Subject: [Manycouches] Summary of discussions on meeting cadence

From: Amelia Andersdotter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 2020 14:45:41 +0200

Dear all,

During IETF108 we discussed a bit how to organise a meeting (cadency,
time-zone, etc), but the organisation seems to depend on the expected
outcome of the meeting. For some, the cross-pollination between WGs and
social aspects of the IETF are very important. For others, it's more
important to do focussed work with interested specialists, with a view
to coming to a finalized standards document.

These two different goals of meetings are somehow conflicting. If many
WG participants are from the same geographical area or time zone, and
their focus is on completing standards and specifications, it is more
reasonable for these participants to organise interim meetings in their
time-zone of convenience. But if participants feel that they want to do
tourism in areas that they don't normally work on to get a more complete
view of the internet, it makes more sense to have a condensed set of
meetings in a week with rotating time-schedule as per already existing
regional rotation as per RFC8719.

Is the /purpose/ of IETF meetings something we should address directly
before producing guidelines? The IETF Mission Statement currently is
fairly outcome-oriented (i.e. could be construed as prioritizing
focussed work over cross-pollination).'

best regards,

-- 
^\...~...~...~...~...~.../^
Amelia Andersdotter
IETF SHMOO WG Co-Chair
https://datatracker.ietf.org/group/shmoo/about/

Director of Strategic Initiatives, CENTR
www.centr.org
^\...~...~...~...~...~.../^

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From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 09 Oct 2020 13:19:37 -0400

> regional rotation as per RFC8719.

Your summary of the conflict is accurate, but the word "tourism" is rather
loaded for me.

While many see the word and may understand "impromptu cross-area review", the
term is loaded with negative attachments.
For instance, the location of physical meetings has at times been criticised
as being picked for touristic reasons.

There is some significant negative experience with mic comments like,
   "I haven't read the document, but..."

yet, often these comments *do* lead to significant issues.

Sometimes, though, they lead to an understanding that two WGs are facing the same
issues, and that they should work together.  And getting this understanding
is really quite valuable.

This is *PARTICULARLY* the case for new work (BOFs), and for the first few
meetings of a newly formed WG.

This is also why heavily conflicted (physical) meeting schedules have been a
growing issue.

    > focussed work over cross-pollination).'

I think that you raise an important question.
let me try to answer it.

I think that we have a healthy growth of virtual interim meetings which are:
  a) heavily focused.
  b) frequent participant-time-zone optimized
  c) typically occur at twice-monthly to monthly intervals appropriate for
     getting work done.

While the mission statement is very outcome focused, that doesn't mean that
every activity needs to be only outcome focused.  :-)

I think that the IETF "plenary" meeting times should be arranged to not just
permit, but encourage cross-working-group participation.

I want the IETF meeting weeks focused on:
  1) meta-activites like IESG, IAB, NOMCOM
  2) *DISPATCH activities
  3) BOFs
  4) new WG meetings,
  5) maybe WGs who have gone through some major milestone, and are rechartering

I would like there to be time to arrange 1:1 or rather-small-group meetings
with ADs and document authors to talk through some lingering DISCUSSes.
The gather.town was exceptionally useful for this.
The RIOT Summit used it as well, and used it for side-meetings as well, and I
think it well very well.  I don't how big a group it can handle on it's own,
but it seemed that perhaps the RIOT Summit didn't need webex as well.
But, RIOT is O(10^2), while IETF is O(10^3).

So, I would like to have fewer tracks.
Less like IETF108 and more like IETF107.  But, slightly longer days.
In particular, I don't mind having some gaps where I can reasonably expect to
find someone.

I don't think that spreading 107 across the month of April was great,
although many WGs that had never had virtual interims sure learnt how.
I would like the meeting restricted to a 5 or 7 day period, because "jet lag"

--
Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>   . o O ( IPv6 IøT consulting )
           Sandelman Software Works Inc, Ottawa and Worldwide

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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2020 08:37:09 +1300

> permit, but encourage cross-working-group participation.

This. It's more important now than ever before. I don't miss "my" WG
sessions from IETF meetings; I miss the discussions outside the sessions,
and the ability to drop into other WGs to see what on earth they are
talking about.

Regards
   Brian

On 10-Oct-20 06:19, Michael Richardson wrote:
> _______________________________________________
> Manycouches mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/manycouches
>

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From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2020 19:00:06 -0400

Amelia unicast me to convince me to put my email into a draft.
I don't really deal with how often we should (virtually) meet.
(I would stick with three times/year, but going to two would also work for
me)

I took my ID title from whomever it was that said that IETF had many fine dinners.

Subject: New Version Notification for
draft-richardson-shmoo-how-many-fine-dinners-00.txt

This document lives in: https://github.com/mcr/how-many-fine-dinners.git
Feel free to correct my summary of IETF107 and IETF108.
(We used webex for all of 107 right? I can't seem to remember anymore.
I remember being annoyed we weren't using meetecho for virtual interims...)

---

A new version of I-D, draft-richardson-shmoo-how-many-fine-dinners-00.txt
has been successfully submitted by Michael Richardson and posted to the
IETF repository.

Name:		draft-richardson-shmoo-how-many-fine-dinners
Revision:	00
Title:		How often and how long should IETF virtual meetings be
Document date:	2020-10-12
Group:		Individual Submission
Pages:		6
URL:            https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-richardson-shmoo-how-many-fine-dinners-00.txt
Status:         https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-richardson-shmoo-how-many-fine-dinners/
Html:           https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-richardson-shmoo-how-many-fine-dinners-00.html
Htmlized:       https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-richardson-shmoo-how-many-fine-dinners-00

Abstract:
   This document recommends a model for IETF virtual meetings that
   emphasizes new work, community building and cross-area concerns.

   This document recommends virtual meetings be planned a reduced amount
   of overlap among sessions, with short sessions with generous gaps.

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From: Amelia Andersdotter <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2020 11:34:47 +0200

it looks to me a good starting point for further discussion and it
pretty much addresses the purpose-question ("why meet?") that i thought
was present at ietf108.

this draft (like mcr's original response to this list) also sets it foot
down w.r.t. purpose-questions so that's very helpful (esp if other
people agree).

best regards,

amelia

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From: Alexandre Petrescu <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2020 14:27:56 +0200

> as being picked for touristic reasons.

Tourism:
- has negative co-notation to mean that the room was packed with people
   raising their hands to vote because told to do so.  They will not be
   seen again at the next meeting, as they already visited that City.
- is positive: productive meeting during the day, free of occupation in
   evening, see new things, cross-polinate the spirits, admit the
   differences in the world... 'get a more complete view of the
   Internet.'
- is something to not do during times of virus.

Alex