Re: Diversity fund selection criteria

Some thoughts... I am afraid they don't get to an answer :(

I think we want to ask the people who put up the money last time what
they think (and check whether they expect to repeat that generosity).

The basic principle is that we should give potential applicants enough
information about how we choose that they have a fair chance to provide
what we are looking for in a successful application.

I understand the concern with prioritising people who have been
contributing, but I would like to balance that against the idea that we
want to encourage contribution from people. I think that we should say
clearly that previous contribution will be viewed as a positive factor
in the decision, but is not a strict requirement given the overall goal.

I think that prioritising participants who have not attended a face to
face before is in the spirit of the original proposal, but it may have
disqualified at least one of the recipients from last time. In the end, I
am not sure if it is a good idea or not.

I think we do need to ask people to explain what perspective they bring -
i.e. identify themselves as some under-represented group, because that
seems likely to be (IMHO should be) a "threshold criterion" at least. In
practice we may want to make judgement calls about which perspective is
more needed in which WG, despite the risks. We may also want to allow the
donors to provide guidance along those lines.

We need to be clear to whom the information will be given. That means
identifying the selection committee, and anyone else who will get it.

It seems reasonable to offer donors the opportunity to nominate someone to
the selection committee (in the case of ConsenSys, we would have done so).
There is a balance to find - should it be someone who knows the WG area,
someone from the donor's own diversity team, or should we just see who we
get?

cheers

Chaals

On Tue, 22 Jan 2019 19:11:06 +0100, <deborah.kaplan@suberic.net> wrote:

> Here are the possible directions we could go:
>
> 1. First come, first served, as long as the person is from a group that  
> is underrepresented both in the W3C and in global power structures.
>
> 2. First come, first served, as long as the person is from a group that  
> is underrepresented in global power structures whether or not that  
> person is from a group underrepresented in the W3C.
>
> 3. Do an analysis of the diversity of the WGs represented by the  
> applicants, and rank people according to the diversity of that  
> particular WG and its needs. (There are ways in which this would be  
> best, but it would also be incredibly fraught; we would be outsiders  
> trying to rank the diversity of the WGs and we would inevitably get a  
> lot wrong, because we are not asking people in the WGs to self-identify.)
>
> 4. Prioritize relatively recent WG participants, as well as established  
> participants who have not attended any in-person events.
>
> 5. Prioritize based on prior work done by the applicants. (This is the  
> one thing I don't want to do, because this will specifically reward  
> those people who are least likely to need it: established professionals,  
> whose work is known and rewarded in the field, who are likely to be able  
> to find alternate sources of funding.)
>
> 6. Rank amongst ourselves which underrepresented groups are most  
> underrepresented in the W3C, and prioritize that way. (This is also of  
> course ridiculously fraught and would probably blow up in our faces.)
>
> There might be other ideas. Out of the ones I have suggested I  
> personally like 4, followed by 1 or 2. We need to come up with a balance  
> between what needs we are trying to meet, what is practical, and what is  
> minimally likely to cause a huge political backlash.
>
> Deborah
>
> On Tue, 22 Jan 2019, Léonie Watson wrote:
>
>> Everyone,
>>
>> The conversation about how we frame the diversity fund is closely  
>> linked to
>> the selection criteria we'll use to choose the successful candidates.
>>
>> I admit I'm at something of a loss as to where to start with this one.  
>> Beyond
>> being from an under-represented group (whether we ask people to  
>> self-identify
>> which one or not), I'm not sure what criteria we should use.
>>
>> Hoping some of you have ideas...
>>
>> Léonie.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> --


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Received on Sunday, 27 January 2019 17:04:14 UTC