Subject: Re: Newcomers [Was: Evolutionizing the IETF]

From: Abdussalam Baryun <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2012 15:31:55 +0100

>> There is a direct contribution of US $2.2 million by the Internet
>> Society next year.  Is the plan to rely on Internet Society subsidies
>> or to fix the deficit?  One argument made was that the fees have not
>> been increased over the last years.  I'll point out that there hasn't
>> been significant increase in paid attendance over the years.  Either
>> the IETF is only relevant to the usual folks or else the meetings are
>> not made relevant enough for (new) people to attend.

I am newcomer and not able to attend because most of meeting in
America instead of Europe.

>
> I am repeatedly struck by how many new people *do* attend.
>

I don't know how long do they remain, for me I am feeling disapointed.

> According to Russ's slides [1] 195/1098 are newcomers. And just to labour
> the
> point, a newcomer is not a returnee after 10 years, but someone who has
> never
> attended before.

hope treated equal with all participants,

>
> This number (around 10%) seems consistent over all meetings. So naively, we
> should be growing our attendance by around 300 per year.
>

agree

> That we are not reflects our inability to retain, not our inability to
> attract
> (assuming that we are not completely refreshing the IETF attendance every
> three
> or four years). Should not be rocket science to follow up with some
> newcomers to
> find out why they only attend once and never come back.
>

For me I still did n't attend but understand that many old
participants are biased and there seems no equal opportunity, people
don't always follow the IETF mission and procedure, they just follow
their ways as long there was no complain.

I call all newcomers to open a new WG and start complaining because we
have to discuss why we were disapointed of the IETF and IESG, and even
the Internet Society.

Please note that I will focus my volunteering work in complaining and
fixing the discourage I found so far.

AB

---

From: Yoav Nir <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2012 17:07:55 +0200

> America instead of Europe.

Adding US and Canada attendees (I counted last week, might have changed slightly) you get to about 51% of the attendees. 
When meetings are held in other parts of the world (like Taipei, Paris or Prague) Americans still make up over 40% of the attendees.
Much as I prefer 4-hour flights to 12-hour flights, it minimizes the general pain to hold meetings in America.
There's also the issue that finding good venues is considerably easier in America than in either Europe or Asia

> I don't know how long do they remain, for me I am feeling disapointed.

Some come back, and some don't. Could you expand on what you're disappointed about?

> hope treated equal with all participants,

The new attendee, same as the old attendee gets to have everyone shut up when they go to the mike. If you have a draft and a relevant presentation, you can usually get time at a WG meeting regardless of how many meetings you've attended. Knowing that you should do these things is the learning curve that every one of us must go through.

>> should be growing our attendance by around 300 per year.

But as both you and Adrian Farrel said, a lot of these don't come back. Maybe a more relevant statistic for the churn would be to count the third-time attendees.

Millions of people go sailing for the first time each year. A huge proportion of those get sea sick or bored, and never do it again. That's not a useful metric to assess the size of the sailing community.

> fixing the discourage I found so far.

OK, but if something or someone discouraged you, speak up. Existing members can't help you if you don't tell us what's wrong.

Yoav

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2012 09:28:53 -0800

Hi Abdussalam,
>America instead of Europe.

Most of the money comes from North Americans.  There is some 
historical information in RFC 3717.

>I don't know how long do they remain, for me I am feeling disapointed.

Could you please elaborate on why you are feeling disappointed?

>hope treated equal with all participants,

The problem with treating everyone as equals is that the newcomer has 
the same opportunity as the person who has been attending the IETF 
meetings since a long time.  In practice, newcomers are given a 
slight advantage.  It depends on whom you are dealing with.  The 
suggestion is to be patient with the old people.

>their ways as long there was no complain.

The mission says that the IETF will make the Internet work 
better.  That is the public relations explanation.  The better 
explanation could be like this: Let's say I dislike you and we are 
both part of a group writing a specification;  the mission is to get 
that specification written.  The problem is for the people taking 
decisions to see how to get us both to agree so that the group can 
produce a specification.

Now, let's say that you did not win the argument.  If you feel 
strongly about the argument, e.g. you want to prove that you are 
right, you believe that something bad will happen if the protocol is 
designed in such a way, etc., you can complain about it.  If nobody 
complains there is an assumption that everything is ok.

If you want to complain, explain what was wrong and what you would 
like to be done about it.  I suggest reading RFC 4144.  The 
procedures are there in case you feel that you have been ignored and 
you want to do something about it.

>have to discuss why we were disapointed of the IETF and IESG, and even

You don't need a working group to discussion; you can discuss on this 
mailing list.  It is likely that the IESG will take action on your 
proposal if you can build support for it.

By the way, your message does not explain why you are disappointed 
with the Internet Society.

Regards,
-sm

---

From: "Fred Baker (fred)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2012 21:05:23 +0000

On Nov 9, 2012, at 12:28 PM, SM wrote:

> Most of the money comes from North Americans.  There is some historical information in RFC 3717.

I'd suggest a more thorough analysis.

Data from https://www.ietf.org/meeting/upcoming.html and https://www.ietf.org/meeting/past.html. Take a look at the attached spreadsheet.

IETF demographics and meeting location policy have changed over time.

Originally, in 1986, not only was the IETF entirely American, it was entirely US Government, and nobody else was invited. That changed pretty quickly, but the community attending remained predominantly US for some time. So meetings before 1993 all occurred in North America, and if truth be told, the reason that the meeting in August 1990 was outside the US was that it had been intended to be in Seattle, the host had a problem, and UBC came to the rescue.

Starting in 1993, we noted that the demographics had changed; about one in six IETF participants came from Europe. So, we tried to place one meeting in six in Europe. We had a small group attending from Australia, and in 2000 had a meeting there in recognition of the fact. But by that time, we were starting to have a more significant attendance from Asia, notably Japan. So we changed policy to trying to position three meetings in six in North America, two in Europe, and one in Asia+Australia. And starting (IIRC) in 2005, we simplified that policy to having one meeting each year in Asia, Europe, and North America.

Regarding that last policy, we have unfortunately had some problems; one meeting that we intended to have in Asia recently fell through, and we had to move it somewhere, and in another recent case the Asian venues we were looking at essentially priced themselves out of the market. Our Asian friends told us that a meeting in Vancouver was an acceptable compromise; getting a visa wasn't as hard for them as a US visa, and it was not too hard to get to. So we have had at least two meetings in Vancouver that we fully intended to have in Asia.

Since 2004, we have in fact had about 1/3 of our meetings in Europe. If anyone has been shortchanged, it has been our Asian friends. "Where the money came from" was an issue in the 1990's - we had to assume that a meeting outside the US would be financially short due to US participants not attending; in 2000, the meeting in San Diego had 2810 people and the meeting in Pittsburg 2344, but the meeting in Adelaide had 1431. By 2004, distribution had become roughly even - meetings that year had right around 1300 attendees regardless of location. The issues are now related to success in finding affordable venues.

---

From: Arturo Servin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2012 18:26:05 -0500

So basically the IETF is roaming most of the time in  North America,
sometimes in Europe and once in a while in Asia. Is that how the IETF
thinks about the global development of Internet standards?

	No wonder why some countries in Africa and Latin America are
approaching ITU.

	If the IETF really wants to make a change we need to stop thinking that
North-America/Europe = Global.

Regards,
as

On 09/11/2012 16:05, Fred Baker (fred) wrote:
> Data from https://www.ietf.org/meeting/upcoming.html and
> https://www.ietf.org/meeting/past.html. Take a look at the attached
> spreadsheet.
> 
> Originally, in 1986, not only was the IETF entirely American, it was
> entirely US Government, and nobody else was invited. That changed pretty
> quickly, but the community attending remained predominantly US for some
> time. So meetings before 1993 all occurred in North America, and if
> truth be told, the reason that the meeting in August 1990 was outside
> the US was that it had been intended to be in Seattle, the host had a
> problem, and UBC came to the rescue.
> 
> Starting in 1993, we noted that the demographics had changed; about one
> in six IETF participants came from Europe. So, we tried to place one
> meeting in six in Europe. We had a small group attending from Australia,
> and in 2000 had a meeting there in recognition of the fact. But by that
> time, we were starting to have a more significant attendance from Asia,
> notably Japan. So we changed policy to trying to position three meetings
> in six in North America, two in Europe, and one in Asia+Australia. And
> starting (IIRC) in 2005, we simplified that policy to having one meeting
> each year in Asia, Europe, and North America.
> 
> Regarding that last policy, we have unfortunately had some problems; one
> meeting that we intended to have in Asia recently fell through, and we
> had to move it somewhere, and in another recent case the Asian venues we
> were looking at essentially priced themselves out of the market. Our
> Asian friends told us that a meeting in Vancouver was an acceptable
> compromise; getting a visa wasn't as hard for them as a US visa, and it
> was not too hard to get to. So we have had at least two meetings in
> Vancouver that we fully intended to have in Asia.
> 
> Since 2004, we have in fact had about 1/3 of our meetings in Europe. If
> anyone has been shortchanged, it has been our Asian friends. "Where the
> money came from" was an issue in the 1990's - we had to assume that a
> meeting outside the US would be financially short due to US participants
> not attending; in 2000, the meeting in San Diego had 2810 people and the
> meeting in Pittsburg 2344, but the meeting in Adelaide had 1431. By
> 2004, distribution had become roughly even - meetings that year had
> right around 1300 attendees regardless of location. The issues are now
> related to success in finding affordable venues.
> 
> 
> 
> 
>

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2012 16:42:12 -0800

Hi Arturo,
>North-America/Europe = Global.

Fred Baker mentioned that:

   "The issues are now related to success in finding affordable venues."

The IAOC Chair commented about meetings in Latin America a few months 
ago [1].  It might be possible (non-IETF effort) to reduce the cost 
to participants to offset an expensive venue in Latin America.

Regards,
-sm

1. http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg74666.html

---

From: Arturo Servin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2012 19:50:37 -0500

SM

>   "The issues are now related to success in finding affordable venues."
    ICANN finds them, the IGF does it, the RIRs do it. Why not the IETF?
 
> ago [1].  It might be possible (non-IETF effort) to reduce the cost to
> participants to offset an expensive venue in Latin America.
>
> Regards,
> -sm
>

    I am sure they would find support, it is just a matter to look and ask.

Regards,
as

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2012 00:50:47 +0000

Arturo,

> thinks about the global development of Internet standards?

No. The criterion has always been to hold meetings where they can be
most effective in making the Internet work better - as far as a
standards organisation can do that. That means choosing places where
a meeting can be run effectively and a reasonably high proportion
of those actively participating can afford to attend. As participation
in the IETF has evolved, so has the geographical part of site selection
policy evolved, as Fred described. For example, the attendance data will
tell you why the policy has recently led to two meetings in China.

I think you'll find the policy is different for more operational
meetings, which as far as I can tell have been taking place in Asia,
Africa and Latin America for years. Those meetings have different
criteria for their part in making the Internet work better.

> 	No wonder why some countries in Africa and Latin America are

ITU-T does a great deal of its standards-making in Geneva. The meetings
in other areas tend have a different purpose, as do many ISOC activities.

> North-America/Europe = Global.

I think nobody has thought that for at least 10 years (IETF 54).

    Brian

---

From: Arturo Servin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2012 20:00:19 -0500

Brian,

    Your comment just reinforce my perception that the IETF is not
interested in being an global organization of standards.

    People is asking how to evolve the IETF, well, one possibility is to
start thinking global and to reach more people outside the common
venues. It is more expensive, more complex, yes. But in my opinion is
worthy if we really want to show that we care about the multistakeholder
model that we preach.

    Hard times may come, some people will ask why the Internet standards
are just developed in some places and will challenge us. Frankly, what I
see is that we do not care.

Regards,
as

---

From: David Morris <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2012 17:52:34 -0800 (PST)

>     I am sure they would find support, it is just a matter to look and ask.

Sometimes it is up to the folks who want to make the change to do the 
looking and asking. 

ICANN has an entirely different funding model than
the IETF as well as significantly different stakeholders. ICANN has
participants willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to
join the quest for TLDs for example. Many IETF participants must
pay their own expenses or compete for their employer's very scarse
travel funds.

---

From: joel jaeggli <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2012 23:11:12 -0500

> worthy if we really want to show that we care about the multistakeholder
Multistakeholder is a loaded term from other contexts. IETF participants 
whether they attend the meeting or not are self-selected.

I have some thoughts about interim meetings as an outreach tool in draft 
form and I would appreciate some feeback on those sections.

http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-jaeggli-interim-observations-03.txt
> see is that we do not care.
Why shouldn't standards be developed elsewhere (oddly enough, they are)? 
IETF participants have never had a monopoly on either need or good ideas.

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2012 17:14:57 +0900

arturo,

many of us have the message that you think the ietf should meet in alyc.
so qui bitching, find a locale/hotel, a host, and the connectivity in
somewhere not too hard to reach (i.e. not a puddle-jumper for the last
hour).  then propose it for one or more of dates which are open.

i'll leave my biases out of it, but there are many lovely cities in
south america which i would love to see again.  of course, all i will
see is the inside of a frelling hotel, but that's life i guess.

randy

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2012 03:34:42 -0800

Hi Arturo,
>interested in being an global organization of standards.

There are some interesting observations in 
draft-jaeggli-interim-observations-03.  For example:

   "Some entities related to the IETF clearly have outreach and advocacy
    as part of the mission, Internet Society, IETF chair, Liaisons, edu-
    team and so forth.  It is not clear to me, that beyond the scope of
    chartered working group documents that end up as part of the RFC
    series, that working group activities including meetings are well
    suited for use as an outreach mechanism."

A working group I participate in booked a slot during the last 
meeting.  That slot, in my individual opinion, is not to be used for 
presentations.  It is not to discuss matters which have not been 
discussion previously on the mailing list.  If someone who has been 
reviewing drafts comes up and says: "I need some help as management 
is asking for travel justification", the person might get a few 
minutes of agenda time.  If there is no justification for the slot 
except for that the WG session would be cancelled.

There was disagreement in the WG and it was not possible to resolve 
that through mailing list discussions.  That led to the WG doing 
nothing for a month.  The meeting provided an opportunity to resolve 
the problem.  It would be a problem if the meeting was held in, for 
example, Canada, and most of the people doing the work [1] cannot attend.

I suggest that you ask Andy Newton why "IETF executives are 
considering selling URNBIS to a pharmaceutical outfit wishing to 
market sedative hypnotics" [2]. :-)

>worthy if we really want to show that we care about the multistakeholder

The IETF is different from ICANN or the IGF.  David Morris commented 
about ICANN meetings [3].

Riccardo Bernardini mentioned that [4]:

   "Q: Why did you not return?

   A: Because the necessity of being at meeting does not compensate for
   the cost.  Also I work at University, so I participate more to
   scientific conference than to engineering meetings. (Also, teaching
   duties do not help)"

Scott Brim commented that [5]:

   'Even back at the IETF at 20 celebration, when long-time participants got
    up and spoke passionately (and really well) about the shared mission and
    values, there were people listening who reacted with "that's not why I'm
    here, I think they're out of touch with the new IETF".'

>are just developed in some places and will challenge us. Frankly, what I

Yes.

There has been nine recent RFCs from South America, two from Africa 
and 312 from Asia, excluding Australia.  There aren't any remote 
participants from Africa.  There are some remote participants from 
Latin America.  There is potential, in my humble opinion, from Latin 
America which can be turned into visible participation in the 
IETF.  I'll mention an off-list comment:  encourage people to 
participate in person, on the mailing lists and file drafts.  I 
suggest talking to the IAOC to find out why the venues they looked 
into were not ok.  Try and get CGI.br to help and find ways to make 
it ok.  I doubt that IETF participants would say no if there is an 
opportunity to go to "cidade maravilhosa".

Regards,
-sm

1. http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg75140.html
2. http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/apps-discuss/current/msg06346.html
3. http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg75782.html
4. http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg75744.html
5. http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg75768.html

---

From: Arturo Servin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2012 12:35:32 -0200

Randy,

    It's not bitching, it self criticism. I think that the IETF thinks
that it is very open but in reality it could do better.

    And about your suggestion, it is my todo list.

Regards,
as

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2012 23:54:52 +0900

> about your suggestion, it is my todo list.

if i can be of help, holler

randy

---

From: Bob Hinden <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2012 10:26:32 -0500

The IAOC site team is planning to visit several potential venues early next year in Latin America / South America.  We are open to suggestions for potential venues to evaluate.

Thanks,
Bob

---

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2012 07:51:46 -0900

> that it is very open but in reality it could do better.

I'm not sure the IETF can "think" anything, but openness is
an institutional value and goal, and we're sometimes more
successful and sometimes less.  That said, I find it a little
difficult to believe that meeting location is a particularly
significant contributor to meeting openness objectives.  I'd
agree that face-to-face meetings have become more important
to IETF process than they probably should be, but I think it's
still probably the case that you can be a significant
contributor without actually attending a meeting.

I think that we haven't done a sufficiently good job of
acculturating newer participants and that can probably make
the organization look more opaque and closed than it actually
is.  Most (but not all) working groups don't have enough help
with document review, and I think that's probably the fast
path to agency within the IETF.  Being a body in a chair at a
meeting is not.

Melinda

---

From: Mary Barnes <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2012 10:57:20 -0600

> path to agency within the IETF.  Being a body in a chair at a

[MB] Exactly!  That's what I did when I first started participating in
IETF.  I would review documents and comment on the mailing.   I also would
volunteer to take meeting minutes as that really does force you to pay
attention to the meeting and not spend the meeting reading email or playing
solitaire.  Or, volunteer to at least follow the jabber room.  Those are
all extremely important for working group effectiveness.  [/MB]

---

From: Arturo Servin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2012 17:31:03 -0200

Bob,

	Nice to hear that.

	I will send off-list to the IAOC some venues, possible hosts and people
that could help in finding a good place.

Regards
as

---

From: Bob Hinden <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2012 13:35:35 -0600

Arturo,

Thanks,
Bob

---

From: Arturo Servin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2012 17:38:17 -0200

Melinda,

	When I said "the ietf thinks" I reefer about the consciousness of the
IETF as a group.

	I disagree with you about meeting location as a factor "openness". I
think that it is an important one to consider. Language is another, but
I am not going there now.

Regards,
as

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2012 20:28:12 -0500

On Fri, Nov 09, 2012 at 08:00:19PM -0500, Arturo Servin wrote:
> are just developed in some places and will challenge us.

And here I thought that the standards were developed on the list.

(For the record, I am not opposed at all to holding a meeting in Latin
America -- I'm personally in favour of it.  But we also don't hold
meetings in India or Myanmar, and for much the same reason: we have a
tiny minority of participants from those places, and given the funding
model the IETF can't afford to hold full-on meetings as a matter of
outreach.  There may be ways to fix that, and I understand the IAOC is
investigating options.  Note that the IETF is always looking for
sponsors for meetings!)

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]

---

From: Donald Eastlake <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2012 20:46:04 -0500

Right. See RFC 4144.

Thanks,
Donald
=============================
 Donald E. Eastlake 3rd   +1-508-333-2270 (cell)
 155 Beaver Street, Milford, MA 01757 USA
 [email-masked]

On Sat, Nov 10, 2012 at 11:57 AM, Mary Barnes
<[email-masked]> wrote:
> [MB] Exactly!  That's what I did when I first started participating in IETF.
> I would review documents and comment on the mailing.   I also would
> solitaire.  Or, volunteer to at least follow the jabber room.  Those are all
> extremely important for working group effectiveness.  [/MB]
>>
>>
>> Melinda

---

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2012 20:20:09 -0900

> 	When I said "the ietf thinks" I reefer about the consciousness of the

I know, I'm just not really sure it has one.  I think that
there's enormous diversity among the reasons people participate
and what it is they hope to get done.

> think that it is an important one to consider.

I think there's a lot of value in sharing the travel pain, but
I'm not sure that "openness" is one of them.  I'm actually pretty
sure it's not.  If you're not participating because travel is
onerous and you would participate if a meeting were held closer,
what happens when the meeting goes back to being held someplace
inconvenient four months later?  I'm certainly not arguing against
holding meetings in a wider range of places and going to countries/
continents we haven't in the past, but rather I'm concerned about
misplaced emphasis on meetings both as some sort of metric of
accessibility and as the mechanism for getting things done.

The IETF works by progressing documents.  Writing documents, reviewing
documents, editing documents - these things don't require meeting
participation, and indeed I'd suggest that requiring meeting
participation, either by fiat or by implication, would work to
reduce openness, discourage participation from both people working
as individuals and people working for small companies, etc., and
is likely to reduce the diversity of the participant pool while
effectively hiding IETF process by pulling it off mailing lists.  I'd
rather that didn't happen, and that has nothing to do with meeting
location.

Melinda

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2012 09:10:01 +0000

>> interested in being an global organization of standards.

Arturo: I think I didn't express myself well. As others have said since,
IETF standards development *is* global and that is one reason why
participation, and consensus-forming, via email is so important. IETF
standards are global too - despite the historical ASCII bias, there is
nothing regional about what we do. Our efforts at internationalisation
are aimed at maintaining that global approach at the same time as
supporting non-ASCII content. Where we happen to meet has little
to do with that, but a lot to do with cost, convenience, and travel
optimisation.

I have twice, in different places, been part of failed attempts to
host IETF meetings. Those failures were nothing to do with prejudice
against the locations and everything to do with cost, convenience
and travel. That's life.

> whether they attend the meeting or not are self-selected.

Exactly. I applaud the efforts of ISOC, the regional registries, and others
(going right back to the old Landweber meetings many years ago) to
encourage people from all over the world to join the Internet technical
community, but that is quite different from the stakeholder dialogue.

    Brian

---

From: Vinayak Hegde <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2012 15:52:49 +0530

> There's also the issue that finding good venues is considerably easier in America than in either Europe or Asia

I find this logic circular. There is more participation from Americans
(people from US) so more meetings are held there and so more people
from US attend. So it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle. The IAOC /
IETF has notably tried to break free of this pattern by having
meetings in Asia (Taipei/Hiroshima/Beijing). But in that aspect 2012 -
2013 -2014 are disappointing years as meetings are being held only in
North America/Europe. Granted the problem of finding good venues is an
issue in some place but holding a meeting a year outside of NA/Europe
would be nice. Maybe try to hold interim meetings in these places (but
cost could be prohibitive for some of the participants - No easy
answers I guess).

-- Vinayak

---

From: Vinayak Hegde <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2012 16:15:22 +0530

> investigating options.  Note that the IETF is always looking for

I don't know enough to comment about Myanmar but the argument for not
holding a meeting in India rings quite hollow. There has been a rising
number of participants from India (both from Indians living in India
and abroad). This is due to two reasons:
1. Internet connectivity and awareness becoming better. Remote
participation has become easier.
2. Better understanding of web technology and relation of standards to
them (examples HTTP/2.0, websockets)
3. Several American MNCs such as Cisco / Juniper setting up offices
and engineers from these organizations getting involved.

SIGcomm (http://conferences.sigcomm.org/sigcomm/2010/) and W3C
(http://wwwconference.org/www2011/) have both happened here in India
in Delhi and Hyderabad respectively. I know the participant profile
and numbers are different for IETF but it is not an insurmountable
mountain to climb.
As is usual, I am willing to help if the IAOC is looking at this part
of the world to hold a meeting.

-- Vinayak

---

From: Abdussalam Baryun <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2012 12:59:57 +0100

I don't think that thoes Canada and US participants are paying for
the attendance, but their organisations, therefore, are we reducing
the cost of other organisations, or we are interested to bring more
participants. IMHO, IF the reason of making the events in America
because participation is mostly declining when events in Europe or
other, THEN the action of IETF to make more events in America will be
reasonable. We need facts not just expectations.

 The important question is how many users of the Internet now are
spreed in the world, and should the IETF consider making attending
easier to users than to old participants? Is n't three meeting events
in America  per two years enough as you mentioned 51% participants are
from America, as IETF meet 4 times a year?

Now 66% of meetings is done in America, which I think it should be
less or equal to 50%.

AB

On 11/9/12, Yoav Nir <[email-masked]> wrote:
> Adding US and Canada attendees (I counted last week, might have changed
> slightly) you get to about 51% of the attendees.
> When meetings are held in other parts of the world (like Taipei, Paris or
> Prague) Americans still make up over 40% of the attendees.
> The new attendee, same as the old attendee gets to have everyone shut up
> when they go to the mike. If you have a draft and a relevant presentation,
> you can usually get time at a WG meeting regardless of how many meetings
> you've attended. Knowing that you should do these things is the learning
> curve that every one of us must go through.
>
> But as both you and Adrian Farrel said, a lot of these don't come back.
> Maybe a more relevant statistic for the churn would be to count the
> third-time attendees.
>
> Millions of people go sailing for the first time each year. A huge
> proportion of those get sea sick or bored, and never do it again. That's not
> a useful metric to assess the size of the sailing community.
>
> OK, but if something or someone discouraged you, speak up. Existing members
> can't help you if you don't tell us what's wrong.
>
> Yoav
>
>
>

---

From: Abdussalam Baryun <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2012 13:02:45 +0100

Amending one line

> from America, as IETF meet 4 times a year?

as IETF meet 6 times per two years?

>> Much as I prefer 4-hour flights to 12-hour flights, it minimizes the
>> general
>> pain to hold meetings in America.
>> Some come back, and some don't. Could you expand on what you're
>> disappointed
>> about?
>>
>>>> This number (around 10%) seems consistent over all meetings. So
>>>> naively,
>>>> we

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2012 09:51:19 -0500

On Sun, Nov 11, 2012 at 04:15:22PM +0530, Vinayak Hegde wrote:
> and abroad).

I completely agree that there is a rising number, but in terms of
percentage of the participants, people actually living in India don't
seem to be a very significant population. 

Indians living abroad don't count for this argument: the whole point
of moving the meetings around is not to include new people, but to
spread the travel burden.  The principle is to travel to places near
where significant numbers of participants are.  (Note this also means
that more-active participants' location in principle ought to weigh
more.)  The important question about Indian contributors living abroad
is not their country of origin, but their location now.

Nevertheless, I think it is almost certainly true that, if the current
trend of involvement continues, we will eventually hold a meeting in
India, for exactly the same reason that we held (and will doubtless
eventually hold again) a meeting in China.  I'll be delighted when we
observe such involvement.

Best,

A
-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2012 09:36:42 -0800

Hi Vinayak,
>from US attend. So it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle. The IAOC /

I thought so too at some point.  I am not sure anymore.  Your views 
and the ones from Arturo Servin seem to converge.  There is some 
discontent on the question of meeting locations within the group of 
people who attend IETF meetings.  When someone raises the question 
the discussion turns towards the IAOC.  It is then pointed out that 
the IAOC does not do outreach.  I didn't use the "IETF" in the 
previous sentence as it is difficult for there to be any 
consciousness of the IETF as a group.

When Adrian Farrell commented about newcomers [1], he mentioned:

   "This number (around 10%) seems consistent over all meetings.
    So naively, we should be growing our attendance by around 300
    per year."

Andrew Malis replied [2] that:

   "Since attendance is largely flat over last few years, obviously
    newcomers that become regulars are offset by existing participants
    that drop out or cannot make a particular meeting."

Fred Baker posted some data and suggested a more thorough analysis 
[3].  His message also provides some insight about the change in 
meeting locations over the years.

Quoting a message which was posted to this mailing list [4]:

   "This specific programme is designed to increase IETF
    participation from emerging and developing economies."

Is there any analysis to determine whether there has been an increase 
in IETF participation from these economies?  Is the outreach effort a failure?

Regards,
-sm

1. http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg75742.html
2. http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg75745.html
3. http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg75776.html
4. http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg75140.html

---

From: Mikael Abrahamsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2012 19:06:37 +0100 (CET)

On Sun, 11 Nov 2012, SM wrote:

> Is there any analysis to determine whether there has been an increase in 
> IETF participation from these economies?  Is the outreach effort a 
> failure?

Personally I believe there could be value in describing what the value is 
to attend the meeting physically. I attended the last meeting in Stockholm 
because it meant I only had to pay the entrence fee, since I live there.

Getting buy-in from management to allow me to go for a week somewhere and 
not be available in the office, pay for hotel and travel, plus the 
entrence fee, it's hard to justify to management. What is a good answer to 
the question "why?".

Remote participating works well in some WGs, in some WGs I have had a hard 
time getting through. People in different WGs treat the WG mailing list 
differently, culture seems to differ quite a lot.

So elaborating on what the benefit of being there physically would 
probably help. Remote participation both during and between meetings is 
crucial for a lot of people I would imagine (it is for me anyway, it's my 
only chance to participate). Getting a low bar for entry into the 
discussions is what I feel is the biggest advantage of the IETF model, 
some WGs really work well in this aspect.

-- 
Mikael Abrahamsson    email: [email-masked]

---

From: Hector Santos <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2012 17:16:40 -0500

The IETF should be leading the charge for easy to use, multi-device 
readiness cyberspacing virtual meeting places, including better 
electronic groupware collaboration tools, etc. It is undoubtedly and 
inevitably the "Achilles' Heel" for the IETF Meeting.  So the IETF 
needs to embrace it now, big time, before its too late. This includes 
getting on board with membership models to subsidize the business and 
its future.  This shouldn't take away "Face to Face" communications - 
in fact, it will increase it.  Its much more doable with today's 
higher universal bandwidth and the IETF needs to be prime examples of 
the various technology it is helping put together and standardize.  In 
fact, the IETF can probably learn and help improve groupware 
communications with new working groups focusing on groupware.

For the record, I do think it is getting better to do remote meeting 
and as expecting the general issues with real time communications is 
still there but its getting better.

--
HLS

Mikael Abrahamsson wrote:
> Personally I believe there could be value in describing what the value 
> is to attend the meeting physically. I attended the last meeting in 
> Stockholm because it meant I only had to pay the entrence fee, since I 
> live there.
> 
> Getting buy-in from management to allow me to go for a week somewhere 
> and not be available in the office, pay for hotel and travel, plus the 
> entrence fee, it's hard to justify to management. What is a good answer 
> to the question "why?".
> 
> Remote participating works well in some WGs, in some WGs I have had a 
> hard time getting through. People in different WGs treat the WG mailing 
> list differently, culture seems to differ quite a lot.
> 
> crucial for a lot of people I would imagine (it is for me anyway, it's 
> my only chance to participate). Getting a low bar for entry into the

---

From: Hector Santos <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2012 17:17:50 -0500

--
HLS

-- 
HLS

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2012 15:05:35 -0800

Hi Mikael,

For newcomers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk48xRzuNvA

At 10:06 11-11-2012, Mikael Abrahamsson wrote:
>Getting buy-in from management to allow me to go for a week 
>somewhere and not be available in the office, pay for hotel and 
>travel, plus the entrence fee, it's hard to justify to management. 
>What is a good answer to the question "why?".

I don't have an answer to the question.  I'd say that it depends on 
your company's goals and what it expects from you.  It also depends 
on your ability to assimilate.  If there's a specification that 
affects your company's bottom line it would be better to discuss 
about it as early as possible.  It's up to you to identify what work 
will be done or is being done and assess its impact.  It's difficult 
to justify if management does not have any understanding of what the 
IETF does.  Here's an argument: "the training course you offered me 
will cost you the same amount as my IETF attendance.  How about you 
sending me to the IETF instead of that training course"?  I am not 
equating training with IETF attendance.  If you are going to attend 
an IETF meeting to be trained you will end up being disappointed.

Now, how could your company determine whether you are going to play 
solitaire instead of doing work at the meeting?  If you have not 
showed any interest in remote participation or you have only posted 
"+1" on the mailing list the probability that you would do much at 
the meeting is, in my humble opinion, very low.

>Remote participating works well in some WGs, in some WGs I have had 
>a hard time getting through. People in different WGs treat the WG 
>mailing list differently, culture seems to differ quite a lot.

Yes.

>probably help. Remote

I'll quote Tom Petch [1]:

   "there is a spectrum in communication from the richest, when I am
    standing in front of you, looking you in the eye, to the poorest, a
    tweet."

On a different thread Ted Hardie commented about trust issues 
[2].  That's difficult to establish remotely.

Regards,
-sm

1. http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg75764.html
2. http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg75749.html

---

From: "John Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 11 Nov 2012 17:13:45 -0000

>from US attend.

Anyone in the world with an e-mail address can participate in and
contribute to the IETF.  I did stuff on mailing lists for years before
I went to a meeting, which is not unusual.  You do need to be able to
read and write English, but beyond that, nobody cares who or where you
are so long as you do useful work.

If people can only get work done by meeting in person, they're not
going to be very effective in the IETF.

R's,
John

---

From: "John Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 11 Nov 2012 17:24:07 -0000

>the attendance, but their organisations, ...

In many cases, you are mistaken.

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2012 08:08:50 +0000

On 11/11/2012 18:06, Mikael Abrahamsson wrote:
...
> some WGs really work well in this aspect.

For WGs that do *not* have a low bar for entry, a detailed complaint to the
chairs and the AD would be very appropriate (and probably more effective than
a rant on this list).

There's no doubt that personal attendance is the best way to get a full
understanding of how the IETF works, but remote participation is
supposed to work.

BTW, I originated the http://www.ietf.org/newcomers.html page and
if any newcomers have comments on the text please send them to me
off-list.

    Brian

---

From: Mikael Abrahamsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2012 09:18:40 +0100 (CET)

On Mon, 12 Nov 2012, Brian E Carpenter wrote:

> For WGs that do *not* have a low bar for entry, a detailed complaint to 
> the chairs and the AD would be very appropriate (and probably more 
> effective than a rant on this list).

Well, it's hard to say what caused an email I sent (new thread, pitching 
idea, asking if it was relevant to the WG) to not get responded to.

Perhaps it was irrelevant or uninteresting but nobody wanted to say so. I 
don't know, if I don't get a response, I tend not to push the issue.

---

From: Riccardo Bernardini <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2012 13:24:48 +0100

On Mon, Nov 12, 2012 at 9:18 AM, Mikael Abrahamsson <[email-masked]> wrote:
>> the chairs and the AD would be very appropriate (and probably more effective
>> than a rant on this list).
>
>

I can add another (likely) reason: low S/N ratio in everyone's
mailbox.  It happened to me too: I see an e-mail, I think it is
interesting and that I should reply, the reply is not just a
one-line-email and it requires so thought,  so I say "I'll reply
later," I get drowned under a ton of other mails and I forget about
this one...  It should not happen, I agree, but it does...

You could say that if the message had enough interest for me, I would
have replied at once and I can agree with that. The matter is that
"interesting" is somehow in between "totally boring" and
"life-or-death matter," so that an e-mail can have some interest and
still remains unresponded too.

About my strictly personal experience of the entry bar in IETF, I must
say that when I went to Maastricht I was really impressed how I felt
"welcomed" and part of the group, while carrying the red label of the
rookie :-).

   ( BTW, part of my "welcomed" feeling was due also to the "reception
for  new attendants" and the  "crash courses" for newcomers given the
first day [suggestion for potential newcomers: go to that courses, it
is worth it] )

I had my fair share of interaction (I am quite shy a guy, so it is not
really in my nature to jump for the mike at every occasion) without
feeling a "second class citizen" because of my newcomer status.
However, this was *my* personal experience and your mileage may vary.
Maybe if someone else interacts with people less friendly than the one
I interacted with, they could experience a different situation.

---

From: Yoav Nir <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2012 13:48:51 +0000

On Nov 12, 2012, at 2:24 PM, Riccardo Bernardini wrote:

> this one...  It should not happen, I agree, but it does…

One way to get better responses is a targeted message. A message to a busy working group's list with "hey, I've had this idea. What do y'all think?" is likely to be ignored by most if they weren't prepared for it.  A message to Jack saying "Hey, Jack, what do you think of this?" is much more likely to get a response, and a draft you're co-authoring with "Jack" might get more attention than a draft you're authoring by yourself, assuming that you are either unknown or barely-known, and "Jack" is a pillar of the community.

That's one of the reasons to go to meetings. You get to know the "Jack"s personally, so that you can feel comfortable asking them directly for review of your ideas. If you don't have that, a good second-best is to send this directly to a working group chair. They will feel more obliged to answer than a random Jack, they know the "Jack"s (or they're not doing their job), and they can introduce you and your idea better to both the group and the appropriate "Jack".

> still remains unresponded too.

It takes a lot of thinking and some careful reading to decide if you're really interested. We don't have time to do that for every intriguing message on the mailing list.

> I interacted with, they could experience a different situation.

Yeah, me too. My first IETF meeting I went to the mike only once. You get used to it, and with time, you build a reputation. You can build a reputation with only the mailing list. You can even make the necessary social ties by participating in the mailing list, but that's considerably harder.

Yoav

---

From: [email-masked] (Dale R. Worley)
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2012 09:56:32 -0500 (EST)

> From: Mikael Abrahamsson <[email-masked]>
> 

The operational rule in the IETF is "Everyone may speak.  Not everyone
is listened to."

More or less by definition, your message was uninteresting.  The
question is why was it considered uninteresting.  One way to find out
would be to send private messages to respected people in the WG and
ask what they think of the idea.  ("socializing the idea") Of course,
they might not answer either.  One way to build up enough credibility
to get respected people to answer you is to do thankless jobs.  In
most WGs, there are never enough people who are willing to read and
provide detailed critiques of drafts.  (And believe me, almost all
drafts need significant improvements of their presentation, and often
of the technology.)  And the quality of your critiques of drafts is a
good way to demonstrate your technical skills.

Dale

---

From: "Adrian Farrel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2012 15:18:07 -0000

Dale said:

> One way to build up enough credibility

Yes, this is how I started.
Review drafts. Send questions, comments, proposals, and suggest text.
This is not a thankless task! You will be thanked for valuable input.

Adrian

---

From: Rich Kulawiec <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2012 12:08:26 -0500

On Fri, Nov 09, 2012 at 08:00:19PM -0500, Arturo Servin wrote:
> start thinking global and to reach more people outside the common venues. 

Another is to not have any (physical) meetings, ever.  I've heard
all the arguments against this approach for years, and I think they're
all oudated: every kind of interaction that's possible in a physical
meeting is now possible in an online one.  It's simply a matter of
having the will to commit to the technology and to work through the
(no doubt numerous) issues that will surface while using it.

This facilitates more involvement.  It dramatically cuts costs.
It avoids the hassles and risks of travel, including the increasingly
privacy-hostile intrusions of various governments.  It's more flexible.
It allows near-global participation regardless of geography, schedule,
budget, etc.

And more than anything, it would show that the IETF is actually committed
to, you know, *using the Internet*.

---rsk

---

From: joel jaeggli <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2012 08:21:36 -0800

On 11/11/12 3:59 AM, Abdussalam Baryun wrote:
> participants.
Many participants, myself included are footing our own bill for attendance.

---

From: Yoav Nir <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2012 17:09:29 +0000

> Many participants, myself included are footing our own bill for attendance.

And I'm guessing that this is much more common in the US than in Asia, and somewhat more common than in Europe.

OTOH US companies tend to have bigger travel budgets.

OTTH US companies tend to consider travel abroad as weird thing much more than European or Asian companies.

My personal experience (which I think can be proven with some airfare site) is that travel to the US is considerably cheaper and easier than similar-length travel to other places.

Airfare tends to be cheaper, because there are a lot more flights to the US than to pretty much anywhere else, with many more airlines competing. So a flight to Prague would be cheaper for me, but a flight to China, India or Japan would be much more expensive.

The US has some expensive hotels, but it's also much easier to find cheaper hotels. We can (and have) meet a block away from Disneyland, and I can find a cheap motel less than 2 km away. This is considerably harder in Europe, and pretty much impossible for a non-local in Asia.

Everyone's mileage varies, of course, and US immigration tends to be more bothersome than most, but I think a meeting in the US or Canada leaves the least amount of people not able to attend. Paris and Prague are a close second. I have no idea how easy it would be to find a reasonably-priced hotel in London, for example.

Yoav

---

From: [email-masked] (Dale R. Worley)
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2012 12:45:44 -0500 (EST)

> From: Arturo Servin <[email-masked]>
> 

In my opinion, the *location* of IETF meetings is not important for
the technological openness of the standards, but it *is* important
for its *symbolism*.  My observation is that members have been
supportive of attempts to hold IETF meetings in diverse locations, but
there are constraints that limit the locations that are practical.

I am in no way involved with IETF site selection, but based on the
extensive discussions of site selection on this mailing list, the
constraints seem to be as follows.  The list suggests some things that
individuals can do to help find suitable locations, which I've listed
at the end.

    The meetings require a certain number of hotel rooms, a fairly large
    array of meeting rooms, and large common spaces, in one or a small
    cluster of hotels.  (These arrangements are fairly easy to find in
    North America and Europe, but are much less common in the rest of the
    world.)

    The hotel has to be willing to allow the IETF to install its wireless
    network and to take control of the hotel's Internet connectivity.

    Members desire locations that offer tourism possibilities, which
    generally means that the meeting site is in or near a city center.

    Because IETF participation is not of immediate commercial value to the
    employers of most participants, cost is of significant concern.  In
    practice, the cost and availability of air transportation seems to be
    the most variable factor, and the less international traffic to a
    given location, the more expensive air fares seem to be.  (You can
    explore the available air fares at http://matrix.itasoftware.com/search.htm.)

    The meeting fees cover only part of the meeting costs, so it is
    necessary to find sponsors to pay the remainder of the costs.  The
    sponsors usually are associated with the meeting location in some way.
    Since finding sponsors is difficult, meeting locations are harder to
    set than meeting dates.

What an individual can do to encourage selecting a particular location
is to find hotels that have the necessary meeting spaces.  If
possible, it would be helpful to determine that the management would
be willing to let the IETF take over their network.  Most importantly,
a local individual can find local sponsors for the meeting.

Dale

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2012 10:09:07 -0800

> for its *symbolism*.

Many people seem to hold similar views about the social, political or 
emotional potential of IETF venue choice.

In the 1990s, when the Internet was developing as a global 
infrastructure, such roles for the IETF made sense, because the IETF 
meeting helped to promote the Internet.  Indeed, local Internet 
infrastructure often was significantly improved in order to accommodate 
the arrival of an IETF.

In my opinion, today, such factors are distractions from the primary 
purpose of the IETF meeting venue, which is getting IETF work 
accomplished.

Work is accomplished by being maximally accessible to the widest range 
of /active/ IETF participants.  Accessibility is affected by effort, 
cost and local resources.  This means easy travel to the venue, a good 
choice of convenient, personal accommodation at different price points, 
a good meeting venue layout, and good choices for nearby eating.  (The 
list is simplified, of course; I'm choosing the ones I think most 
important.)

Extra travel effort and time, extra travel cost and/or inconvenient 
venue logistics serve as barriers to participation.  They make an IETF 
meeting less inclusive.

Meetings venues are placed around the world in order to distribute the 
pain of travel for actual participants, not to promote the IETF or the 
Internet.  Since so many participants are well-funded by their companies 
and do quite a bit of travel every year, many of us are less sensitive 
to these issues as barrier.  In that regard, we lack empathy and for 
those with less funding or less experience.

Some people believe that the presence of an IETF meeting serves as a 
kind of recruitment marketing to a region, for IETF participation. 
Beyond the single-meeting boost in 'local' attendance, I believe we have 
no data confirming any on-going increase in participation by people from 
that region.  After 20 years, we ought to have hard data.

Further, going to an area that typically has a tiny (and relatively 
stable) percentage of IETF meeting participants mostly serves to make 
meeting attendance more painful for /everyone/, rather than only a portion.

It is difficult enough to find high quality meeting sites.  Adding 
social, political or emotional concerns makes it /more/ difficult.

d/

ps. I'm speaking for myself only, of course.  And I've held the above 
views since Marshall Rose and I first suggested a significantly 
simplified meeting venue process in the 1990s.  My time on the IAOC has 
only strengthened my view.

-- 
  Dave Crocker
  Brandenburg InternetWorking
  bbiw.net

---

From: Spencer Dawkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2012 16:35:19 -0600

> all extremely important for working group effectiveness.  [/MB]

What Melinda and Mary are suggesting is what's worked best for me.

The only additions I'd make are:

- It's worth noting that, this being the IETF, your ideas are going 
nowhere unless other people agree with and support those ideas (if 
working group participants won't work on your proposal, the working 
group won't adopt it!). If you contribute to other people's proposals, 
either by providing text or helpful review comments, it's easier to find 
people who will contribute to your proposals.

- It's worth noting that *committing to* taking minutes is also useful, 
whether on a one-time basis, by e-mailing the chairs and volunteering a 
week before the face-to-face meeting, or on an ongoing basis as a 
working group secretary (most working groups still don't have one), is 
also appreciated (not least by working group chairs who can't start a 
meeting until they find a note-taker!). You still have to actually show 
up and take minutes, but if they know you're coming, you get extra 
points ...

Best wishes, of course. The IETF needs more effective participants.

Spencer

---

From: Arturo Servin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2012 10:24:44 -0200

I won't cut all the meetings but for I would encourage to have some (or
all) interim WG meetings fully online.

	We tried once in sidr, it didn't work very well but I am sure that we
can improve it.

Regards,
as

---

From: "Carlos M. Martinez" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 14:48:57 -0200

> On 11/11/2012 18:06, Mikael Abrahamsson wrote:
... snip ...
> understanding of how the IETF works, but remote participation is

I fully agree. However, I've found that the tools we use for remote
participation in the IETF are, IMO, a bit archaic. Don't get me wrong, I
fully support having Jabber rooms and audio streams, but, its really
difficult to follow a meeting that way, but I've had much better remote
participation experiences in other conferences than I've had with the IETF.

Meetecho is a good starting point, but it's not available in most
sessions and the quality of the video feed is very poor. It also suffers
from reliability issues where people get dropped from the session.

Having Meetecho available in most WG sessions would be a great bonus for
remote participants. If this is not possible, I think we should consider
having a registration mechanism for remote participants so the resources
can be better managed.

The key here is having the remote participants in mind, as a real
constituency. So far this is not the case, they are almost an
afterthought. Meetecho service can be improved including using real
cameras (not webcams attached to a notebook's display) and providing
adequate mounting points for the cameras, adequate lighting and marking
the space where the speakers should stand in order to be better captured
by the camera.

Warm regards,

~Carlos

---

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 17:00:36 +0000

On 11/14/2012 04:48 PM, Carlos M. Martinez wrote:
>  I've had much better remote

Can you provide pointers?

Ta,
S.

---

From: tglassey <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 09:06:07 -0800

On 11/14/2012 8:48 AM, Carlos M. Martinez wrote:
> participation in the IETF are, IMO, a bit archaic.
There is no reason ComeToMeeting or other service like it is not used to 
fully integrate a WG allowing remote participation. For those that dont 
their charter is the key thing - i.e. whether they also need to actually 
not do any formal deciding of anything at meetings and votes or work 
done at meeting is like all other NoteWell constrained IP, tied to the 
IETF's collection-consensus processes.
> Don't get me wrong, I

That said - there is a larger issue and its how individual WG's operate 
relative to any responsibility to provide online access to meetings. I 
think that the Remote Participation Rules for the WG are part of the WG 
charter and need to be included so everyone knows what the IP collection 
and NoteWell Management Practice for that WG is going to be since each 
standard process is different to some extent. That said - the process 
and framework for each WG effort is also independent from most others as 
well with the limited exception of instances where a WG served a whole 
class of layer-2 or layer-3 application contexts like PKIX did for 
instance.

What I propose - and this may sound initially wonky but think about it - 
that someone, and it should be one or a group of the IPR people I think, 
put together a set of "WG Charter Templates" as an Internet-Draft(s). 
What no one has stepped to yet is that processes inside WG;s need the 
same type of resolution in their make up as things like the BCP78/79 
specify for the higher-level (boilerplate) issues.

The template should have in it a set of models which can be selected in 
a cafeteria style selection for "REMOTE PARTICIPATION RULES AND 
IMPLICATIONS". This would specify IP processing workflows for how 
NoteWell controlled content was brought into the group through meetings 
and what archival processes would be necessary for that as well. That 
way everyone knows what they are getting into and the framework for the 
WG's practices are set during its operations.

This actually will work and would help the organization out a lot - I 
hope you can address the idea and what power it would give the IETF 
without cringing that it is me suggesting it.

Todd
> -----
> No virus found in this message.
> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
> Version: 2013.0.2793 / Virus Database: 2629/5893 - Release Date: 11/13/12
>
>

-- 
Regards TSG
"Ex-Cruce-Leo"

//Confidential Mailing - Please destroy this if you are not the intended recipient.

---

From: Nick Hilliard <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 17:09:13 +0000

> Can you provide pointers?

Lots of meetings (e.g. ixp meetings, etc) do live video, although I'd
accept that not that many meetings have as many parallel tracks as IETF.

RIPE meetings provide both live video streaming and live stenography (they
use dcr.ie for this, who are now trained to be very good with tech topics
and people with strong accents).  This is very cool, but I understand that
it is also expensive.

Nick

---

From: Carsten Bormann <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 18:34:24 +0100

On Nov 12, 2012, at 19:09, Dave Crocker <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Some people believe that the presence of an IETF meeting serves as a kind of recruitment marketing to a region, for IETF participation. Beyond the single-meeting boost in 'local' attendance, I believe we have no data confirming any on-going increase in participation by people from that region.  After 20 years, we ought to have hard data.

I don't have hard data, but anecdotally, I'm not so sure about that.
Historically, while the IETF still as in its growth phase in the 1990s, the touring around was useful.
I'd even say the 2002 (JP) and 2004 (KR) meetings were useful for broadening the base.

After that, not so much.

(Another aspect beyond capturing regular attendees, of course, is gaining local mindshare and relevance.  
Being a German, I do expect the Berlin meeting to help in that dimension, as did Maastricht (a bit less so), Munich, and Amsterdam.
Similarly, I think the meetings in Prague were very useful for visibility in other central European countries.
Hitting the focal points of economy and culture is more important here than a close-by airport.
There *is* an -- indirect and more long-term -- effect of this on participation from the parts of the world we reach this way.)

Grüße, Carsten

---

From: "Carlos M. Martinez" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 17:09:14 -0200

Sure!

- ICANN (Adobe Connect, so far the best I've experienced)

- Various training webinars, both as an attendee and as instructor using
the training edition of WebEx

- NANOG's video feeds are very good, although I don't recall the
platform they use (I'm sure someone will point us to it)

- Our own video feeds (LACNIC) are quite good, although we're lacking
adequate integration with the slides. Whenever possible we have two
cameras, one pointing to the speaker and one pointing to the projection
screen and the camera director switches from the speaker to the slides
when the slides change.

We even have managed to provide multi-language simultaneous translation
using the same video feed and different audio channels. Mileage varies
from venue to venue but our different language communities are usually
able to follow the presentations and the public policy forum.

regards,

~Carlos

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 11:59:16 -0800

> gaining local mindshare and relevance.

I believe I understand the concepts that are meant by such language. 
But I do not know what you mean, with respect to the IETF.  I especially 
do not know what you mean, in terms of the IETF's getting its work done.

Ultimately, if the IETF does not have the mindshare among the people who 
consume our work, I believe that it is better accomplished by doing work 
that has more community involvement and more operational relevance.  If 
we do that, it won't matter where we hold our meetings.

One argument for our going to many different places is that it makes the 
IETF more 'credible' because the IETF is "seen".  However I believe few 
International standards groups do traveling shows like the IETF, and 
they manage to be seen as credible.

In other words, I would have that our relevance is determined more by 
the quality and utility of our work than by the marketing effects of 
meeting venue.

> Similarly, I think the meetings
> in Prague were very useful for visibility in other central European
> countries. Hitting the focal points of economy and culture is more
> important here than a close-by airport. There *is* an -- indirect and
> more long-term -- effect of this on participation from the parts of
> the world we reach this way.)

Again, finding meeting venues that work well for an IETF venue is quite 
difficult. When we add other goals, such as marketing the IETF to the 
community, we make venue selection especially difficult.

In fact I believe, we actually wind up making the IETF more 
/exclusionary/ rather than more /inclusive/ because we raise the barrier 
to participation for serious participants, most notably participants 
with less time and money that the average, corporate-funded attendee...

Showing up in various places does not make the work better.  It might 
have outward marketing benefits for the image of the IETF. 
Historically, the IETF has done better by worrying less about its image 
and more about the utility of its work.

d/

---

From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 15:53:07 -0500

>>>>> "Carlos" == Carlos M Martinez <[email-masked]> writes:

    Carlos> Sure!  - ICANN (Adobe Connect, so far the best I've
    Carlos> experienced)

I had my first Adobe connect experience today.  I care a lot more about
accessibility than most participants do.  On this metric Adobe Connect
seems to score very badly. If we went to Adobe Connect it would
significantly decrease my ability to participate to the extent that
using Adobe Connect was a requirement.  I could not interact with the
chat room associated with a meeting at all.

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 13:01:07 -0800

On 11/14/2012 12:53 PM, Sam Hartman wrote:
> seems to score very badly.

Sam, it could be quite helpful for you to suggest factors that you find 
relevant in using remote participation tools and provide details about 
how well they are accomplished by not only Adobe Connect, but Webex and 
Meetecho.

To the extent that you have suggestions for what would work "best", that 
could be useful too, of course.

d/

ps. this is meant as an open invitation for anyone with a serious basis 
for commenting on accessible usability in remote participation tools.

---

From: Arturo Servin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 23:23:36 -0200

Dave

On 14/11/2012 17:59, Dave Crocker wrote:
> I believe I understand the concepts that are meant by such language. But
> I do not know what you mean, with respect to the IETF.  I especially do
> not know what you mean, in terms of the IETF's getting its work done.
> 

	I wouldn't count today's "traveling shows" as "traveling". It gives the
idea that the IETF goes to many places, it is not.

> the quality and utility of our work than by the marketing effects of

	Agree on that. But I disagree that going to other countries outside
north america is marketing.

> with less time and money that the average, corporate-funded attendee...

	Agree. But also people (and perhaps organisations, that also are
serious participants) in Latin America, Africa, and some parts of Asia
has less income than their counterparts in North America. Some of the
people from those places do serious efforts to attend the IETF.

	So, are where is the exclusionary?

> have outward marketing benefits for the image of the IETF. Historically,
> the IETF has done better by worrying less about its image and more about
> the utility of its work.

	Again, I disagree that is pure marketing.

	The IETF has done a great job, but it is time to evolve.

Regards,
as

---

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 16:55:08 -0900

> people from those places do serious efforts to attend the IETF.

I have very, very little doubt that operators in less wealthy
countries are running into problems that are unfamiliar to most
IETF participants, and that need some attention from protocol
weenies.  But, that said, work in the IETF is focused on
progressing documents and that requires continuity on the part
of participants.  If someone can only attend when a meeting
is geographically close, that suggests that they'll attend
one meeting every <bignum> years.  If they feel that remote
participation is sufficient, that's available now.  So, I'm
not sure that what you're arguing addresses the reason there's
an IETF in the first place, and IETF working method, in the
second.  I think that's probably the reason you're running into
pushback, even from people who think that the meetings should
move around more.

Melinda

---

From: Arturo Servin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 00:55:22 -0200

Melinda,

> pushback, even from people who think that the meetings should

	I was refuting an argument about "/exclusionary/" in a previous email
but you erased. The same argument can be used in both ways, to support
Dave's or mine.

	And let's do not lose the focus. My point is not about venues, it is
about something more: Evolving the IETF. That includes asking ourselves
if we are enough open and international; and if open and international
make us a better standarization body (perhaps no). That includes going
to other venues, to have more official languages, doing more outreach
activities, etc.

	 My opinion is that being more open and international make us a better
standarization body and today the IETF is not doing enough.

Regards,
as

---

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 17:58:55 -0900

> standarization body and today the IETF is not doing enough.

We're a bunch of nerds, and I think that it would help if you
could be more specific about the problem you're perceiving, what
you mean by "better," and how moving the meetings would help.
I'm finding your problem description extremely vague.

Melinda

---

From: Arturo Servin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 01:39:57 -0200

Melinda,

	My point is beyond about venues.

	But answering your question in how moving venues could help.

	Diversity.

	Going to other places would help bring people from other backgrounds,
different ideas, new ways of thinking, break paradigms, etc. People that
in other way would find difficult to participate in the IETF or probably
wouldn't even know that a such thing as the IETF exists. Also, for it
would be good for the ietf community know, see and live other realities,
different needs, and perhaps more constrained that the normal that we
used to.

Regards,
as

---

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 18:43:33 -0900

> different needs, and perhaps more constrained that the normal that we

Right, I understand that (better than you might think - I live in
Alaska).  But.  I'm trying to understand the value in having people
attend one meeting.  I've asked about that several times.

Melinda

---

From: Arturo Servin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 02:01:38 -0200

That it could the first of many, or the trigger to start participating
by email or remotely.

	But that is my untested hypothesis. I will try to get some numbers (and
time to run the experiment) and I'll come back (hopefully kinda soon).

Cheers,
as

---

From: joel jaeggli <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 20:40:20 -0800

On 11/14/12 7:39 PM, Arturo Servin wrote:
>   Also, for it
I have not contributed to the IETF activity since the 44th meeting 
because I wanted the participants to suffer. The goal of the volunteers 
and paid staff in various roles is to make the meeting successful not 
add hardship. It's hard enough already.

joel

---

From: "John Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 15 Nov 2012 05:08:13 -0000

>different ideas, new ways of thinking, break paradigms, etc.

If these people are unable or unwilling to join IETF mailing lists, why
do you think it would be useful for them to go to an IETF meeting?

If they are able and willing to join IETF mailing lists, why does the
location of the meeting matter?

-- 
Regards,
John Levine, [email-masked], Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. http://jl.ly

---

From: Patrik Fältström <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 22:02:06 -0800

> location of the meeting matter?

As Arturo says, having people that traditionally go to an IETF meeting travel to (for them) far away places and (for them) new cultures, do definitely open their eyes to how large our world is.

I completely agree with Arturo here.

It is enough to be on one of the mailing lists (one of many) where complaints come in regarding a venue. Regardless of whether it has to do with weather, temperature indoors, cookies, water, visa, walking, train tickets or whatever.

Then you understand how local the IETF culture is. Regarding both culture and geography.

   Patrik

---

From: Carsten Bormann <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 08:08:27 +0100

On Nov 14, 2012, at 20:59, Dave Crocker <[email-masked]> wrote:
> I believe I understand the concepts that are meant by such language. But I do not know what you mean, with respect to the IETF.  I especially do not know what you mean, in terms of the IETF's getting its work done.

My comment was not about getting work done, but about impact of this work.

> Ultimately, if the IETF does not have the mindshare among the people who consume our work, I believe that it is better accomplished by doing work that has more community involvement and more operational relevance.  

Sure.

> If we do that, it won't matter where we hold our meetings.

And I was pointing out that this isn't true.
It may not matter nearly as much as the quality of the work, but there is an effect.
Increasing visibility and mindshare, in particular at level 9, can very much help enabling involvement.

> One argument for our going to many different places is that it makes the IETF more 'credible' because the IETF is "seen".  However I believe few International standards groups do traveling shows like the IETF, and they manage to be seen as credible.
> 
> In other words, I would have that our relevance is determined more by the quality and utility of our work than by the marketing effects of meeting venue.

I certainly subscribe to that.

I believe the IETF has pretty much struck the right notes here in the most recent years.
(And I know about the contingencies that made us fall back to having two US meetings in a row right now, and I hope that those won't recur.
I was part of the 85 % for which it was quite pleasant to fall back to Atlanta, BTW, and I hope this venue can become our second Minneapolis.
If fallbacks do occur frequently, we may have to make plans for more non-US meetings so that with the inevitable fallbacks we return to the right mix.)

> Again, finding meeting venues that work well for an IETF venue is quite difficult. When we add other goals, such as marketing the IETF to the community, we make venue selection especially difficult.

Again, you are trying to argue against my point by saying your point is more important.
That is certainly so, but doesn't make my point wrong or irrelevant.

Practically speaking, e.g., if we can get a reasonable venue in Brazil or in a Spanish-speaking country, we should go there.
That's a big if, but I would argue that it is worth investing some (limited amount of) effort trying to find it.

Grüße, Carsten

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 08:11:27 +0000

On 15/11/2012 03:43, Melinda Shore wrote:
...
> attend one meeting.  I've asked about that several times.

There are people who have attended one, or a very small number,
of meetings and who participate actively in IETF work. That's
certainly the case for a few people in Australia and New
Zealand, for example. I have a co-author on a current draft who
attended IETF 83 in Paris, because he happens to live there and
doesn't have business justification for the time and money for
longer trips. I think people in this class do get a lot out of
occasional participation - enough to encourage them to
participate remotely. I've gone through phases of attending one
meeting a year, and that's definitely enough to stay in touch.

However, that is very different from meetings in unusual places
*attracting* new participants who stay with us. Would we get a
cohort of new active participants if we met in Anchorage?

We'd reached 50 attendees from China at IETF 63 before we even
started seriously negotiating the Beijing meeting. It seems to
me that the causality is mainly in the opposite direction:
participation causes meetings, not meetings cause participation.

(IMHO, there is some value to the IETF in having one-off
attendees who don't subsequently participate: they learn what
the IETF is and hopefully tell others about it. This can't be a
bad thing, but it's definitely secondary.)

   Brian

---

From: t.p. <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 09:45:45 +0000

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian E Carpenter" <[email-masked]>
To: "Melinda Shore" <[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2012 8:11 AM
> participation causes meetings, not meetings cause participation.

I started, some years ago, with a meeting, because the culture that I
was used to was that conferences, be they annual or triannual, were
where things really happened and that e-mail filled in the gaps in
between (and I think that this remains the case in other, related,
fora).  That attendance showed me that most of the IETF meeting was a
waste of time, that it was e-mail that was the main vehicle for work,
and I think that the IETF web site has it about right when it says

"People interested in particular technical issues join the mailing list
of a WG  and occasionally attend one or more of the three IETF meetings
held every year."
and
"After participating by email for a while, it may be time to attend your
first meeting."

which is not exactly sellling the idea of attending meetings:-)  But as
I say, I think that that is the nature of the IETF.

Tom Petch

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 08:04:04 -0800

Carsten, et al,

> My comment was not about getting work done, but about impact of this

OK.  So the choice of venue is supposed to serve two goals:

    *  Being useful for the workers developing IETF documents.

    *  Promoting that work to (potential) consumers of it.

The first bullet is the operational one of choosing venues that are 
convenient and useful for attendees doing the work.  It's important to 
note that it is difficult to service this one requirement.  Adding more 
increases the challenges and risks.

Concerning the second bullet an example would be that by showing up in 
South America, we will get more use of IETF work in South America.  Or 
is the view broader that our showing up in SA, we will get more use 
elsewhere also?

>>     I believe that it is better
>> accomplished by doing work that has more community involvement and
>> more operational relevance.
...
> And I was pointing out that this isn't true. It may not matter nearly
> as much as the quality of the work, but there is an effect.

The second bullet is about marketing the IETF brand.  Your position is 
that we will have better use of IETF output if we choose locations to 
increase awareness, mindshare, and the like.  The importance of brand 
awareness is well established in marketing.  The question is how much 
the particular choice of venue affects IETF brand awareness.

In terms of marketing theory, your premise is reasonable. 
Unfortunately, many marketing theories are reasonable but wrong.

So what I do not understand is its empirical basis for the specific case 
of the IETF.

The fact that we have been wandering around the globe for 20 years ought 
to have provided us with that empirical basis.  In addition, we should 
be able to compare our own history with that of standards groups that do 
/not/ wander around, or who wander less than we do, and we should see a 
history of better mindshare and better uptake of work for the IETF.

As popular as IETF work is, I don't see that less 'mobile' standards 
groups are suffering by comparison.  Or, at least, not due to their 
being less mobile.

To the extent that one disagrees with my assertion, I'll claim that any 
differences in mindshare are readily explained by the quality or 
relevance of the work, not the choice of meeting venue.

In other words, I appreciate your firm "this isn't true" but ask you to 
substantiate it empirically.  Otherwise, we are making an expensive, 
risky, strategic decision based on an unfounded belief.  It's a popular 
belief, I admit, but that doesn't make it valid.

> very much help enabling involvement.

So the fact that we haven't been showing up in South America or Africa 
or the Middle East should mean that the IETF's work has less mindshare 
there and less adoption, especially compared with other standards groups 
that do go to those regions.

Another example of an empirical test could be that that folk from such 
venues, who have shown up on our many mailing lists, choose not to 
continue working with the IETF because we don't go to their countries.

>> In other words, I would have that our relevance is determined more
>> by the quality and utility of our work than by the marketing
>> effects of meeting venue.
>

>> Again, finding meeting venues that work well for an IETF venue is
>> quite difficult. When we add other goals, such as marketing the
>> IETF to the community, we make venue selection especially
>> difficult.
>
> Again, you are trying to argue against my point by saying your point
> is more important. That is certainly so, but doesn't make my point
> wrong or irrelevant.

I'm saying that your point lacks an empirical basis and, worse, that it 
can hurt the primary requirement for meeting venues.

There is a very real and cost to your point and only a theoretical 
benefit.  The real cost is that it increases the aggregate 
/in/convenience to /existing/ IETF workers and it /increases/ the 
barrier to participation for people from the regions that are already 
supplying workers.

Our current model is to distribute the travel pain.  One time, more 
convenient for North Americans.  Another time, more convenient for 
Eastern Asians.  That is, the goal is fairness among current workers.

The choice of the 3 regions we vary among has been based on actual 
participation.  We increased the desired proportion of meetings in East 
Asia as we saw a strong trend of increased participation from that 
region.  This was a /reactive/, not /proactive/, change.  (Our failure 
to maintain the model has been due to logistical problems, not a change 
in the model.)

To the extent that going elsewhere increases the pain, cost, operational 
risk, or the like for current workers, this theoretical marketing 
benefit hurts actual work.

Showing up in venues that already supply participants to IETF work also 
lowers the barrier for existing IETF workers who have less time and 
money for attending.  Note that the core of the IETF is workers with 
rather plush corporate funding and a pattern of extensive travel.  That 
creates an insensitivity to folk with more limited budget or time.

> Practically speaking, e.g., if we can get a reasonable venue in
> Brazil or in a Spanish-speaking country, we should go there.

And my point is that you are not speaking practically.  Your are 
speaking reasonably but entirely theoretically, absent an empirical basis.

And one of the hallmarks of behavioral analysis -- of which marketing is 
a sub-specialty -- most assertions of cause/effect turn out to be wrong, 
when actually tested.

d/

---

From: "John R Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 15 Nov 2012 12:15:51 -0500

> As Arturo says, having people that traditionally go to an IETF meeting travel to (for them) far away places and (for them) new cultures, do definitely open their eyes to how large our world is.

I think that learning about other parts of the world is swell, but I don't 
think the IETF should be a travel agent.

Regards,
John Levine, [email-masked], Taughannock Networks, Trumansburg NY
"I dropped the toothpaste", said Tom, crestfallenly.

---

From: Carsten Bormann <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 18:27:23 +0100

On Nov 15, 2012, at 17:04, Dave Crocker <[email-masked]> wrote:

> I'm saying that your point lacks an empirical basis

Yes.
I'm not even arguing that the IETF spend effort on obtaining that empirical basis (hint: there is probably a great PhD thesis in organizational marketing waiting to be written).

My hypothesis is mainly based on my perceptions of changes in reception of the IETF in the German corporate technology and research environments right after both Amsterdam (1993) and Munich (1997).  I'm well aware that perception of mine may, of course, be all based on confirmation bias.  I still strongly believe I have seen the effect.  I'm also quite skeptical that this experience will reliably transfer to any other market.  I still believe that the potential benefits from repeating the experiment in some of them would be worth a *small* increase in inconvenience for IETF's regular attendees.  I trust the IAOC to choose a reasonable value of "small".

I probably don't need to point out that we regularly meet in venues that are ridiculously inconvenient to completely inaccessible for a sizable fraction of our regular contributors.  I don't think we have very good numbers on this effect, either (I don't think we track citizenship or blacklist name matches).  Just to throw another unfounded hypothesis in the air: in the working groups where I'm active, this might block access to 10 to 15 % of the contributors, and it cools down the potential interest of some more.  We make a lot of our decisions on bad data like this.

> and, worse, that it can hurt the primary requirement for meeting venues.

Which, again, is not a useful way to falsify my hypothesis.

I don't think that there is any danger to the IAOC's "prime directive" in site selection (convenience for regulars) from bringing a couple of important, but secondary concerns to the table.

Grüße, Carsten

---

From: "Carlos M. Martinez" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 15:43:46 -0200

On 11/15/12 3:15 PM, John R Levine wrote:
>> As Arturo says, having people that traditionally go to an IETF meeting
>> travel to (for them) far away places and (for them) new cultures, do
>> definitely open their eyes to how large our world is.
> 
> I think that learning about other parts of the world is swell, but I
> don't think the IETF should be a travel agent.
> 

Comparing with the ITU who does tour the world, organizing workshops in
far away places, I really think we should be trying a little harder to
be more open.

So far this entire thread would provide a nice argument for those
proposing more government involvement as clearly the multistakeholder
approach is failing the less developed economies. Given that WCIT is
starting in a few days, and that every country has one vote in that
thing, I think this kind of attitude is not helping us.

This is not my personal view, but that is how some may read it: the IETF
attendees are a bunch of 'ivory tower' engineers who can't be bothered
to fly routes with more than one connection or who firmly believe that
the business district in Sao Paulo is more dangerous/menacing than the
area around the Atlanta Hilton.

I want the IETF and the governance model it represents to succeed, I
firmly believe in it. However I'm not that blind and I seriously believe
we need to fix some things at home, or we are going to be easy prey for
those seeking to control the Internet.

regards

~Carlos

---

From: "Carlos M. Martinez" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 15:47:47 -0200

Hello,

> participation causes meetings, not meetings cause participation.

Having a metric for considering having a meeting in a give region would
be really nice, so we can stop arguing over smoke. If 50 is a magic
number, well, we Latin America are not that far, I'm confident we'll be
there in a few meetings.

I do believe that regions wanting to have an IETF meeting should also
give back in terms of active participation, I agree with that.

> bad thing, but it's definitely secondary.)
Agreed.

---

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 09:00:50 -0900

> give back in terms of active participation, I agree with that.

I really think there's an enormous disconnect here.  I'm really unclear
on how this is supposed to work: if someone thinks they need to attend
a meeting in order to participate in the work and there's only one
meeting in their region in some large number of years, it's difficult
to see how that one meeting is going to lead to active participation.
Arguing that IETF openness is a function of meeting location is
totally missing the point.  Clearly we could be making that point
better, but it seems to me that privileging meetings as a more
important part of the process of producing documents very clearly works
against an open participation model.

The main benefit, it seems to me, is not geographic but that we
are woefully short on participation by operators and that many of the
folk in developing or less affluent countries work for operators,
registrars, regulators, etc., and we may benefit from one-off
participation from them.

Melinda

---

From: "Carlos M. Martinez" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 16:54:28 -0200

Note that I didn't say 'give back in terms of attendees' , I wrote 'give
back in terms of participation', in my mind, participation *can* be
remote, although as I mentioned in an earlier email the IETF needs to
improve remote access facilities a lot.

However, the perception of almost everyone I've spoken with is that if
you really want to push a document (not being a reviewer, not being a
3rd or 4th co-author), you need to be there in person. I'm sure I will
be pointed to exceptions to this rule, but that seems to be the general
perception.

regards,

Carlos

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 11:19:32 -0800

> far away places, I really think we should be trying a little harder to

It's important to distinguish between a 'workshop' and a 'working 
meeting' where decisions are made.

As I understand the ITU's operation, all of the ITU-T formal decisions 
are made in Geneva.  Any meetings held before that and seeming to make 
decisions can be reversed during a Geneva session, in my direct experience.

Also, ISOC actually seems to do a pretty good job of showing up in many 
places around the world, on the IETF's behalf, including events that can 
be called workshops.

d/

---

From: Tony Hansen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 14:59:03 -0500

> I say, I think that that is the nature of the IETF.

I've always felt that: between the meetings, four months worth of work 
gets done, and then during the meeting, another four months worth of 
work gets done.

I've found this to be true over and over.

     Tony Hansen

---

From: Marc Petit-Huguenin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 12:34:27 -0800

On 11/15/2012 11:59 AM, Tony Hansen wrote:
>> I started, some years ago, with a meeting, because the culture that I was
>> used to was that conferences, be they annual or triannual, were where
>> things really happened and that e-mail filled in the gaps in between (and
>> I think that this remains the case in other, related, fora).  That
>> attendance showed me that most of the IETF meeting was a waste of time,
>> that it was e-mail that was the main vehicle for work, and I think that
>> the IETF web site has it about right when it says
>> 
>> held every year." and "After participating by email for a while, it may
>> be time to attend your first meeting."
>> 
>> which is not exactly sellling the idea of attending meetings:-)  But as I
>> say, I think that that is the nature of the IETF.
> 
> gets done, and then during the meeting, another four months worth of work
> gets done.
> 

My experience is that during the meeting, 2 hours of work gets done (per WG),
and then between the meetings, another 2 hours of work gets done.

- -- 
Marc Petit-Huguenin
Email: [email-masked]
Blog: http://blog.marc.petit-huguenin.org
Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/petithug

---

From: Arturo Servin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 19:51:38 -0200

They are doing a great job, but I wouldn't said that all of that is on
IETF behalf. They are there because that is ISOC's mission, not to
represent us in the majority of their work.

	If we want representation, we need to do it ourselves. ISOC would
support us, I am sure, but we need to at least show up.

Regards
as

---

From: "Carlos M. Martinez" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 19:53:22 -0200

Hi,
On 11/15/2012 5:19 PM, Dave Crocker wrote:
> Also, ISOC actually seems to do a pretty good job of showing up in
> many places around the world, on the IETF's behalf, including events
> that can be called workshops.
>
I agree, but I´m talking about perceptions and how these things can be
manipulated against us. If we don´t care, that´s fine, but we shouldn´t
be surprised afterwards if something we do not like comes out of WCIT.

---

From: "John R Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 15 Nov 2012 18:01:45 -0500

> far away places, I really think we should be trying a little harder to

The IAOC has often noted that holding meetings in more exotic places is 
considerably more expensive, the hotels and other services just charge 
more.

Keeping in mind that the IETF is paid for by a combination of conference 
fees and an annual grant from ISOC, not governments, who were you 
expecting to pay the increased costs?

Also, why do you believe that people people need to go to meetings in 
person rather than joining the mailing lists where the bulk of the IETF's 
work gets done?

Regards,

---

From: Arturo Servin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 22:51:39 -0200

On 15/11/2012 21:01, John R Levine wrote:
> person rather than joining the mailing lists where the bulk of the
> IETF's work gets done?
> 

	That has been answered:

http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg75890.html

	Shall we move on?

Regards,
as

---

From: "John Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 16 Nov 2012 03:27:38 -0000

>	Shall we move on?

Sure.  Since we agree that there is no way to pay for the extra costs
involved in meeting in places where there are insignificant numbers of
IETF participants, it won't happen, and we're done.

That was simple, wasn't it?

---

From: Arturo Servin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2012 08:54:17 -0200

> Sure.  Since we agree that there is no way to pay for the extra costs

	I wouldn't say that we agreed on that.

	We do not want to look how to pay the extra cost, we are simply not
interested. We agree on this.

> That was simple, wasn't it?

	Yes, disappointing but simple.

Regards,
as

---

From: "Carlos M. Martinez" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2012 11:25:44 -0200

Hello,

> IETF participants, it won't happen, and we're done.

I don't remember when I agreed with that. In fact I believe quite the
opposite holds. If there was a will there would be ways. However, what I
read here is a lot of refusal, denial and roadblocking.

I can't speak for other regions, but from ours, there are at least four
organizations which manage significant budgets, have been in the
conference organization business for more than 10 years, and which would
be very interested in having an IETF in Latin America.

The feeling I kept receiving here is that there is a kernel of IETFers
who still believe that IETF is some kind of ivory tower that exists by
itself, for itself and is self-sufficient.

Big news: this is no longer the case. For bad but, IMO, mostly for good.

The IETF is one more component of the complex ecosystem of Internet
governance. A critical one, but not the only one. If you reach out to
the balcony of the ivory tower, you will see that the IETF has plenty of
enemies, but, also plenty of friends and allies.

Moving the IETF forward will involve reaching out to other peoples,
other regions, and yes, travel farther away once in a while. I also
understand that we need to do our part in terms of fostering and
increasing the contribution of our region. I said this in an earlier
email and I stand by it.

Reach out to your friends and allies. We all want the whole
multi-stakeholder approach to succeed, we are all on the same boat and
we definitely need to move the IETF forward in order to do that.

Don't get me wrong: I get where most of this resistance is coming from,
and I sort of agree that newcomers need to prove themselves. But instead
of roadblocking and refusal I would have hoped to see something along
the lines of:

- What is a reasonable goal in terms of participation, so that having a
meeting in Latin America is actually meaningful?: "X attendees from the
region and Y people actively participating in mailing lists and
contributing text"

- After that, set the goal: "The IETF will hold a meeting in Latin
America in the next four to five years"

- What does the IETF to do that?: "The IETF needs partners to pledge X $
in sponsorship funds", or whatever else.

- Reach out to your allies in the region.

If we could agree on a basis set of participation principles, on metrics
and on development goals, we will be a much stronger organization.

regards,

~Carlos

---

From: "John R. Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 16 Nov 2012 08:17:33 -0500

> interested. We agree on this.

Oh, sorry, I didn't realize this was a purely hypothetical argument. 
Never mind.

Regards,

---

From: Yoav Nir <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2012 21:35:15 +0000

Hi Carlos.

> read here is a lot of refusal, denial and roadblocking.

There may be ways. But what you are suggesting requires more money. The way the IETF is run now, it's a very frugal organization. Read the budget slides from any meeting, those numbers are small when compared with many of the organizations that participants come from. One of the great aspects of the IETF's openness is that anyone can participate for the cost of an Internet connection (I had my first RFC published before ever attending a meeting), and for a relatively small amount (when compared to other bodies) they can also attend meetings. This makes it possible for small companies and even individual consultants to attend, participate, and even chair working groups. We even have some people who are salaried employees, but for whatever reasons, their companies are not interested in funding them, and they pay their own way.

With increased meeting fees and/or travel budget this goes away, and the IETF becomes the domain of large companies and governments. At least the meetings.

> be very interested in having an IETF in Latin America.

Then they should propose to host a meeting. I don't think the IAOC would deny them. There is the question or airfare and flight availability, but as long as the meeting is at or near a big enough hub, such as Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, or Sao Paolo, the IETF is not exactly choosy.

> increasing the contribution of our region. I said this in an earlier

Yes, there are people the IETF should reach out to, people who are missing from our meetings and our mailing lists. But I don't think that group is defined geographically. There are segments of our industry that are not represented or not represented enough in the IETF, like web developers and big website operators. We need some of those, regardless of where in the world they live.

Yoav

---

From: Tim Chown <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2012 13:00:21 +0000

> increasing the contribution of our region. I said this in an earlier

A strength of the IETF is that to participate you can simply join discussions on mailing lists and participate remotely when physical meetings are held. This may mean that for the majority of IETF contributors, the location of the meetings isn't critical, because attendance at every physical meeting isn't required.

However, when planning where meetings are held I hope organisers take into account the chairs of the 100+ working groups in the IETF, for whom attendance may not be compulsory but it's certainly highly desirable. If the cost of attending meetings and the complexity of travel goes up, it may become harder to find volunteers willing to take on WG chair and other similar responsibilities for the benefit of the IETF community as a whole.

Tim

---

From: Fernando Gont <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2012 08:09:17 -0300

> IETF participants, it won't happen, and we're done.

I wonder how you measure/count "IETF participants"...

Do you measure participants based on subscriptions to IETF
mailing-lists? -- If so, how do you assign a location to the plenty of
gTLD addresses? (including those at gmail.com)

Do you measure participants based on subscriptions to mailing-lists
*and* whether they actually get to post to the mailing-lists?

Or do you count as "participants" those that write documents and/or send
feedback about documents?

etc..

Thanks,
-- 
Fernando Gont
e-mail: [email-masked] || [email-masked]
PGP Fingerprint: 7809 84F5 322E 45C7 F1C9 3945 96EE A9EF D076 FFF1

---

From: "John R Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 27 Nov 2012 12:21:52 -0500

> gTLD addresses? (including those at gmail.com)

I'm guessing based on the mail I see on the lists I'm on and the drafts I 
look at.  I really don't think there's a vast group of Latin Americans or 
south Asians or Africans lurking behind gmail addresses.

As I think I've said many times, I think it would be great if we got more 
activity from underrepresented parts of the world, but the way to do that 
is to get people active on mailing lists and writing drafts, not to have 
unaffordable ICANN-style road shows.

Regards,

---

From: [email-masked] (Dale R. Worley)
Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2012 12:25:40 -0500 (EST)

Responses to a couple of points that people have made:

> From: "t.p." <[email-masked]>
> 

This is all true.  Any decision come to during a meeting session must
be reviewed and approved on the WG mailing list.  The reason for this
is to ensure that one can participate completely *without* attending
the meetings and paying the associated expenses.

> From: "Carlos M. Martinez" <[email-masked]>
> 

First, I think you are not using the correct term.  "Ivory tower" is
used specifically to mean an excessively academic or theoretical
approach.  In the IETF's case, it is considerably more practical and
"hands-on" than other organizations.  In particular, contrast can be
drawn with the ITU's OSI networking protocols.  I think a better term
for the concept is "insular", meaning "isolated" or "island-like".

> governance.

However, I think you are correct in that the IETF is insular, that it
does not concern itself much with other parts of the "ecosystem of
Internet governance".  Partly this is historical, in that there wasn't
much "Internet governance" when the IETF was founded.  And for a long,
formative period (15 years or so), the only other global element of
the networking world was the ITU's OSI effort, which was directly
competitive.

But to a considerable degree, the IETF confines itself to aspects of
networking which do not greatly intersect with "Internet governance".
We design and implement protocols.

The connection with the larger ecosystem is more done by the Internet
Society.

> region and Y people actively participating in mailing lists and

Success can probably be judged simply by attendance numbers -- does
the meeting have an attendance at least as large as meetings in more
traditional places (within statistical error)?

> in sponsorship funds", or whatever else.

As far as I can tell from others' postings:

A venue needs to be found that has adequate space and tolerance of our
networking needs.

Sponsors need to be found to cover the costs that the standard meeting
fee will not cover.

The typical attendee budget (air fare, hotel, meeting) needs to be no
higher than in traditional locations.  (This can probably be ensured
with sufficient sponsor support.)

Air travel to the location should not be substantially longer or
inconvenient than to traditional locations (because employers consider
employee's time to be more expensive than direct expenses).

Dale