Subject: [112attendees] HotRFC Gather followup

From: "Aaron Falk" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 03 Nov 2021 12:33:56 -0400

An update & 2 questions:

**Update:** The secretariat confirms that the HotRFC “rooms” will 
remain up and available for your use through the end of the IETF next 
week.

**Questions:**

1. Should we use Gather to do this again?
2. If so, what should we change?

--aaron

---

From: Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2021 17:57:45 +0100

Aaron, inline

On Wed, Nov 03, 2021 at 12:33:56PM -0400, Aaron Falk wrote:
> An update & 2 questions:
> 
> **Update:** The secretariat confirms that the HotRFC “rooms” will remain up
> and available for your use through the end of the IETF next week.

Great.

> 1. Should we use Gather to do this again?

Definitely. Great format.

> 2. If so, what should we change?

See my prior email half an hour ago about how crappy the interaction with
the x / play video clip is. Some of the rooms resorted to just
showing slides and having a youtube URL on that slide, that is a much
better working slutions, so instead of wasting resources on trying to
push gather.town tooling to improve, just adjust our recommendations
of how to use it.

Cheers
    Toerless

---

From: Alexander Clemm <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2021 17:18:53 +0000

Hi Aaron,
FWIW, here are my thoughts re:  your questions:

  1.  I like Gather and we should do this again – the format has potential but I think we need to make some tweaks.   One observation is that I thought the turnout was a little bit disappointing – whether this was a function of Gather or a function of this session to be in an unusual time slot (in the week before the “main” IETF) is not obvious to me.
  2.  The video presentation within Gather should be replaced by a link to the video which can be watched outside Gather; the way it is set up does not make this very interactive (people needing to watch a video undisturbed while in an “interactive” setting).  As a consideration, it might be good to model this after a virtual “poster session” in a conference and allow then instead for the posting of a poster – displayed in lieu of the Whiteboard – and then have conversations center around what people can see on the poster.  It might be also a worthwhile a consideration to bring back “teaser” lightning talks in a special session that is held in addition (e.g. right before) and complements the Gather rooms.
--- Alex

From: 112attendees <[email-masked]> On Behalf Of Aaron Falk
Sent: Wednesday, November 3, 2021 9:34 AM
To: [email-masked]
Cc: Alexa Morris <[email-masked]>; Liz Flynn <[email-masked]>
Subject: [112attendees] HotRFC Gather followup

An update & 2 questions:

Update: The secretariat confirms that the HotRFC “rooms” will remain up and available for your use through the end of the IETF next week.

Questions:

  1.  If so, what should we change?

--aaron

---

From: Alexandre PETRESCU <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2021 13:37:12 +0100

For the 'what should change' part - I suggest to make it work ok fully 
on IPv6. Last time I checked it worked only partially on IPv6: the sound 
quality was worse on IPv6, some buttons on left could not be clicked on 
IPv6, etc.

Yours,

--
Alexandre Petrescu
[email-masked], tél 0169089223

Le 03/11/2021 à 17:33, Aaron Falk a écrit :
>
> An update & 2 questions:
>
> *Update:* The secretariat confirms that the HotRFC “rooms” will remain 
> up and available for your use through the end of the IETF next week.
>
> *Questions:*
>

---

From: Deb Cooley <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2021 08:38:33 -0400

I liked the YouTube idea for the actual presentation.  I could watch it
more than once to understand the ideas better.

The Gather room part for discussion didn't work for me.  I'd suggest going
back to Meetecho for the discussion part.  It could be a two step process -
watch the YouTube videos 'session', then a Meetecho session to discuss.

Deb Cooley
[email-masked]

On Thu, Nov 4, 2021 at 8:37 AM Alexandre PETRESCU <[email-masked]>
wrote:

> For the 'what should change' part - I suggest to make it work ok fully on
> IPv6.  Last time I checked it worked only partially on IPv6: the sound
> Alexandre [email-masked], tél 0169089223
>
> *Update:* The secretariat confirms that the HotRFC “rooms” will remain up
> 112attendees mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/112attendees
>

---

From: Marc Petit-Huguenin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2021 05:48:20 -0700

I liked be able to talk to the author without the stress of having to formulate my questions right after the presentation, so Gather was nice for that, and I would suggest to continue using the same format after fixing the slowdown when a lot of people were on the floor.  I would also prefer to watch the presentations directly on Gather rather than on YouTube, after the problem of hearing other conversations is fixed.  A way to show that someone is interacting with video and other Gather objects would be nice too.

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

---

From: Lixia Zhang <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2021 09:24:49 -0700

> On Nov 3, 2021, at 10:18 AM, Alexander Clemm <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Hi Aaron,
> I like Gather and we should do this again – the format has potential but I think we need to make some tweaks.   One observation is that I thought the turnout was a little bit disappointing – whether this was a function of Gather or a function of this session to be in an unusual time slot (in the week before the “main” IETF) is not obvious to me.

just as one data sample: I missed it because of the timing.
I removed time conflict (as much as possible) for IETF week but not this past week; did not even realize that HotRFC was in this week.

> The video presentation within Gather should be replaced by a link to the video which can be watched outside Gather; the way it is set up does not make this very interactive (people needing to watch a video undisturbed while in an “interactive” setting).  As a consideration, it might be good to model this after a virtual “poster session” in a conference and allow then instead for the posting of a poster – displayed in lieu of the Whiteboard – and then have conversations center around what people can see on the poster.  It might be also a worthwhile a consideration to bring back “teaser” lightning talks in a special session that is held in addition (e.g. right before) and complements the Gather rooms.  

my 2 cents for the above and a few more comments that followed:

i) call me being too conservative: offering (multiple) video streaming with good quality does not seem an easy task that any party can just grasp over night (my low confidence Gather could fix quickly)

ii) regarding organizing conversations around topics and keeping the conversation available and ongoing after the events: academic conferences (the few I know) have adopted Slack, which offers features of structured conversations by topics, supporting inclusion of URLs/pdf files, and a number of other stuff. We used it last week for annual NDN Community Meeting, worked out really well -- lots questions/comments on Slack while presentations ongoing, session chairs raised the questions from Slack if (mostly likely) presenters couldn't read while presenting (and of course discussions can continue for however long people keep posting).

Lixia

> From: 112attendees <[email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>> On Behalf Of Aaron Falk
> To: [email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>
> Cc: Alexa Morris <[email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>>; Liz Flynn <[email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>>
> Should we use Gather to do this again?
> If so, what should we change?
> --aaron
> 
> -- 
> [email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/112attendees <https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/112attendees>

---

From: Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2021 22:29:24 +0100

> ii) regarding organizing conversations around topics and keeping the conversation available and ongoing after the events: academic conferences (the few I know) have adopted Slack, which offers feat…

Lixia, *:

I wanted to jump to that point: IETF has ietf.slack.com, and it is being for
_some_ IETF activities, such as some of the IAB workshops.

However, when i asked around whether this is something we should promote, but i heard
IETF participants to be critical of the platform, and in my own (limited) experience,
it does not give anything that email-threads on email mailing lists would not giv either.

In fact, the way the IETF is structured, any discussions that is meant to spur work in
a WG or RG SHOULD predominantly happen on the WG/RG mailing list and only be moved to
different venues when it is clearly out of scope/interest to the WG, or if it is
of interest to the G, when there is a method to report back to the WG(mailing list),
such as via design teams.

I do admit that many email tools are quite crappy and do not necessarily offer you the
same compact scrolling view to discussion threds as slack may do, but i am sure it should
be possile to find the best tools. I for once use 30 year old text tools that allow
me to quickly catch up with IETF mailing list discussions quite quickly...

Cheers
    Toerless

-- 
---
[email-masked]

---

From: Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2021 22:45:14 +0100

I am a gather.town fanboy, and i think it is ridiculous that its
size was shrunken down this time because some IETF'er seem to have complained that
is was so big, that they couldn't find what they where looking for. I hope it
overflows next week from activity ;-))

Yes, HotRFC area is nice, but i think we should want to give good guidance
also to any WG related discussions in gather.town. Mine is this:

I would also recommend all WG/RG chairs to make themselves available after their
sessions in gather.town (as their time permits). Even if they themselves
may be busy in another session, a chairs (away) avatar is always a good place to seek
out followup discussions in gather.town after a WG/RG meeting. Same as what happens
in in-person IETFs after a WG meeting.

It is extremely easy to locate a person in gather.town:
- clock on participants
- find your person (e.g.: wg chair).
- click on that person, click on follow
- now your avatar will by itself walk to that persons avatar
- click again on the person and click on "Stop following"

Cheers
    Toerless

-- 
---
[email-masked]

---

From: Marc Petit-Huguenin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2021 01:23:06 -0800

The HotRfc area in Gather seems to have been redesigned.

---

From: Alexa Morris <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2021 07:21:04 -0500

Hi Marc,

Yes, we did change the layout in an attempt to address some of the audio collisions that were happening when people watched the YouTube videos unmuted. We'd love feedback on whether or not this is an improvement! 

Each HotRFC topic still has its own area with a whiteboard. Each topic area also has four private viewing tiles (indicated by headphones). Only one person can stand on a viewing tile, and they are configured to be private (i.e. soundproof) so that nearby participants won't be disturbed.

Separately, we have also created a viewing area where participants can watch part or all of the YouTube playlist of HotRFC videos. If you choose this option, you will leave Gather while you are watching the playlist and your avatar will go to sleep in Gather, thereby auto-muting and not sharing audio with adjacent participants. 

Best,
Alexa

> On Nov 8, 2021, at 4:23 AM, Marc Petit-Huguenin <[email-masked]> wrote:
>

---

From: Marc Petit-Huguenin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2021 05:50:00 -0800

Hi Alexa,

I like the new layout, the issue now is that it will be difficult to test its usability with the rush hour for HotRFC behind us.

---

From: Marc Petit-Huguenin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2021 06:08:45 -0800

Idea:  Create a [email-masked] mailing-list to help tools and secretariat test stuff.  What can go wrong?

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2021 07:19:36 -0800

> The HotRfc area in Gather seems to have been redesigned.

cool!  does it no longer (attempt to) implant facebook trackers in my
browser?  and not send spam celebrating monitizing us?

randy

---

From: Spencer Dawkins at IETF <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2021 09:21:04 -0600

I wanted to follow up on one point Toerless mentioned.

> also to any WG related discussions in gather.town. Mine is this:

When we started HotRFC ("request for conversations"), the goal was to allow
literally anyone with an Internet-related idea to get in front of the IETF
community at the beginning of the IETF meeting week, so that people had the
full IETF meeting to chase the presenters down.

We were thinking that many of these would be ideas that weren't baked
enough to request a BOF, or propose to a WG, so the reason to give a
4-minute talk was to find other people who cated, and were willing to help
you develop your ideas further (the abbreviation could have just as well
been "Request for Collaborators"), and tell them how to find you (could be
email, could be a side meeting, could be something else).

Aaron (and the IESG sponsors) haven't run a vetting function for HotRFC
slots, so people have also spoken, saying "I'm going to be presenting this
new thing in this working group/research group meeting, so if you care, you
probably want to come and participate there". At least that was the
expectation in 2018.

*Now that we are heavily meeting remotely, and are likely to be in hybrid
meetings for the foreseeable future, *it's probably worth thinking about
how people find out about new topics that have moved beyond "half-baked
idea I wrote on a napkin and sent slides to Aaron". If you're already on
the right mailing lists, you'd probably know about many of these things,
but that doesn't get you the kind of early cross-area awareness that we
think makes the IETF different from other standards organizations.

And I mean cross-area awareness, not cross-area review.

Does that make sense?

Best,

Spencer

> > I liked be able to talk to the author without the stress of having to
> formulate my questions right after the presentation, so Gather was nice for
> that, and I would suggest to continue using the same format after fixing
> the slowdown when a lot of people were on the floor.  I would also prefer
> to watch the presentations directly on Gather rather than on YouTube, after
> the problem of hearing other conversations is fixed.  A way to show that
> someone is interacting with video and other Gather objects would be nice
> too.
> >

---

From: Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2021 17:34:42 +0100

Spencer: 

"Request For Collaborators" is very nice. Maybe rename from HotRFC to RFCollab or
the like. [Insert standard rant how today, drafts are the real RFC]

I think that the goal of "awareness" at early stages of the document is
good. But i specifically liked the opportunity for actual discssion,
which was new with the gather.town instance vs. prior HotRFC. This may
not be the original intent, but it very worth keeping IMHO.

My point was that the same type of discussions we did have in HotRFC this
time where also core element of WGs on the hallways, and we should try to
also enable them as well.

But right now, i think the mayority of participants are too lazy to
give gather.town enough playtime that they would start to see benefits *sigh*

Cheers
    Toerless

-- 
---
[email-masked]

---

From: Spencer Dawkins at IETF <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2021 12:49:07 -0600

Hi, Toerless,

> not be the original intent, but it very worth keeping IMHO.

Full disclosure - I was asked to work with Aaron and Alexa on HotRFC for
this IETF, so all the good ideas are theirs and the other ideas are, of
course, mine ...

I didn't have a clear idea what would happen in the HotTFC spaces last
Wednesday - I was expecting a lot of drop-in traffic just to find out about
side meetings and ways to talk this week, but people came in, we started
talking, and THEY NEVER LEFT!!! We stayed in my space until about 15
minutes after the slot ended, which was fine, but I didn't expect that.

So, yeah, if we think discussion during the HotRFC slot is a good thing, we
might think about how to make that more likely to happen.

> also enable them as well.

That seems very reasonable.

> give gather.town enough playtime that they would start to see benefits

Gather gets better at almost every IETF meeting (modulo Randy's observation
about spyware, etc.), so it's getting easier to find someone or something
that you need to run into, but definitely having things in Gather that give
people a reason to pop in would help with that.

Best,

Spencer

> > > I would also recommend all WG/RG chairs to make themselves available
> after
> > > their
> > > > > The Gather room part for discussion didn't work for me.  I'd
> suggest
> > > going
> > > > > > quality was worse on IPv6, some buttons on left could not be
> clicked
> > > on
> > > > > > IPv6, etc.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Yours,
> > > > > >
> > > > > > --

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2021 13:06:48 -0800

> Gather gets better at almost every IETF meeting (modulo Randy's
> observation about spyware, etc.), so it's getting easier to find
> someone or something that you need to run into, but definitely having
> things in Gather that give people a reason to pop in would help with
> that.

imiho, putting any ietf act worthy of the note well MUST NOT be behind
a spy-wall.  that we are allowing this is really unbelievable.

there are things i wanted to attend which i simply can not.

randy

---

From: Fred Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2021 15:55:08 -0800

> On Nov 8, 2021, at 8:34 AM, Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 

You describe yourself as a "fanboy". I have looked into it, and I'm not. I think you'll find that it's not about people being forced to use a tool they don't like and as a result liking it, I think it's a difference of opinion.

---

From: Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2021 05:05:00 +0100

On Mon, Nov 08, 2021 at 03:55:08PM -0800, Fred Baker wrote:
> You describe yourself as a "fanboy". I have looked into it, and I'm not. 

> I think you'll find that it's not about people being forced to use a tool they don't like and as a result liking it,

Thats sounds more like stockholm syndrom than what i said.

> I think it's a difference of opinion.

Ok. So, what are your top issues with gather.town ? 

(note: "must run on IPv6" is already sold ;-)

Cheers
    Toerless

---

From: Marc Petit-Huguenin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2021 03:17:57 -0800

Gather.town feels like a prototype, or a sketch, of something that could be useful to the IETF.  I still hope that a group of devs, somewhere, somehow, will rise and build the Meetecho of hallways, inspired by the good stuff in Gather.

---

From: Alexandre PETRESCU <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2021 12:29:07 +0100

> (note: "must run on IPv6" is already sold ;-)

Sold ok, but has one tried gather.town on IPv6 exclusively and was happy 
with the experience?

Last time I tried some features did not work (somme buttons on the 
left).  I reported the issue multiple times.  No answer.

Alex

---

From: Fred Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2021 04:31:10 -0800

> On Nov 8, 2021, at 8:05 PM, Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 

Well, yes, it appears to have that issue. Mostly, I would say that it has a number of the needed attributes, but I find it borderline usable. It would be more usable if I thought in terms of tree structures populated with people. Personally, I don't.

---

From: Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2021 14:40:44 +0100

> Well, yes, it appears to have that issue. Mostly, I would say that it has a number of the needed attributes, but I find it borderline usable. It would be more usable if I thought in terms of tree s…

Not sure what the Tree structure is, but it could explain why i like it ;-)

How would you like to see it changed to increase its usefulness to you ?

And if that is not the right question then maybe:

How would a tool have to look like that would enable the best informal
discussions between IETF online participants (including orgs like secretariat,
eitor, hackathons, hotRFC, nomcom, etc-and-pp) ?

Cheers
    Toerless

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 09 Nov 2021 09:02:13 -0500

FWIW, I agree with Fred about the points made in this note and
others.  Gather feels strange and difficult for those of use who
think about human relationships  and many tasks in terms of
partially interconnected and overlapping networks with different
connectivity strengths rather than trees.  I could tell you what
my social psychologist colleagues call the many people who can
think only in terms of linear or tree-like relationships, but it
would probably violate the Code of Conduct.  The app is also
difficult because it does not capture the differences among
"stand there listening", "waiting to speak to someone in the
conversation about something else", etc., as well is "we are
trying to discuss a problem for which you don't have context,
please stop interrupting", at all well (in f2f conversations...
well, their avatars can't frown, glare, or growl).  Its UI/UX
design is a disaster for those who are sufficiently
vision-impaired to be able to see the screen but not make fine
distinctions among icons and avatars much less read tiny type
(especially when it is moving).  Those are examples, not the
whole list.

And that leaves out the issues raised by Randy and others about
the IETF supporting privacy-intrusive and other behaviors that
the IETF claims to reject, ones that I personally agree are
important and would be important symbolically even if every one
of us knew how to block those mechanisms and did so.

back to lurking,
   john

--On Tuesday, November 9, 2021 04:31 -0800 Fred Baker
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> Well, yes, it appears to have that issue. Mostly, I would say
> that it has a number of the needed attributes, but I find it
> borderline usable. It would be more usable if I thought in
> terms of tree structures populated with people. Personally, I
> don't.

---

From: Alexandre PETRESCU <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2021 15:05:37 +0100

> eitor, hackathons, hotRFC, nomcom, etc-and-pp) ?

Do you know secondlife? That kind of three dimensional experience in 
gather.town would be great for some.

I was able to spend hours in secondlife, and then other hours in other 
recent conferences where such experiences were provided.

Some talk about 'meta-verses', meta Universes.

But of course, that could also be too much.  Not too much to ask, but 
too much immersing away from reality.

Alex

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 09 Nov 2021 06:27:52 -0800

assuming gather can not cut it for many reasons, some of which you
enumerated well, what would work?

back in the day, lisa dusseault tried to get us to use second life.  it
overcomes a lot of your and my issues with gather.  but, imiho, the
barrier to entry (what it takes for an individual to get in and make it
useful) is too high.  and it has not grown in years.  i speak from
experience, having helped my wife produce ballet in second life for over
15 years.  otoh, that one can produce ballet there says a lot for it.

a numbr of academic/research meetings i attend(ed) use zoom with side
rooms.  being able to go into side rooms is critical, imiho.  due to
unforseen circumstances, we have all learned to use zoom; i.e. the
baarrier to entry has already been overcome.  and it overcomes many of
the social issues you raise; we get to see each others' faces.  no, you
can not make cute stage settings, but it sure has proven that folk can
get work done.  [ don't get me started about teams; and i have not used
goog's product enough to have a useful opinion. ]

i use jitsi, like it, run a server, etc.  but it does not have side
rooms.  barrier to entry negligible as everyone's zoom exterience
transfers directly.

can others tell us about experience with environments which could meet
our needs?

randy

---

From: Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2021 15:29:41 +0100

On Tue, Nov 09, 2021 at 09:02:13AM -0500, John C Klensin wrote:
> connectivity strengths rather than trees. 

I still do not understand eiher Freds nor your comment here.
Were is the tree ? I see a map. It visuales to me not that
different to the map i have of the physical IETF meeting places
and how to navigate and interact with people as a result of that
movement (vicinity). Is the concern that you only see your
vicinity ? Or do you not want something that attempts to
reproduce the physical meeting experience in this way ?

> I could tell you what
> would probably violate the Code of Conduct.

> The app is also
> conversation about something else", etc.

Godd description.
Any suggestion how this could be resolved ?

>, as well is "we are
> well, their avatars can't frown, glare, or growl).

There is now the personal bubble you can create.
Thats a fairly strong indicator of a private discussion.

There could also simply be a space with private meeting
tables, but alas, the map was shrunk and eliminated most of them.

> Its UI/UX
> (especially when it is moving).

Would it help if the map could be popped out to a different
window so you can two-finger zoom into it without loosing
chat and participants ?

>  Those are examples, not the whole list.

Would be great to suggest actionable improvements.

> of us knew how to block those mechanisms and did so.

Is ietf.slack.com any better in this ? 

Cheers
    Toerless

-- 
---
[email-masked]

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2021 09:39:15 -0500

Second life would be great except that they don't have sandboxed clients,
which makes them not desirable to run for security reasons.

On Tue, Nov 9, 2021 at 9:05 AM Alexandre PETRESCU <[email-masked]>
wrote:

> >> Well, yes, it appears to have that issue. Mostly, I would say that it
> has a number of the needed attributes, but I find it borderline usable. It
> would be more usable if I thought in terms of tree structures populated
> with people. Personally, I don't.

---

From: Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2021 15:45:24 +0100

I looked at Second Live in its first hype wave. I agree with yor
assessment. I think marketing people with a lot of budget to invest
into the second live design cold find good use-cases, but IMHO
not for the IETF use case.

I used zoom side meetings. COmparison between it and gather is
IMHO not binary but i see pro/cons for either. And i wouldn't
have an idea for a simple common superset. But i wold contend that
what is missing in meetecho is better amended by gather than
zoom style side meetings.

Cheers
    toerless

-- 
---
[email-masked]

---

From: Christian Huitema <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2021 09:01:01 -0800

> a spy-wall.  that we are allowing this is really unbelievable.

+1.

I understand that running tools has costs, and that this has to be paid 
for. There are at least two valid options. First, whoever provides the 
tool eats the costs, maybe because using the IETF participants will be a 
great test of their tools, or maybe because it will increase the 
visibility of these tools. Second, the IETF pays for using the tools. 
What is not an option is a quid-pro-quo in which the provider supplies 
the tools and the IETF supplies targets for surveillance capitalism.

-- Christian Huitema

---

From: Mark Andrews <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2021 14:52:16 +1100

> On 9 Nov 2021, at 22:29, Alexandre PETRESCU <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> 
> Sold ok, but has one tried gather.town on IPv6 exclusively and was happy with the experience?

Tried.  Yes.  Succeeded no.

gather-assets-production-nyc3-a.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com. 300 IN	CNAME cds.b5g9b8e4.hwcdn.net.

which lands on a IPv4 only CDN.  hwcdn.net doesn’t even have IPv6 nameservers.

> Last time I tried some features did not work (somme buttons on the left).  I reported the issue multiple times.  No answer.
> 
> 
> Alex
> 
> 
>> 
>> Cheers
>>     Toerless
>> 
> -- 

-- 
Mark Andrews, ISC
1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia
PHONE: +61 2 9871 4742              INTERNET: [email-masked]

---

From: Spencer Dawkins at IETF <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2021 06:36:23 -0600

Trying to behave, but I wanted to pop in on one point.

> zoom style side meetings.

OK, maybe two, but they're related.

I was hosting a Zoom meeting yesterday with about 60-ish participants, and
it looked to me (as host) that it would have been useful if someone could
have said

   - here's a large space that we can spread out into,
   - so that the people who (here's the key) "think  that 'media' means
   'interactive video' can talk to each other, and people who think it means
   'streaming video' can talk to each other, and people who think it includes
   'gaming' can talk to each other",
   - and (for extra credit) maybe even come back, or send a
   participant back, and report on what happened in their breakout room.

It seems that's more Gather-ish than Zoom-ish, and it's definitely an IETF
kind of thing.

(at a minimum, AFAIK, don't you have to be the Zoom meeting host to assign
people to breakout rooms? and if I'm in one Zoom breakout room and want to
pop into another one, can I do that?)

My second thing is that what I do in Gather is mostly "look at the
participant list, find someone I need to talk to, and Follow them until I
find them". If I was just wandering around in Gather, and didn't recognize
most of the names for people I need to talk to (whether I know them or
not), I'd be pretty frustrated, too. That's what I did, at the first IETF
where we had Gather, and I'm getting a lot more out of Gather now..

If it was possible to look up people by roles ("editor for
draft-foo-bar-baz"?), that would be a bit more useful for new participants.

Your mileage may vary, of course.

Best,

Spencer, who has other thoughts, perhaps best expressed on a post-IETF 112
survey, which I will definitely fill out!

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2021 04:38:29 -0800

> I was hosting a Zoom meeting yesterday with about 60-ish participants,
> and it looked to me (as host) that it would have been useful if
> someone could have said
> 

you may want to explore zoom side rooms

randy

---

From: Theresa Enghardt <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2021 09:09:52 -0500

Hi Spencer,

On 11/10/21 7:36 AM, Spencer Dawkins at IETF wrote:
> […]
>
> (at a minimum, AFAIK, don't you have to be the Zoom meeting host to 
> assign people to breakout rooms?

According to my experience with Zoom breakout rooms:

Yes, if you are the Zoom meeting host, or if you have been assigned 
co-host, you can create breakout rooms, and you can assign people to 
breakout rooms, either randomly or by "dragging" specific people into 
specific rooms. However, if you want everyone to choose their own 
breakout room, I think you have to make everyone co-host of the Zoom 
meeting, which gives them other permissions as well, and which might not 
scale well to a meeting of 60-ish people. But we have successfully done 
this with meetings of 30-ish people, most of whom were already sort-of 
experienced with Zoom.

> and if I'm in one Zoom breakout room and want to pop into another one, 
> can I do that?)

Yes, as a host or co-host, you can pop in and out of breakout rooms (and 
back to the main room) at any point.

The participants who are not (co-)hosts only have the option to either 
enter their assigned breakout room or not, and to then either leave that 
breakout room by going back to the main room or not.

> participant list, find someone I need to talk to, and Follow them 
> until I find them". If I was just wandering around in Gather, and 
> didn't recognize most of the names for people I need to talk to 
> (whether I know them or not), I'd be pretty frustrated, too. That's 
> what I did, at the first IETF where we had Gather, and I'm getting a 
> lot more out of Gather now..

I think having clearly marked areas in Gather definitely helps, e.g., 
the Transport ADs are making good use of the "TSV" spot at the bottom 
right of the main room in Gather.

Maybe the next step could be to enable folks to create such areas 
ad-hoc, and/or to make them easier to discover.

Yesterday, the TSV "dinner" had been planned to be at the bar, but then 
we discovered that there was no bar... But at least we had the "TSV" 
spot to fall back to.

Best,
Reese, aka Theresa

---

From: Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2021 15:14:07 +0100

On Wed, Nov 10, 2021 at 09:09:52AM -0500, Theresa Enghardt wrote:
> Yesterday, the TSV "dinner" had been planned to be at the bar, but then we
> discovered that there was no bar... But at least we had the "TSV" spot to
> fall back to.

Theresa,

If that TSV tabl was crowded as i imagine, please send an email to the
secretariat which did shrink the gather.town universe and thell them
that you would like to have a bar back. So far it seems, the only folks
who complained to secretariat (or indirectly to them), where those who
gost in the "vast expanse of the gather.town map", hence the shrinkage.

Or go to the secretariats table on gather.town and speak with them.

Cheers
    toerless

---

From: Spencer Dawkins at IETF <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2021 08:34:58 -0600

(Not the Wizard of Zoom)

> you may want to explore zoom side rooms

I am informed that zoom can allow participants moving freely between
multiple breakout rooms.

I did not know that. Is it also possible for participants to wander off
into a breakout room? If so, that would make me feel a lot better about
exploring this for IETF work.

(I use Zoom pretty heavily, but I haven't hosted Zoom meetings with a large
enough number of simultaneous topics to investigate breakout/side rooms for
my own meetings)

It looks like
https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/206476313-Managing-Breakout-Rooms
does give me some hope, but
https://www.uab.edu/elearning/news/technology-tips-updates/new-zoom-feature-self-select-breakout-rooms
still seems to require a host to set up breakout rooms, even if people can
wander between them.

Still, the situation isn't as clear as I understood. Thanks for the
pointers.

Best,

Spencer

---

From: Wes Hardaker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2021 06:51:58 -0800

> I am informed that zoom can allow participants moving freely between

I've used both gather and side rooms for random discussions and both can
work well.

One of the big differences is who is structuring the "event".  Zoom (and
webex) is absolutely fantastic for breakout sessions to let people
wander to topics they want to participate in, and change rooms, etc.
But, it works best when there is top down direction that creates the
right number of rooms, assigns names to them, etc.  Perfect for
workshops with chairs, etc.  However, if you want bottom-up driven
conversations than gather is better, as people can be crazy and split
off in their own side groups more easily.

TL;DR: there is no perfect -- use the right tool for the right job
-- 
Wes Hardaker
USC/ISI

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2021 20:18:17 -0500

>> people to breakout rooms?

    > Yes, if you are the Zoom meeting host, or if you have been assigned co-host,
    > you can create breakout rooms, and you can assign people to breakout rooms,
    > either randomly or by "dragging" specific people into specific
    > rooms. However, if you want everyone to choose their own breakout room, I
    > think you have to make everyone co-host of the Zoom meeting, which
    > gives them

No, at least not for the event I was at last week (that overlapped the plenary).
We were not co-hosts, but we could choose our side meetings.

It is, as many said, very top-down.

In the side room, however, random participants couldn't screen share.
That is, there were no back-of-the-envelopes available.

And the malware.
And the BS calendar integration.
And the last-minute, "oops, you need the native app"
And the video freezing every time for my karate class.
And the lack of ability to lock the screen to my Sensei, even when other
people were talking. (That's a bit fixed now)

Gather.town is not perfect, but I think it works very well for my use.
I'd like to understand more of why Fred hates it, though.