Subject: unresponsive secretariat

From: "William Allen Simpson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 98 12:59:26 GMT

I am tired of getting these messages about problems subscribing and
unsubscribing to the IETF list.  Apparently, it is not automated.

We have begged the Secretariat to require confirmation on subscription
and unsubscription.

We have begged the Secretariat to require a poster to be subscribed.

We have begged that the first posting by anyone be checked for relevance
before being manually added to the allowed posters list.  This also
solves the secondary exploder problems, and the cross posting problems,
and the usenet gateway problems.

We have asked that our meetings not be held in vacation spots.  Yet,
instead of Seattle in December as expected, we get Disneyland ... a much
more expensive proposition!

It does not appear that the Secretariat is responsive to our requests.

Let us re-bid the Secretariat.

1> I'd like to unsubscribe from the discussion mailing list.
1>
1> Unfortunately, I've tried unsubscribing by sending mail (twice) to the
1> "-request" address to no avail. Thanks in advance, and sorry to the list for
1> the noise.

2> For some reason I keep getting all your e-mails.  Every time I sign on
2> there are approximately 50 e-mails from people I don't even know.  Please
2> remove my e-mail address from whatever list I happen to be on.  Thank you.

[email-masked]
    Key fingerprint =  17 40 5E 67 15 6F 31 26  DD 0D B9 9B 6A 15 2C 32

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From: Steve Coya <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 09:02:48 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)

Bill,

I was about to prepare a point-by-point response, but figured it would
be more efficient to simply state that:

We were behind on subscribe and unsubscribe requests, but I do believe we
almost caught up. We have already _responded_ to the requests that were
sent last night and early this morning. One unsubscribe request was from a
sender NOT on the IETF list. We've already informed him of this, and 
suggested he send his unsubscribe request to the OTHER list that was
on the envelope.

WRT Seattle vs Orlando, there were no hotels in Seattle large enough to
accommodate the IETF. And as this is off-season, the rates were are
looking at for Orlando are well below those of Seattle.

Steve

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From: "Donald E. Eastlake 3rd" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 09:56:24 -0500 (EST)

On Tue, 17 Feb 1998, William Allen Simpson wrote:

> Date: Tue, 17 Feb 98 12:59:26 GMT
> From: William Allen Simpson <[email-masked]>
> 
> ...
> 

Well, I think there was a consensus to never to meet again in silicon valley
(well, at least not for a few decades) to avoid being mobbed.  And perhaps
against meeting at vacation spots during their high season.  But I can't see
any particular reason not to meet in Orlando in early December.  (and that's
DisneyWorld, not DisneyLand)

> ..

Would it simply be a matter of a decision?  Isn't the Secretariate still
funded by the US Government?  It would be trivial to raise the funds needed
by increasing IETF meeting registration fees and still keep those fees more
than a factor of two less than most week long technical meetings with
attendance of the caliber of that at IETF meetings.  (And yes, you could have
a variety of special discounts.  But with some companies funding
*over*fourty* employees to attend an IETF meeting, there is room for a
general increase.)

So who exactly is going to manage this bidding and the resulting contract? 
The IAB and IESG are more optimized for technical decisions.  Seems like it
is either the ISOC board of trustees or you need a whole new mechanism. 

While I'm sure the Secretariat is not perfectly eficient, in line with the
above, you should consider whether some problems may be caused by lack of
resources.  This may relate to the amount of resources being set by US
government funding which presumably is not easy to adjust as requirements for
services change. 

> ..

Donald
member, Magic Kingdom Club
=====================================================================
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---

From: "Howard C. Berkowitz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 10:19:43 -0500

This is NOT intended as a criticism of the secretariat, but if anything a
request on where there should be a discussion thread of how to make the
IETF meetings more effective.  I haven't made as many significant IETF
contributions as Bill Simpson, but I believe I have been active enough, in
lists and RFCs, to say I've paid some of my dues.

I've found the size of the recent meetings has made it more and more
difficult to do work.  "work" to be defined below.  It's been especially
frustrating for me from a pure physical standpoint; I have a hearing loss
and wear a hearing aid, and, up to the December meeting, THOUGHT my
distance vision was OK with glasses.  Still, I think that people with
normal hearing and vision would encounter some of the same problems I did.

In December, I got very little useful content out of some of the larger
meetings, where I fully intended to participate.  This was due to sheer
room size and inadequate means to deal with this.  I don't remember
specific room names, but the small room used for OSPF, and the medium sized
room used for IDR, worked.  The large rooms for NAT, IPPM, etc., did not,
although, interestingly, the one for MPLS did.

The only way I could assure a seat where I could see and hear in the busier
sessions was to rush to the new room as soon as the previous meeting broke,
and stake out a chair.  Unfortunately, this meant that I often missed the
informal discussion at breaks, which really is one of the more important
parts of the IETF.

I found it almost impossible to hear or see the presentations, much less
participate.  Before we talk about limiting the size of the meetings, I
suggest we pay some attention to improving delivery and interaction within
the existing structure.

What is Work?
-------------
Work, in my mind, is being at least able to hear and see the presentations
and questions, sufficiently that I can take content home and participate if
I can add to the discussion.  It means having the opportunity to match
faces with email addresses, so I can set up meaningful offline discussions.
It's being able to get a reasonable idea of the goals of, and key
participants in, a BOF.

Mechanics of Presentations
--------------------------

With presentations, one of the major problems was that many speakers do not
know how to prepare readable presentations.  They simply made
transparencies of ordinary typed text. This made the letters too small to
read from any distance, and also tended to make the slides extremely busy.
In addition, there seemed to be a significant variation among
projector/screen systems in brightness and contrast.  This was aggravated,
in some cases, by the fonts chosen for slides.

Sound was inconsistent.  I'm not sure if it was the amplifiers/speakers, or
that some presenters used their microphones  incorrectly.

More emphasis should be given to guidelines for presenters.  I recognize we
have enough problems with I-D cutoff, but I almost feel there needs to be
review of presentations by the chairs or secretariat before the meetings,
to check if they are readable.

The secretariat, either directly or by contract, should check the adequacy
of venue-provided audiovisual equipment. I would suggest that a sample
good-quality transparency should be provided, and both made available as a
template for presenters, and also used to test each room projector to
verify it is clearly readable from the back of the room, using that
projector and screen.

Encouraging Informed Discussion
-------------------------------

I admit freely I don't have an answer.  One thing that had occurred to me,
and is useful as a thought experiment only, is to reserve seats in the
front of meetings for people who subscribe to the WG lists or otherwise
demonstrate they have some exposure to the information to be discussed.

Perhaps there is a role on Sunday night or Monday to have capsule work item
presentations on the various working groups.  While I make an effort to
read, and comment on, the drafts in groups of interest, I recognize that I
do go to some groups at the IETF to see if I should get involved.  I
recognize it would be an additional work item for the chairs, but perhaps
some quick orientations beforehand would make the meetings more effective.

The newcomers' orientation perhaps could be expanded to be a survey.  I
have found I tend to skip the Monday kickoff, as I don't get a lot of
content from it and usually have presentation logistics to deal with.
Perhaps there are ways to better use this time.

---

From: Fred Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 12:13:46 -0800

At 9:56 AM -0500 2/17/98, Donald E. Eastlake 3rd wrote:
>Isn't the Secretariate still funded by the US Government?

No. Since November, it has been funded entirely by meeting attendance fees.

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