at the thrice-annual IETF
face-to-face meetings and might also hold interim meetings, which are face to
face, telephonic, or video conferencing. Attendance at these can be
challenging. Getting to a face to face meeting costs a great deal of money and
time; remote participation often incurs time-shifting that include very early
or very late hours. So increased working group reliance on meetings tends to
exclude those with less funding or less travel time or more structured work
schedules.Vigorous advocacy for a strongly-held technical preference is common in
engineering communities. Of course it can be healthy, since strong support is
necessary to promote success of the work. However in the IETF this can be
manifest in two ways that are problematic. One is a personal style that is
overly aggressive and serves to intimidate, and hence unreasonably gag, those
with other views. The other is a group style that prematurely embraces a
choice, and does not permit a fair hearing for alternatives. Predictably, engineers value engineering skills. When the task is engineering
this is entirely appropriate. However much of the IETF's activities, in support
of its engineering efforts, is less about engineering and more about human and
organizational processes. These require very different skills. To the extent
that participants in those processes are primarily considered in terms of their
engineering prowess, those who are instead stronger in other, relevant skills
will be undervalued, and the diversity of expertise that the IETF needs will be
lost.IETF standards are meant to be read, understood and implemented by people who
were not part of the working group process. The gist of the standards also
often needs to be read by managers and operators who are not engineers. IETF
specifications enjoy quite a bit of stylistic freedom to contain pedagogy, in
the service of these audience goals. However the additional effort to be
instructional is significant and active participants who already understand and
embrace the technical details often decline from making that effort. Worse,
that effort is also needed during the specification development effort, since
many participants might lack the background or superior insight needed to
appreciate what is being specified. Yet the IETF's mantra for "rough consensus"
is exactly about the need to recruit support. In fact, the process of
"educating" others often uncovers issues that have been missed.Many different behaviors can serve to reduce participant diversity or participation
diversity. One class of efforts is based on overt actions to marginalize certain
participants, by intimidating them into silence or departure. Intimidation efforts
divide into two styles warranting distinction. One is harassment, which pertains to
biased treatment of demographic classes. A number of identified classes are usually
protected by law and community understanding that such biased behavior can not be
tolerated has progressively improved.Other intimidation efforts are tailored to targeted individuals and are generally
labeled bullying.,, The nature and extent of bullying in the workplace is widely
underestimated, misunderstood and mishandled. It is:"...[B]ehavior directed at an employee that is intended to degrade, humiliate,
embarrass, or otherwise undermine their performance... [T]he sure signs of a
bully that signify more than a simple misunderstanding or personal
disagreement... might include: Shouting, whether in private, in front of colleagues, or in front of
customersName-callingBelittling or disrespectful commentsExcessive monitoring, criticizing, or nitpicking someone's workDeliberately overloading someone with workUndermining someone's work by setting them up to failPurposefully withholding information needed to perform a job
efficientlyActively excluding someone from normal workplace/staff room conversations
and making someone feel unwelcome""Perhaps the most easily recognizable Serial Bully traits are: Jekyll and Hyde nature — Dr Jekyll is 'charming' and 'charismatic';
'Hyde' is 'evil'Exploits the trust and needs of organizations and individuals, for
personal gainConvincing liar — Makes up anything to fit their needs at that
momentDamages the health and reputations of organizations and individualsReacts to criticism with Denial, Retaliation, Feigned VictimhoodBlames victimsApparently immune from disciplinary actionMoves to a new target when the present one burns out "Whether directed at classes or individuals, intimidation methods used can: Seem relatively passive, such is consistently ignoring a memberSeem mild, such as with a quiet tone or language of condescensionBe quite active, such as aggressively attacking what is said by the
participantBe disingenuous, masking attacks in a passive aggressive style If tolerated by others, and especially by those managing the group, these
methods create a hostile work environment. When public harassment or bullying is tolerated, the hostile environment is not
only for the person directly subject to the attacks.The harassment also serves to intimidate others who observe that it is
tolerated. It teaches them that misbehaviors will not be held accountable.The IETF's Anti-Harsassment Policy uses a single term
to cover the classic harassment of identified constituencies, as well as the targeted
behavior of bullying. The policy's text is therefore comprehensive, defining
unacceptable behavior as "unwelcome hostile or intimidating behavior." Further it
declares: "Harassment of this sort will not be tolerated in the IETF." An avenue for
seeking remedy when harassment occurs is specified as a designated Ombudperson. However the IETF has a long history of tolerating aggressive and even hostile
behavior by participants. So this policy signals a substantial and welcome change.
The obvious challenge is to make the change real, moving the IETF from a culture that
tolerates -- or even encourages -- inter-personal misbehaviors to one that provides a
safe, professional, and productive haven for its increasingly-diverse community. Here again, examples abound:Amongst long-time colleagues, acceptable interpersonal style can be whatever
the colleagues want, even though it might look quite off-putting to an
observer. The problem occurs when an IETF participant engages in such behaviors
with, or in the presence of, others who have not agreed to the social contract
of that relationship style and might not even understand it. For these others,
the behavior can be extremely alienating, creating a disincentive against
participation. Yet in the IETF it is common for participants to feel entitled
to behave in overly familiar or aggressive or even hostile fashion that might
be acceptable amongst colleagues, but is destructive with strangers.The instant a comment is made that concerns any attribute of a speaker, such as
their motives, the nature of their employer, or the quality of their
participation style, the interaction has moved away from technical evaluation.
In many cultures, all such utterances are intimidating or offensive. In an
open, professional participation environment, they therefore cannot be
permitted. As a matter of personal style or momentary enthusiasm, it is easy to indulge in
condescending or dismissive commentary about someone's statements. As a
discussion technique, it is intended to reduce the target's influence on the
group. Whether non-verbal, such as rolling one's eyes; paternalistic, such as
noting the target's naivete; or overtly hostile, such as impugning the target's
motives, it is an attempt to marginalize the person rather than focus on the
merits of what they are saying. It constitutes harassment or bullying.The goal of open, diverse participation requires explicit and on-going organizational
effort to ensure that it happens for access, engagement and facilitation.Aiding participants with access to IETF materials and discussions means that it is
easy for them to:Know what existsFind what is of interestRetrieve documents or gain access to discussionsBe able to understand the contentAfter materials and discussions are located, the primary means of making it easy to
access the substance of the work is for statements to be made in language that is
clear and explanatory. Writers and speakers need to carefully consider the likely
audience and package statements accordingly. This often means taking a more tutorial
approach than one might naturally choose. In speech, it means speaking more
deliberately, a bit more clearly and a bit more slowly than one needs with close
collaborators. When language is cryptic or filled with linguistic idiosyncrasies and
when speech is too fast, it is dramatically less accessible to a diverse
audience.Once content is accessible, the challenge is to garner diverse contribution for
further development. Engagement means that it easy for constructive participants to
be heard and taken seriously through constructive interaction. Within the IETF, the most common challenge is the choices participants make in the
way they respond to comments. The essence of the IETF is making proposals and
offering comments on proposals; disagreement is common and often healthy... depending
upon the manner in which disagreement is pursued. In order to obtain the best technology, the best ideas need first to be harvested.
Processes that promote free ranging discussion, tease out new ideas, and tackle
concerns should be promoted. This will also run to: Encouraging contributions from timid speakersShowing warmth for new contributorsPreventing dominance by, or blind deference to, those perceived as the more
senior and authoritative contributorsActively shutting down derogatory stylesIt is important that participants be facilitated in tendering their own ideas readily
so that innovation thrives.There is the larger challenge of finding balance between efforts to facilitate
diversity versus efforts to achieve work goals. Efforts to be inclusive include a
degree of tutorial assistance for new participants. They also include some tolerance
for participants who are less efficient at doing the work. Further, not everyone is
capable of being constructive and the burdens of accommodating such folk can easily
become onerous.As an example, there can be tradeoffs with meeting agendas. There is common push-back
on having working group meetings be a succession of presentations. For good
efficiency participants want to have just enough presentation to frame a question,
and then spend face-to-face time in discussion. However "just enough presentation"
does not leave much room for tutorial commentary to aid those new to the effort.
Meeting time is always too short, and the primary requirement is to achieve forward
progress.The IETF's track record for making its technical documents openly available is
notably superb, as is its official policy of open participation in mailing lists and
meetings. It's track record with management and process documentation is more varied,
partly because these cover overhead functions, rather than being in the main line of
IETF work and, therefore, expertise. So they do not always get diligent attention.
Factors include the inherent challenges in doing management by engineers, as well as
challenges in making management and process documents usable for non-experts and
non-native English speakers.On the surface, the IETF's track record for open access and engagement therefore
looks astonishingly good, since there is no "membership", and anyone is permitted to
join IETF mailing lists and attend IETF meetings. Indeed, for those with good
funding, time for travel, and skills at figuring out the IETF culture, the record
really is excellent.Very real challenges exist for those who have funding, logistics or language
limitations. In particular, these impede attendance at meetings. Another challenge is
for those from more polite cultures who are alienated by the style of aggressive
debate that is popular in the IETF. For any one participant, some other participant's contributions might be considered
problematic, possibly having little or no value. Worse, some contributions are in a
style that excites a personal, negative reaction.The manner chosen for responding to such contributions dramatically affects group
productivity. Attacking the speaker's style or motives or credentials is not useful,
and primarily serves to distract discussion from matters of substance. Among the many
possible ways to pursue constructive exchange, in the face of such challenges,
guidance includes: Ignore such contributions; perhaps someone else can produce a productive
exchange, but there is no requirement that anyone respond.Respond to the content, not the author; in the extreme, literally ignore the
author and merely address the group about the content. Offer better content, including an explanation of the reasons it is better. The essential point here is that the way to have a constructive exchange
about substance is to focus on the substance. The way to avoid getting distracted is
to ignore whatever is personal and irrelevant to the substance.Sometimes problematic participants cannot reasonably be ignored. Their behavior is too
disruptive, too offensive or too damaging to group exchange. Any of us might have a
moment of excess, but when the behavior is too extreme or represents a pattern, it
warrants intervention.A common view is that this should be pursued personally, but for such cases, it rarely
has much effect. This is where IETF management intervention is required. The IETF now
has a reasonably rich set of policies concerning problematic behavior. So the
requirement is merely to exercise the policies diligently. Depending on the details, the
working group chair, mailing list moderator, Ombudperson or perhaps IETF Chair is the
appropriate person to contact.,The challenge, here, is for both management and the rest of the community to collaborate
in communicating that harassment and bullying will not be tolerated. The formal policies
make that declaration, but they have no meaning unless they are enforced.Abusive behavior is easily extinguished. All it takes is community resolve. The security of the IETF's role in the Internet community depends upon its credibility
as an open and productive venue for collaborative development of technical documents.
The potential for future legal liability in the various jurisdictions within which the
IETF operates also indicates a need to act to reinforce behavioral policies with
specific attention to workplace safety. IETF Anti-Harassment PolicyIETFIESG Guidance on the Moderation of IETF Working Group Mailing Lists20 Subtle Signs of Workplace BullyingHarassment and bullying at workThe Effects of Team Diversity on Team Outcomes: A meta-analysis review of team
demographyWorkplace Bullying(12:30min; animated; what bullying is and is not)IETF Diversity Discussion ListSerial Bully TraitsDiversity Design Team wikiBetter Decisions Through DiversityHeterogeneity can boost group performance The Wisdom of CrowdsHow to Deal with Workplace Bullying and HarassmentThis draft was prompted by the organizational change, signaled with the IESG's adoption
of an anti-harassment policy for the IETF, and a number of follow-on activities and
discussions that ensued. A few individuals have offered thoughtful comments, during
private discussions.