Subject: New-comers

From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Apr 2021 10:43:56 -0700

(Apologies if this is a duplicate, I did not see it on the list yesterday):

I think this discussion has assumed that all newcomers are
necessarily looking to get directly involved with a working group
from Day One and therefore need to do a lot of homework and
preparation. I know we keep telling the world that the IETF is "not
a conference" and that "people come here to work," but I see no harm
in simply exploring what the IETF is all about and then perhaps
getting involved in a particular effort after some time, after
having attended a few meetings, and most of all after having made
friends and even discovered who to avoid! :-)

Speaking as a Professional IETF Lurker with exactly 100 meetings
under my belt, I may not be your typical attendee, but I am surely
not the only person who participates in the IETF just to "learn what
is going on" and perhaps get involved in particular projects or
protocols from time to time, and above all keep in touch with
colleagues from all over the world/industry. I have written exactly
two (now useless) RFCs and that was a very long time ago, but some
of you may remember other activities that I have contributed to over
the years.

If newcomers risk being "snarled at" it is only due to our own
culture and abusive behavior and not due to their lack of preparation.

Ole

Ole J. Jacobsen
Editor and Publisher
The Internet Protocol Journal
Office: +1 415-550-9433
Cell:   +1 415-370-4628
Web: protocoljournal.org
E-mail: [email-masked]
E-mail: [email-masked]
Skype: organdemo

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From: Randy Presuhn <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Apr 2021 11:43:05 -0700

Hi -

On 2021-04-16 10:43 AM, Ole Jacobsen wrote:
...
> culture and abusive behavior and not due to their lack of preparation.
...

Over the years I was able to arm-twist several coworkers into attending
IETF meetings.  All were sharp people with plenty of clue, and I took
pains to describe IETF culture and norms in advance.  In general, their
reaction prior to the actual meeting was "it can't possibly be that
bad."  They all made it through the meetings without being attacked too
badly, but the attacks and generally uncivil behavior between *other*
participants led them to become quite reluctant to ever attend
another IETF meeting.  The common post-meeting reaction was "you
should have warned me - it was so much more awful than you described."

It was only because our business depended on it that I was able to
get them to go to any subsequent meetings, but it also led me to
conclude that IETF meetings can be painful experiences for anyone
with a shred of empathy.  One needn't be the object of the
unpleasantness to find the unpleasantness unpleasant.

Randy

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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2021 09:14:15 +1200

On 17-Apr-21 05:43, Ole Jacobsen wrote:
...
> friends and even discovered who to avoid! :-)

All the same, my experience from both mentoring and newcomers'
meet-and-greet is that most people first come because of a specific
topic, which often (but not always) corresponds to a single WG.
Presumably Jay could update one of his surveys to ask newcomers about
that.

That matches the known fact that only a small fraction of participants
are on even the ietf-announce list (and even fewer on this list).
Somebody could also do a cluster analysis of WG list subscribers -
with about 120 WGs, how many separate populations do we have?
...
> culture and abusive behavior and not due to their lack of preparation.

On 17-Apr-21 06:43, Randy Presuhn wrote:
...
> The common post-meeting reaction was "you
> with a shred of empathy.

I may have said this before, but when I first attended an IETF meeting
it didn't surprise me, because I was used to attending meetings of
physicists. You need to be thick-skinned for that too. Has the IETF got
more brutal over the years? I don't think so. That doesn't mean it's OK,
but let's be clear that this is a long-standing problem.

Do people think the snarling is less of an issue in on-line meetings?

    Brian

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From: tom petch <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2021 12:47:28 +0100

> with about 120 WGs, how many separate populations do we have?

yes, please, some data, as opposed to opinons, feelings and such like.

Who can do it?IAD?

Tom Petch

> .

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From: "Jim Fenton" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2021 16:22:15 -0700

> with about 120 WGs, how many separate populations do we have?

That might be interesting, but realize that not everybody who reads the 
lists is subscribed. I use the IMAP interface for several lists that I 
don’t expect to subscribe to, and others probably read the web 
archive.

-Jim

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From: scott <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2021 10:15:13 -1000

> friends and even discovered who to avoid! :-)

This is a good idea.  I did the tourist thing when IETF came to Hawaii 5 
years or so back.  I learned a lot about how IETF works outside the emails.

scott

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From: Wes Hardaker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2021 13:31:26 -0700

>From the IETF guides perspective, when we go looking at applications
for people that want a guide: 1) yes there are some that are coming for
a particular topic and that's it, but 2) a decent percentage display
a wide range of interest and topics and even make statements indicating
their unsure where to start but are eager to get involved.  For the
percentage interested in multiple topics or just "generally", its
probably at least 25% of the guides applications.

> but let's be clear that this is a long-standing problem.

The IETF may not have gotten worse, but I'd argue the rest of the venues
may have gotten nicer to attend and thus the gap is still wider.  Many
*OGs were much more aggressive internally than they are now (IMHO), as
an example.

-- 
Wes Hardaker
USC/ISI