Subject: Re: IETF meeting scaling: early schedules?

From: Doug Royer <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 16:05:12 -0700 (PDT)

> From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
> To: [email-masked]
> 
> > A different hybrid suggestion from Dave's is practiced
> > by a number of working groups - holding full-day
> > or longer interim meetings in addition to the normal meetings
> > during IETF that get the benefit of the IETF "melting pot."
> 
> Occasional interim meetings can indeed be quite useful and they are 
> fine as long as most of the work gets done on the mailing list.  
> But I've seen far too many groups that try to do most of their 
> work in interim meetings, ...

Up to this point I was not going to say anything.

The CALSCH WG has been accused of that. However its fairly
rare for someone to post any solution and for a problem and
not show up for the interim meetings.

There is still much work to do in CALSCH and no interim meeting
would slow it down. 

There are very little comments (compared to the amount of work done)
sent to the WG list after a draft is submitted.

> ...and for which the IETF meetings are 
> seen only as a nuisance or a place to announce/present/summarize 
> work done elsewhere.  This is an abuse of the IETF process. 

I have not heard of anyone in CALSCH call an IETF a nuisance
or only a place to announce/present/summarize work.

> The output of such groups tends to be very suspect - not only because 
> of its lack of quality but also because there is no good way to know 
> whether it really represents community consensus.

Drafts are posted and comments are made. Almost all input is
talked about. Mostly when WG list input is not talked its because
there is no proposal - just a complaint (in the WG's that I watch
or participate in).

Many of the full IETF comments are not submitted on the WG list.
So, can't the same be said about a full IETF meeting - that is
not everyone could attend, yet some decisions were made.

I do strongly agree that interim meeting notes must be posted.
However one of the reasons for an interim meeting is to make
progress on complicated issues and that does mean that decisions
are made as to what to put into a draft. It does not mean
that the draft can not change.

> Also, most groups holding interim meetings tend to forget that
> such meetings have the same requirements as for meetings held
> at IETF conferences: the requirement to get advance approval from
> the appropriate AD, the requirement for public announcement
> (not just on the WG mailing list), and the requirement for timely
> reporting of minutes.

Vendors do talk to each other. That's a fact of life. So (in my
opinion) its best to do that inside of the IETF. And I see
interim meetings as a way to move a standard along faster.

I don't think that you were talking about the CALSCH WG. However
I feel strongly about interim meetings and if you could attend one
of the CALSCH meetings you would see that in the area of CALSCH that
most of the time is spend just agreeing on what newly defined words mean.
Once we agree on a definition, there is often consensus.

-Doug
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From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 12:21:01 +0100 (BST)

> There is still much work to do in CALSCH and no interim meeting

To be fair, if a calendar and scheduling workgroup couldn't schedule
its own meetings successfully, it would obviously be beyond all hope.

If it was e.g. DRUMS, audio/video transport or a multicast workgroup
where interim non-IETF meetings were thought essential to the process,
this would have to be viewed in an entirely different light...

use the tools you standardise - MIBs may be an exception here.

> Once we agree on a definition, there is often consensus.

So once there is consensus on a definition, there is consensus?
And that's what you spend your interim meetings doing? Amazing...

L.

thought meetings were for debate, actually. This is all very NewSpeak.

<[email-masked]>PGP<http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/>

---

From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 12:21:01 +0100 (BST)

L.

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 10:36:49 -0400

> There is still much work to do in CALSCH and no interim meeting

The problem is that interim meetings inevitably exclude a valuable
set of participants - including those who are not in North America,
those who are involved with large numbers of working groups and
have valuable experience in protocol design, and those who think
of the impact of this work in terms far longer than product release 
cycles.

Occasionally interim meetings are a good idea, but it is my experience
that when they become "business as usual" the quality of the group's 
work tends to suffer for lack of broader input.

> sent to the WG list after a draft is submitted.

This might be a sign that all is well.  It can also be a danger sign.
It can mean that the folks who weren't at the interim meeting feel
excluded to the point that they aren't willing to participate.

> not everyone could attend, yet some decisions were made.

Of course.  This is why we have a tradition that decisions are not
final until they have the consensus of the mailing list - i.e. the
entire working group.

> that the draft can not change.

One important question is:  do the people at the interim meeting feel 
that they're dictating the outcome of the group's work, or that they're 
trying to put together a proposal that will help build consensus?
Another is: do the people who weren't able to attend the interim meeting
feel like their ideas and concerns are being given adequate consideration?
Questions like these are difficult to answer.  Unfortunately, by the
time it is obvious that a working group has gone off into the weeds
because control of the output is in the hands of too few people, there's
very little that anyone can do to fix things.

> interim meetings as a way to move a standard along faster.

Yes, but having lots of interim meetings increases the probability 
that the result won't be worthy of standardization.  If a specification 
is debated mostly by email, people have to read and attempt to understand 
the spec *without benefit of someone to explain it in person*.  This
encourages the author/editor to write very clear prose so that list
members can understand it.  Over the life of a protocol standard, most
of the people who are implementing the specification will not have been
working group participants and will not have had the benefit of 
participation in face to face meetings with the protocol designers.
The specification must stand on its own.    A protocol specification 
written by one or two individuals, with the implicit requirement that it 
be understandable by working group members with little more contact than
a mailing list, is a lot more likely to be clear and concise than one 
which was developed by a committee at a large number of face to face
meetings.

I'm by no means opposed to occasional interim meetings, but at least
in the applications area, I am strongly of the belief that interim
meetings should happen only on rare occasions, not as a normal way
of doing business.  This is my conclusion after watching several 
working groups experiment with them, and seeing their output.  Some 
groups have done better than others, but I cannot think of a single 
group in the applications are which has held frequent interim meetings, 
whose output has not been called into question by those who felt 
excluded, and/or of dubious quality.  Such situations create a 
severe burden for the ADs, because by the time the complaint is made
or by the time a poorly written specification is deemed 'finished' 
by the group, it's very difficult to do anything to improve the situation.

Running a working group is an art, and chairs need a lot of flexibility
if they are to do their jobs effectively.  Hard and fast rules are a lot
more likely to get in the way than they are to help - and 99% of the
time people respond to rules not by trying to understand why they are there
but by figuring out ways to circumvent them.  So I don't think there
should be hard and fast rules limiting interim meetings except to say
that they are subject to the same approval, announcement, and reporting
requirements as for other meetings.  

But I do want to encourage WG chairs to make sure that participation
in their groups is completely open to all would-be participants
(not just to "vendors"), that meetings aren't held so often that they 
shut out those who cannot attend, and that the major discussions are 
held on the list rather than at face to face meetings.   Particuarly
in the applications area, the ADs cannot supervise everything closely, 
so the IETF necessarily places a great deal of trust in its WG chairs.
The chair has the primary responsibility for keeping things open.

Keith

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 10:36:49 -0400

Keith

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 09:34:12 -0700

>trying to put together a proposal that will help build consensus?

I've gone to the last 2 CalSched interim meetings.  All the other attendees 
are new to the IETF.  However, they have been participating in the working 
group for quite some time and have clearly learned the "mailing list rules 
above all" rule.

They remind themselves of it, explicitly, during heated or strong decisions.

>feel like their ideas and concerns are being given adequate consideration?

that is easily measured by looking at the mailing list, as well as whether 
their are complaints to the chair or an area director.  we are not a quiet 
community.

d/

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Dave Crocker                                         Tel: +1 408 246 8253
Brandenburg Consulting                               Fax: +1 408 273 6464
675 Spruce Drive                             <http://www.brandenburg.com>
Sunnyvale, CA 94086 USA                 <mailto:[email-masked]>

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 09:34:12 -0700

d/

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 13:39:42 -0400

> their are complaints to the chair or an area director.  

No it is not.  A mailing list can be quiet either because everyone is
satisfied and there is nothing to discuss, or because the people who
have objections don't believe it's worth the trouble for them to speak
up.  Complaints to the AD cannot be axiomatically assumed to have merit,
and are difficult and extremely time consuming to evaluate.  Mailing 
list traffic doesn't tell the story either if there has been a 
significant amount of intra-group communication off of the mailing list.

Please note that in this discussion I haven't mentioned any group 
specifically.  For existing groups that have invested significantly
in interim face to face meetings, the damage is already done, and
(as I've said already) such damage is difficult to repair.  So I'm 
far more concerned with getting new and future groups on the right 
track, than with making an example of any existing group.

Keith

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 13:39:42 -0400

Keith

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 10:55:52 -0700

>have objections don't believe it's worth the trouble for them to speak

A well-established IETF philosophy is that concerns and opinions must be 
voiced.  We place a positive and strong requirement on participants to 
express themselves.  We have a long history of being quite poor at dealing 
with the concerns of "quiet" participants.

That is unfortunate, in terms of those from less assertive -- or, rather, 
more polite -- cultures, but it is nonetheless the IETF culture.  Hence, my 
original claim stands.

>up.  Complaints to the AD cannot be axiomatically assumed to have merit,

I am under the impression that all complaints are taken seriously.  Hence, 
the making of a complaint is significant, even if investigation does not 
prove out the validity of the complaint.  My original assertion was that 
complaints are a useful indicator of problems.  That does not mean that all 
complaints are valid.

>in interim face to face meetings, the damage is already done, and

The automatic presumption of "damage" is simply without basis, Keith.

d/

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 10:55:52 -0700

d/

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 14:15:42 -0400

> with the concerns of "quiet" participants.

I agree with this.  People have to speak up in a timely fashion
in order to get things fixed. Part of my reason for engaging in 
this dialog is to make people more aware of the problems with 
this practice so that they can speak up. 

> The automatic presumption of "damage" is simply without basis, Keith.

I call 'em like I see 'em, Dave.

Keith

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 14:15:42 -0400

Keith

---

From: Shane Kerr <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 15:46:38 -0400 (EDT)

On Sat, 24 Jul 1999, Keith Moore wrote:

> I agree with this.  People have to speak up in a timely fashion in order
> to get things fixed. Part of my reason for engaging in this dialog is to
> make people more aware of the problems with this practice so that they
> can speak up.

<rant>
It might help if the IETF wasn't so mean.  The IETF purports to have an
open, inclusive culture and process.  In my experience it has been rude,
cliqueish, and condecending in the extreme.  Working group members should
realize that not everybody has been wired since the ARPANET days and stop
bitch-slapping any suggestion posted, simply because of a vague similarity
to RFC 17 or a piece of code written as a PhD thesis in 1989.

It may not be true at all working groups, but I was shocked at the
response to some of the audience members to presentations at the IETF in
Minneapolis (I was not in attendence in Oslo), and in general the
dismissive nature of conversations on mailing lists. 

Rather than being proud of the "informal" nature of the IETF, perhaps the
IETF should examine some of the reasons that other organizations have
formal rules for meetings and forums.  It's not just to keep new ideas out
- sometimes quite the opposite.
</rant>

Shane Kerr

---

From: Shane Kerr <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 15:46:38 -0400 (EDT)

<rant>

Shane Kerr

---

From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 15:56:27 -0500

On 7/24/99 at 3:46 PM -0400, Shane Kerr wrote:

>realize that not everybody has been wired since the ARPANET days and stop...
[thoroughly offensive term for "rudely and unjustly shouting down"]
>...any suggestion posted, simply because of a vague similarity

The IETF does have a culture of expecting people who participate to 
have "done their homework". Some of us are patient about explaining 
things to new people who haven't caught up with early work; others of 
us are impatient (and perhaps rude) when faced with new folks. We 
are, after all, just a bunch of humans, some with less social skills 
than others. However, we are for the most part concerned about 
engineering quality and if a solution is good and can be supported, 
some of the rude old fogies are bound to defend it. However, if an 
idea is bad, it's bad, whether or not someone's nice about telling 
you so.

>Minneapolis (I was not in attendence in Oslo)...

Well, herein lies a serious problem of late: There should not be 
"presentations" and "audiences" at IETF meetings; this is *not* part 
of the IETF culture. IETF meetings are for high-throughput (higher 
than the mailing list) interactive conversations for the purpose of 
getting work done. If you come to an IETF meeting, you should already 
know what's been going on in the working group on the mailing list 
and should have read the documents and be prepared to discuss them. 
IETF meetings are most emphatically *not* for people to "present" 
ideas and for other people to "audit" (i.e., listen); that's an utter 
waste of time that's been happening increasingly in recent years.

I think some of the rude responses you are seeing are due to a clash 
between those people who want to get work done and those people who 
have come to learn something about the topic, and the failure of each 
to realize the other is sitting in the room. The latter set of people 
do not belong at IETF meetings.

>...and in general the dismissive nature of conversations on mailing lists.

Conversations on the mailing lists have a problem: The latency of 
messages (i.e., the time it takes to have a conversation given the 
roundtrip time from comment to comment) makes superfluous topics very 
annoying. So when a topic comes up that someone thinks is a rathole, 
folks get very dismissive very quickly so as not to take up a lot of 
time. The way around this is to take new suggestions offline first. 
That is, send some private e-mail to someone in the working group who 
is a contributor on the topic related to your suggestion. Ask whether 
or not he or she thinks it's worth bringing to the whole group. Get 
your ducks in a row first. IETF working groups fall into ratholes 
without a great deal of effort anyway; always make sure your ideas 
won't cause more of that before you suggest them.

>- sometimes quite the opposite.

The IETF actually does have a set of formal rules (see RFC 2026 and 
2418). They work reasonably well. They do not (fortunately or 
unfortunately) require extreme social skill. You must at least try to 
have (as a friend of mine is so fond of saying) a thick skin and a 
civil tongue to participate.

pr
-- 
Pete Resnick <mailto:[email-masked]>
Eudora Engineering - QUALCOMM Incorporated
Ph: (217)337-6377 or (619)651-4478, Fax: (619)651-1102

---

From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 15:56:27 -0500

pr

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 14:38:36 -0700

Nicely done set of responses, Pete.

At 01:56 PM 7/24/99 , Pete Resnick wrote:
>The IETF actually does have a set of formal rules (see RFC 2026 and 2418). 
>They work reasonably well. They do not (fortunately or unfortunately) 
>require extreme social skill. You must at least try to have (as a friend 
>of mine is so fond of saying) a thick skin and a civil tongue to participate.

An issue that I think we can and should consider rather deeply is 
specifically that English is not the native language for many 
attendees.  (Erik Huizer and others have tried to raise this point a number 
of times,)

Separate from the question of cultural disparity, rudeness of our "American 
engineers" style, or the like, is the mechanical fact that processing 
English is vastly more difficult for non-native speakers.

It is not difficult to reduce their difficulty.  It requires that we speak 
a bit more slowly and clearly.  (Well, ok, there IS an occasional 
participant who seems to have a genetic need for speed and garbling.)  It 
requires that we seek to use less slang.

This is not difficult.  It does take a bit of practise, but not much.

Those from more polite and less direct societies can and do learn to adjust 
to our brusque style.  But there is nothing THEY can do to adjust to speech 
that is too fast or slangy or garbled for them to process.

Perhaps it would help to use a a simple gimmick, like beginning every 
working group for asking those who are native English speakers to raise 
their hands.  That will give the participants a sense of the hands NOT raised.

d/

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 14:38:36 -0700

d/

---

From: Paul Hoffman / IMC <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 15:30:21 -0700

At 03:56 PM 7/24/1999 -0500, Pete Resnick wrote:
>If you come to an IETF meeting, you should already know what's been going 
>on in the working group on the mailing list and should have read the 
>documents and be prepared to discuss them. IETF meetings are most 
>emphatically *not* for people to "present" ideas and for other people to 
>"audit" (i.e., listen); that's an utter waste of time that's been 
>happening increasingly in recent years.

And herein lies another problem: how does a newcomer to a WG come up to 
speed? The IETF has no easy way to do this. "Read the archive" is about the 
best we do, and the archives are often almost impenetrable due to their 
lack of threading. "Ask the WG chair" or "ask the person who talks a lot on 
the list" seem like the next best things. "Read the drafts" is certainly 
the best place to start.

>between those people who want to get work done and those people who have 
>come to learn something about the topic, and the failure of each to 
>realize the other is sitting in the room. The latter set of people do not 
>belong at IETF meetings.

I disagree with the last statement. I believe it's fine for them to be 
there, if they don't expect to be catered to. (I believe that there are 
plenty of "people who want to get work done" who should have less 
expectations about to be catered to as well....). Newcomers who aren't up 
on the topic but hope to get an overview will be sorely disappointed with 
IETF meetings, but that's quite different than "they don't belong there", 
particularly in smaller WGs. After a WG meeting, a novice will have an idea 
of who they might approach for more information, or at least get a sense of 
who contributes and who doesn't. In Oslo, I spoke with a fair number of 
newcomers who said the hallway meetings after the WG meetings were 
incredibly valuable to them.

There are lots of folks who don't like the silent majority in the back of 
the meetings; I am not one of them. Unless we have a good way to educate 
people in the mailing lists (and we don't), we should let people do their 
learning in whatever method they choose to, as long as it doesn't get in 
the way of the WG process.

>The way around this is to take new suggestions offline first. That is, 
>send some private e-mail to someone in the working group who is a 
>contributor on the topic related to your suggestion. Ask whether or not he 
>or she thinks it's worth bringing to the whole group. Get your ducks in a 
>row first. IETF working groups fall into ratholes without a great deal of 
>effort anyway; always make sure your ideas won't cause more of that before 
>you suggest them.

And then strongly consider writing up your ideas as an Internet Draft. 
These are Very Good Things because they circumvent many of the 
communication problems on mailing lists. They also force you to think the 
whole problem through (including the requirements), and often make your 
ideas much more persuasive than those who lob short ideas at the mailing list.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium

---

From: Paul Hoffman / IMC <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 15:30:21 -0700

--Paul Hoffman, Director

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 16:04:58 -0700

At 03:30 PM 7/24/99 , Paul Hoffman / IMC wrote:
>plenty of "people who want to get work done" who should

oops.  missed this part of Pete's note.

Some such attendees DO demand catering to and inject their requirement for 
tutorial and reconsideration of the issues, alternatives and decision 
history for the group.  That is clearly not acceptable.

As Pete noted, these meetings are for CONTINUING work, rather than 
introducing new folks to the work.  (Sometimes, however, I find that it is 
comfortable and quick and helpful, to start the meeting with a summary of 
status, to make sure everyone is on the same page.  However, that's quite 
different from a full review of all the WG history and re-hashing arguments.)

On the other hand if someone is uncomfortable with the fact that there are 
quiet attendees who sit politely in the meeting, absorbing whatever they 
can, then the uncomfortable person has missed a key feature of the IETF 
culture.

Every now and again, one of those neophytes asks a question or makes a 
suggestion that permits a breakthrough for the wg.

Just like on the mailing list.

d/

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 16:04:58 -0700

d/

---

From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 00:15:47 +0100 (BST)

> their hands.  That will give the participants a sense of the hands NOT raised.

This is tantamount to arguing the need for effective presentation
skills, and is therefore heresy.

L.

no, dumping a diff of the draft on a slide in 12-point Knuth is just fine.

---

From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 00:15:47 +0100 (BST)

L.

---

From: Masataka Ohta <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Jul 99 17:25:58 JST

Dave;

> attendees.  (Erik Huizer and others have tried to raise this point a number 

It will be good if we are not expected to read thick volume of
internet drafts.

I'm not saying we should not read any IDs, but it is annoying
to read 100 pages of IDs contents of which can be represented
in 5 pages.

						Masataka Ohta

---

From: Masataka Ohta <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Jul 99 17:25:58 JST

Dave;

						Masataka Ohta

---

From: Jacob Palme <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 13:25:27 +0200

At 15.30 -0700 99-07-24, Paul Hoffman / IMC wrote:
>And herein lies another problem: how does a newcomer to a WG come up 
>to speed? The IETF has no easy way to do this. "Read the archive" is 
>about the best we do, and the archives are often almost impenetrable 
>due to their lack of threading. "Ask the WG chair" or "ask the 
>person who talks a lot on the list" seem like the next best things. 
>"Read the drafts" is certainly the best place to start.

Yes, one thing I think should be very important is if the chairman or
editor of a working group now and then write summaries of the present
issues, arguments for and against, and solutions agreed (if any).
Such summaries would both help the discussions in the working group
itself, and could also be copied to a mailing list where people who
want to keep up with what is happening in different working groups
could subscribe.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jacob Palme <[email-masked]> (Stockholm University and KTH)
for more info see URL: http://www.dsv.su.se/~jpalme

---

From: Jacob Palme <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 13:25:27 +0200

---

From: Jacob Palme <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 13:30:15 +0200

At 15.56 -0500 99-07-24, Pete Resnick wrote:
>things to new people who haven't caught up with early work; others 
>of us are impatient (and perhaps rude) when faced with new folks. We 

In ISO and ITU work, they have parallel sessions, usually going on 
during the whole or most of the meeting, with each working group. 
This means that people cannot go to more than one working group.

In IETF we have much shorter sessions with the working groups, so 
that people from one group can visit other groups. Even if these 
visitors who have not "done their homework" should normally keep 
quiet, I think they should be allowed to speak their mind, if they 
feel the working group is going in a dangerously unsuitable direction.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jacob Palme <[email-masked]> (Stockholm University and KTH)
for more info see URL: http://www.dsv.su.se/~jpalme

---

From: Jacob Palme <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 13:30:15 +0200

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 08:09:41 -0700

At 04:25 AM 7/25/99 , Jacob Palme wrote:
>>speed? The IETF has no easy way to do this. "Read the archive" is about 
>>the best we do, and the archives are often almost impenetrable due to 
>>their lack of threading. "Ask the WG chair" or "ask the person who talks 
>>a lot on the list" seem like the next best things. "Read the drafts" is 
>>certainly the best place to start.
>

The IETF Proceedings seems useful to this goal.  It's not and 
"introduction" and its utility as a "summary" varies amongst the working 
group reports, bit it already exists and is quite extensive.

d.

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From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 08:09:41 -0700

d.

---

From: "John W. Noerenberg" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 13:53:48 -0700

At 3:56 PM -0500 7/24/99, Pete Resnick wrote:
>have come to learn something about the topic, and the failure of 
>each to realize the other is sitting in the room. The latter set of 
>people do not belong at IETF meetings.

Ok up to the last sentence.  Attending a WG meeting that is 
unfamiliar territory, shouldn't necessarily cast one as a leper.  But 
it is well to remember that others familiar with the ground are there 
to work on current and new problems, not rehash old ground.

WG meetings aren't the best place to learn what a protocol is all 
about.  But it is a place to learn the interpersonal dynamics of the 
members of the WG.  That's valuable insight for deciphering what's 
said on the mailing list.

john noerenberg
[email-masked]
   ----------------------------------------------------------------------
   The man that can most truly be accounted brave is he who best
   knows the meaning of what is sweet in life and what is terrible,
   and then goes out undeterred to meet what is to come.
   -- Pericles, "Funeral Oration", 479 B.C.
   ----------------------------------------------------------------------

---

From: "John W. Noerenberg" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 13:53:48 -0700

john noerenberg
[email-masked]

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From: "John W. Noerenberg" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 14:03:11 -0700

>skills, and is therefore heresy.

That's a pretty serious leap, Lloyd.  Sensitivity to non-English 
speakers (and like it or not, English is the language of the IETF) 
doesn't imply a certificate from the Dale Carnegie Institute.  All it 
take is willingness to see things from the other guy's perspective.

That can be difficult for anyone, regardless of your native tongue.

john noerenberg
[email-masked]

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From: "John W. Noerenberg" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 14:03:11 -0700

john noerenberg
[email-masked]

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From: "John W. Noerenberg" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 14:10:46 -0700

>issues, arguments for and against, and solutions agreed (if any).

Isn't that why we keep and publish minutes of WG meetings?

I regard WG meetings as an opportunity to, among other things, allow 
the WG to catch it's breath, recapitulate where it's been and point 
out where it's headed.

john noerenberg
[email-masked]

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From: "John W. Noerenberg" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 14:10:46 -0700

john noerenberg
[email-masked]

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From: Paul Hoffman / IMC <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 15:10:10 -0700

>Isn't that why we keep and publish minutes of WG meetings?

No. Minutes are for telling folks what happened at the face-to-face 
meeting. A lot happens in between meetings, and a newcomer (or someone who 
stopped following the mailing list for a few months) would like to find out 
things like:
- what are the most active drafts in the group
- which drafts are dead and therefore shouldn't be read
- the sentiment of the group on things like requirements documents

>I regard WG meetings as an opportunity to, among other things, allow the 
>WG to catch it's breath, recapitulate where it's been and point out where 
>it's headed.

This is not the way most WG meetings are run, I believe.

--Paul Hoffman, Director

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From: Paul Hoffman / IMC <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 15:10:10 -0700

--Paul Hoffman, Director

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From: "John W. Noerenberg" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 08:56:09 -0700

At 3:10 PM -0700 7/25/99, Paul Hoffman / IMC wrote:
>meeting. A lot happens in between meetings, and a newcomer (or 
>someone who stopped following the mailing list for a few months) 
>would like to find out things like:

Hmmmm.  That sounds like recapitulation and seeking direction to me. 
If minutes record this as what happens at the meeting, then we're 
saying essentially the same thing.  I dare say we're in violent 
agreement here.

>
>>I regard WG meetings as an opportunity to, among other things, 
>>allow the WG to catch it's breath, recapitulate where it's been and 
>>point out where it's headed.
>

I'm not gonna touch that.

best,

john noerenberg
[email-masked]

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From: "John W. Noerenberg" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 08:56:09 -0700

best,

john noerenberg
[email-masked]