I think the overall point is that expertise and experience are not the same thing, and that while a baseline level of expertise is necessary, experience adds much that expertise does not guarantee in itself. Expertise is a narrow measure of value in a deliberative process. As long as there is a sort of "critical mass" of expertise in the group, additional variety of experience adds more to collective deliberations than additional duplication of expertise. Dan -- Any opinions expressed in this message are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect any position of the author's employer. On Fri, February 1, 2013 10:27 am, Carl Smith wrote: > Lighten up Andrew, > > Satire is another and funny way of making a point. But more rationally, > if you had an important task of which you were uncertain of the > methodology, would you not seek the most qualified individual to assist > you without regard to anything other than talent? > > Lou > > On 2/1/2013 1:50 AM, Andrew A. Adams wrote: >> Marc, >> >> You seem to have missed the context of the discussion of diversity. It >> arose >> because of discussions of the GNSO endorsements of candidates for the >> ATRT2 >> team. While Avri, Dan, myself and others have engaged in a general >> discussion >> of diversity, the issue I was posting on and that the others taking this >> question seriously seemed to me to be posting on, is the question of >> required >> diversity in bodies with specific authority or whose outputs are likely >> to be >> used to strongly and formally influence piolicy-making. Voluntary >> membership >> organisations such as NCUC/NCSG may also form an echo-chamber and >> self-aware >> people interested in equality, justice and fairness may seek to put some >> resources into outreach to disproportionately encourage new members from >> under-represented groups. >> >> Your discussion about intelligence levels, US political leanings and US >> sports teams are rather off-the-point and in fact represent a classic >> misdirection argument about any form of attempting to improve diversity >> of >> representation. >> >> If you haven't already seen it, I heartily recommend John Scalzi's post >> on >> "Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is": >> >> http://tinyurl.com/cngqk4h >> >> On this list we have good gender balance, some reasonable representation >> from >> developing countries and some other geographic diversity (though I think >> the >> only Japan-based members of the list are immigrant SWMs from the UK or >> US, >> but I might be mis-remembering, and I don't recall seeing any >> Korean-based >> posters - FYI Korea and Japan have some of the highest Internet >> penetration >> rates in the world, but are very unengaged in Internet governance fora). >> But >> we're just one constituency in ICANN and many of the others seem far >> less >> diverse and even with our diversity, it would be easy for the formal >> bodies >> of ICANN to end up unrepresentative, and therefore producing poorer >> policies. >> >> Forgive me for being concerned about such issues, but as an information >> ethicist, looking at the mechanisms creating and perpetuating inequality >> in >> information services is one of my research interests. >> >> >> >