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INTERNET RESEARCH STEERING GROUP (IRSG)
Minutes of the January 30, 2024 IRSG Teleconference
Reported by: Jenny Bui, IETF Secretariat
1.1 Roll Call
Carsten Bormann (T2TRG Chair)
Jenny Bui (Secretariat)
Ignacio Castro (RASPRG Chair)
Reese Enghardt (ICCRG Chair)
Stephen Farrell (UFMRG Chair)
Liz Flynn (Secretariat)
Allison Mankin (At-Large Memeber)
Dave Oran (ICNRG Chair)
Colin Perkins (IRTF Chair)
Niels ten Oever (RASPRG Chair)
Brian Trammell (PANRG Chair)
The minutes of the November 28, 2023 IRSG Teleconference were approved.
Niels mentioned that they will need to roll back on their participation in the IETF.
RASPRG will need new co-chair
o Sofía Celi to draft text for guidance to IRTF document shepherds
Allison suggested that since the IETF is currently in the process of updating their document shepherd that possibly the IRTF to adding to it.
Colin agrees that it might be worth thinking about, but is slightly concerned since the IETF document shepherd is quite extensive.
Allison responded and said that the IETF one will be cut back.
Allison will check in with Lars and copy Colin.
Stephen suggested that we drop the action item and that a guidance for document shepherds might not be needed.
Colin responds and says that whenever there is a new chair or shepherd, they ask for some guidance. We don't need to have much, but at least something.
Reese chimes in about how he's curious about what is the difference between the IETF and IRTF document shepherd. He can do without a document shepherd guidance, but, also, will read it if it's there.
Colin mentions that he was hoping for something lightweight as it does not need to have all the due diligence about the standards process.
o draft-irtf-qirg-quantum-internet-use-cases
o draft-irtf-icnrg-ccnx-timetlv
o draft-irtf-icnrg-pathsteering
o draft-irtf-cfrg-frost
o draft-irtf-t2trg-iot-edge
o draft-irtf-icnrg-icnping
o draft-irtf-icnrg-icntraceroute
NONE
NONE
Colin starts with giving a little background about how a survey was commissioned by the IETF around the IETF 117 San Francisco meeting on the experiences of women in the IETF. Based on that report, leadership is trying to establish a set of actionable suggestions on how to improve the experiences of women in the IETF and come with a shared understanding of who’s responsible for taking various actions forward. Most items fall under the items of either the Secretariat, LLC, or the IESG. There were a few things flagged that were IRTF could have input in or should be possible to take action. There were 4 in that category:
External engagement
Working with university programs for female engineers and raise awareness of what the IETF does and encourge particiation, and to work to create various programs to enable more women to attend IETF and IRTF meetings. The Society of Women Engineerings was mentioned, which may be an US based organization.
Code of Conduct
The comment was that conduct policy should not be subjected to consensus, but instead community buy-in should be encouraged. It's about setting clear expectations for conduct and being proactive towards moving the community in a way that's more diverse participation. This category is already somewhat covered as the code of conduct is currently being revised, but any input on this is appreciated.
Authorship Guidelines
There was a suggestion that it would be useful to create some guidelines for who gets credit for document content and how to assign authorship and not what makes sense for authorship.
Currently, there isn’t a clear policy on who gets listed as an author on research group documents; who’s listed as an editor, who’s listed as a contributor, or who receives an acknowledgement.
The suggestion there is having guidelines would help people who are perhaps less confident in seeking credits for their work.
ACM has a policy on authorship, and probably other organizations where we suggest that.
Encourage women to take on leadership roles
We want to encourage women to take on leadership roles but being careful not to put excessive responsibility on particular people to meet various types of criteria. We should be appointing diverse people when we have vacancies, but it’s also a lot about growing the pool of candidates. We should be thinking about what we can do from the research group point of view to try and get people to the stage where they’re able to participate in leadership positions in the future.
Allison chimes in about relaxing the number of authors rule with RFC editor for IRTF documents because it's more inconsistent with the research world; there'll be more than 5.
Colin responded that they've been quietly doing that in practice anyways, but can certainly make that a formal thing.
(Stephen Farrel from the chat)
"wondering if https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athena_SWAN might have some IRTF relevance?"
Colin agrees that some things might have relevance.
Stephen mentions that he thinks that it exists in Ireland and that some people in his department that are looking at it. Stephen also knows a colleague that he could talk to about it.
Colin responds that it would be helpful as they probably have some ideas and some guidance for how to approach things.
Colin wraps up the topic by saying that the Code of Conduct has changes in progress.
Colin will take a stab at the guidance of authorship, but would appreciate if anyone else would like to the lead or have input.
Colin mentions that he would most appreciate input on the external engagement as he has limited visibility and says if we do anything useful here, it has to be broader than just one country. So if people are willing to spend a bit of time thinking about that then some calls can be arranged or a discussion on it over the coming months.
Allison adds that everybody who has a selection power needs to make sure they have a long enough list of people to consider. From her experience, if you have a very heavily male panel, quite a few of the candidates will be discarded before the detailed discussions.
Allison mentions that it is nice to see a bunch of women in the ANRP awards this coming year.
Colin adds that he thinks about half women and half men this year.
Allison says that being seen in the leadership, and being seen in the prizes really does makes a difference for keeping this field and research part of it interesting and attractive to people who have some headwinds.
Colin says that he will follow up on this in the mailing list and reiterates that he will need input from the IRSG on the outreach engagement and will be seeking volunteers over the coming months after Brisbane.
1.2 Excluding from Mailing Lists
Colin thinks that we cannot exclude people from reading the lists since they're all publicly archived. He suggested that to exclude by preemptively blocking someone from posting to the list should only be done in cases where we would block them from attending a meeting in person and apply basically the same standard. We have the ability to moderate the list if someone causes disruption.
2.1 Redacting meeting recordings
Colin comments about Mallory's suggestion that we upload the request for redaction if they come from the person who made the comment that is requesting the redaction. Colin thinks that is a bit broad as we don't want people requesting the material be removed because they decide they don't like what they said. Colin suggests we base this more on threats on participant safety or on advice of counsel.
Stephen agrees.
Colin mentions that Mallory is not here, so he will follow up on the list.
Colin adds that for the Brisbane meeting, the fee waivers are handled in the same way as it was done in the past. 10 were given to the IRTF Chair, and Colin makes the decision based on what seems reasonable to him. A number of them went to people who received the Diversity Travel Grant, and one went to a local PhD student. There are still a few to be allocated.
Dave suggested that during the registration process in the registration system, that there should be an option to direct funds to particular uses which may be of interest to the person making the contribution. It might be useful to suggest to the LLC, and have one of the categories to be fee waivers for participants so we might be able to be more liberal with fee waivers.
Colin thinks that is a good idea and will suggest that to Jay and whoever is doing sponsorships.
Colin comments that Mallory and Sofia are not here, and this is here to note that this still needs to be resolved. Mirja and Mallory have been discussing suggested charter modifications. Currently, they have not come into agreement on what would satisfy the both of them. This is still in progress.
Colin adds that the ARNP call for papers is on the website and there should be a public announcement about going out anytime now. They have a program comittee selected on a call for papers. They just finished agreeing on the dates, so we could get the submission deadline anytime now.
Colin asks Ignacio about if he heard about back from ACM about budgets?
Ignacio replies that is still in progress, and the request can take up to 2 weeks.
Colin reminded everyone to send their request for agenda time if they haven't already.