Subject: [Manycouches] about spread evaluation post-meeting

From: Alexandre Petrescu <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2021 12:02:58 +0100

The charter proposal says:

> - Meeting planning for mostly online, or “hybrid,” meetings. Meetings that have
>    an in-person component but with significantly more remote participants than a
>    mostly-in-person meeting need to be planned with community consensus
>    guidelines, too. While trade-offs have often been addressed in favor of onsite
>    attendees, the IESG and LLC would benefit from having community consensus on
>    high-level guidance about the organization of such hybrid meetings, regarding
>    such things as the meeting schedule, the meeting length in days, and
>    acceptable limitations on the maximum allowed or minimum expected onsite
>    attendees, whether and how to schedule and prioritize among onsite activities
>    such as side meetings, the terminal room, the code lounge, and others, and
>    other scheduling aspects.

I think there is no time to write a draft, present it, discuss it, see 
the interest, propose adoption, cycle through versions, issue an RFC, etc.

However, I think the idea of common agreements is good in these special 
times.

Thus, I propose by this email that, in case an in-person component of 
the meeting happens, that

     an evaluation of virus spread is made after the meeting,

as good as it can be made, in the spirit of best effort.

What do you think?

Alex

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2021 17:53:29 -0500

--On Saturday, December 11, 2021 12:02 +0100 Alexandre Petrescu
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>> - Meeting planning for mostly online, or "hybrid,"
>> meetings. Meetings that have an in-person component but with
>>    significantly more remote participants than a
>>    mostly-in-person meeting need to be planned with community
>...
> I think there is no time to write a draft, present it, discuss
> it, see the interest, propose adoption, cycle through
> versions, issue an RFC, etc.
> 
> However, I think the idea of common agreements is good in
> these special times.
> 
> Thus, I propose by this email that, in case an in-person
> component of the meeting happens, that
> 

While I would be interested, on general principles, in the
results of such an evaluation (or attempt at it), I'd like to
see you think about and address several questions about what
such an evaluation would mean and how you would suggest it be
conducted: 

(1) Many of the questions about SARS-CoV-2 and vaccinations
involve the distinction between prevention of severe disease and
prevention of infection (and, with it, presumably, the risk of
infecting others although I gather that link is not certain).
As I understand it, it is also becoming clear that vaccines do
not provide lifelong protection so that questions like "how many
doses, or what, did one have and when was the most recent one"
are important.  If the virus evolves to the point that
variant-specific doses are needed, that implies a need for every
more detail to be able to interpret an evaluation?  Would you
expect to ask people about their vaccination history and status
and/or overall health status along with whether or not they were
infected after attending a meeting?

(2) Many IETF participants are fairly sensitive to privacy
issues.  Do you have reason to believe that a sufficiently large
fraction of those who attended a meeting would answer questions
or provide needed information to make an evaluation meaningful?
Or do you believe that those who would provide information would
be a sufficiently representative sample of the community (i.e.,
would have the same demographics and infection/illness patterns
as the population of meeting attendees) that useful inferences
could be drawn from them?

(3) Several studies of survey populations have shown that, at
least in the absence of specific incentives to participate and
other things being equal, asking more questions or asking
questions more often reduces the number of people who respond
from the population from which one is trying get information.
Moreover, on at least some dimensions, those who do not respond
or who drop out of panel studies, are different from those who
remain, leading to different ("biased") results from those who
participate than one might have gotten from the population as a
whole.  I have no quantitative reason to believe that the IETF
community would follow that pattern: as far as I know, we have
never even attempted to ask the kinds of questions that would
permit us to evaluate that.  But do you see any risk there and,
if so, are there questions or surveys you would propose to
eliminate to get better quality from the evaluation you propose?

(4) Finally and perhaps most important, in what way would you
see such an evaluation as being actionable?   As has been
discussed several times before, things change quickly.  "Things"
include virus variants, perceived surges, national and local
regulations, population vaccination percentage, and so on.  If
an evaluation concludes that one meeting either resulted in few
infections or many, what would that tell us about decisions we
should make about the next meeting or the meeting after that?

thanks,
   john

---

From: Andrew Campling <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2021 20:21:20 +0000

--On Saturday, December 11, 2021 22:53 John C Klensin <[email-masked]> wrote:

> (4) Finally and perhaps most important, in what way would you see such an evaluation as being actionable?   As has been discussed several times before, things change quickly.  "Things" include virus variants, perceived surges, national and local regulations, population vaccination percentage, and so on.  If an evaluation concludes that one meeting either resulted in few infections or many, what would that tell us about decisions we should make about the next meeting or the meeting after that?

I think this is an important point.  In terms of any in-person meeting in the near future, there are reasonable precautions that can be taken such as looking at the spacing of seats, ventilation, use of masks, easy access to testing etc.  Going much beyond that into, for example, post-event testing or speculating about future surges, seems to stray beyond the core competencies of the IETF.  I'd prefer to see energies focused on helping to define the best possible hybrid meeting experience.  

Andrew

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2021 16:50:55 -0500

--On Sunday, December 12, 2021 20:21 +0000 Andrew Campling
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>> discussed several times before, things change quickly.
>> "Things" include virus variants, perceived surges, national
>> and local regulations, population vaccination percentage, and
>> so on.  If an evaluation concludes that one meeting either
>> resulted in few infections or many, what would that tell us
>> about decisions we should make about the next meeting or the
>> meeting after that?
> 
> I think this is an important point.  In terms of any in-person
> meeting in the near future, there are reasonable precautions
> that can be taken such as looking at the spacing of seats,
> ventilation, use of masks, easy access to testing etc.  Going
> much beyond that into, for example, post-event testing or
> speculating about future surges, seems to stray beyond the
> core competencies of the IETF.  I'd prefer to see energies
> focused on helping to define the best possible hybrid meeting
> experience.  

And, without really disagreeing with you, I'd prefer to see
energies focused on making the Internet work better... and
continue to wonder whether taking time in this WG to obsess (if
that is not too strong a word) about details of meeting
arrangements and associated COVID-19 issues detracts from that
goal.

I wonder whether it does not lead to a different question.  We
all know the advantages of f2f meetings (whether we can quantify
them or enumerate them in a way that would get consensus or
not).  We don't know the balance between meetings with some IETF
participants present but many not and just staying all-online
until things stabilize enough to make reliable predictions.  We
also don't know the risks of regionalized meetings -- ones in
which people from an extended local area show up but very few
others will -- nor how to predict (especially far in advance)
whether that would occur or whether rotating such meetings among
regions would adequately mitigate any negative effects.  We
probably cannot find answers without trying several consecutive
"hybrid" meetings that might go either well or poorly (although
history suggests we would get better over time).  If it does
poorly, we are at risk of losing whatever benefits f2f meetings
convey for much of 2022 (at least).  

How do we ask the question of whether the risks (and the costs
of ongoing discussions in this WG) are worth it or whether we
should just reconcile ourselves to online meetings throughout
2022 and, presumably, refocus the efforts that would go into
this WG and broader discussions, inevitably on a meeting by
meeting, on getting substantive technical work done?

Just asking.

    john

---

From: Alexandre Petrescu <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2021 15:44:44 +0100

Le 12/12/2021 à 21:21, Andrew Campling a écrit :
>> (4) Finally and perhaps most important, in what way would you see 
>> such an evaluation as being actionable?   As has been discussed 
>> several times before, things change quickly.  "Things" include 
>> virus variants, perceived surges, national and local regulations, 
>> population vaccination percentage, and so on.  If an evaluation 
>> concludes that one meeting either resulted in few infections or 
>> many, what would that tell us about decisions we should make about
>>  the next meeting or the meeting after that?
> 
> meeting in the near future, there are reasonable precautions that can
> be taken such as looking at the spacing of seats, ventilation,

About the reasonable precaution 'ventilation':

Where I live only recently the ventilation is admitted on a large scale
as being an important issue.  Since yesterday we get public
advertisement about the necessity of ventilation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAjcp5aK86I
Infected air is invisible to the naked eye, and it is more than the
result of just coughing or sneezing.  It is simple expiration that puts
such infected air in the air.

However, even that, shows a person at the window potentially receiving
all potentially infected air.

The solution to that is to propose _vertical_ aeration, from down to up.
  Without it, the ventilation might hurt as much as it might help.

> use of masks, easy access to testing etc.  Going much beyond that 
> into, for example, post-event testing or speculating about future 
> surges, seems to stray beyond the core competencies of the IETF.
> I'd prefer to see energies focused on helping to define the best
> possible hybrid meeting experience.

I agree.  But a hybrid meeting experience has many parts in it.

It is not sufficient to say that a 'hybrid' meeting is a modern
hyper-advanced form of online meeting with spatial.io or other metaverse.

A hybrid meeting would necessarily have an in-person component, I think.

It is that little in-person component that I discuss here.

If we agree on that, I would like to ask you, for my clarification, what
kind of energies do you see focused on helping to define the best
possible hybrid meeting experience?

By what handle should one approach the creation of such an experience?

Alex

---

From: Alexandre Petrescu <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2021 16:43:29 +0100

thanks for the reply,

Le 11/12/2021 à 23:53, John C Klensin a écrit :
>>> - Meeting planning for mostly online, or "hybrid," meetings. 
>>> Meetings that have an in-person component but with significantly
>>>  more remote participants than a mostly-in-person meeting need to
>>>  be planned with community
>> ... I think there is no time to write a draft, present it, discuss 
>> it, see the interest, propose adoption, cycle through versions, 
>> issue an RFC, etc.
>> 
>> However, I think the idea of common agreements is good in these 
>> special times.
>> 
>> Thus, I propose by this email that, in case an in-person component
>>  of the meeting happens, that
>> 
> While I would be interested, on general principles, in the results of
> such an evaluation (or attempt at it), I'd like to see you think 
> about and address several questions about what such an evaluation 
> would mean and how you would suggest it be conducted:
> 
> (1) Many of the questions about SARS-CoV-2 and vaccinations involve 
> the distinction between prevention of severe disease and prevention 
> of infection (and, with it, presumably, the risk of infecting others
>  although I gather that link is not certain). As I understand it, it
>  is also becoming clear that vaccines do not provide lifelong 
> protection so that questions like "how many doses, or what, did one 
> have and when was the most recent one" are important.  If the virus 
> evolves to the point that variant-specific doses are needed, that 
> implies a need for every more detail to be able to interpret an 
> evaluation?  Would you expect to ask people about their vaccination 
> history and status and/or overall health status along with whether or
> not they were infected after attending a meeting?

I agree many of the questions of how vaccination prevents covid.

Further, the questioning should lead to a clarification of what we
call today 'vaccination' anti-covid.  I think the name 'vaccine' is
wrong, and that 'vaccine' is more of a 'pillule' (I dont know the name
in English, a sort of 'pain killer', maybe a 'pill').  This 'pill' is
something one takes from time to time against some temporary headache.
It has only limited effect in time.  Like a new headache necessitates a
new pain killer 'pill', a new covid wave necessitates a new such pill,
for a little while.  On another hand, my anti-tetanos vaccine lasts 10
year guaranteed.

About the question of asking people a vaccination history and status or
overall health status? I think it depends how it's done.

I know a few meetings I have been invited to, and a few hospitals I went
to: they asked me to fill in forms telling under honour whether or not I
have fever, covid, etc.  They committed to save locally these papers and
not tell the contents to anyone.  However, I have no means to make sure
that is respected.   Ideally, legislation would provide me a means to
check that privacy is respected with these forms, but no.  Ideally too,
the other members of the meeting _would_ be informed if at least one
form said 'yes - infected', which would be good, but would risk infringe
the privacy of the person who said 'yes'.

But I believe there can be a few potentially good ways in which this
could be done.

One would be the following: display a rule that says having covid is not
a person's wrong, it is just something that happens.  This is very
important to persuade somebody that having covid is not a matter of
privacy, but a matter of being homo sapiens.  It is not a shame, but a
biological fact.  Then, test each person at the beginning of the
meeting, and at the end.  The testers should be IETFers too.  They
should not use electronic means, but just the chemistry means.  The
testing tools should not be connected.  Store the handwritten notes in a
safelock. The keys should be held by the Sergeant-at-Arms or by the IETF
Chair, or so.  At the end of the meeting compare the numbers and publish
them.

There are maybe other good ways.  The ways could be improved.

> (2) Many IETF participants are fairly sensitive to privacy issues.
> Do you have reason to believe that a sufficiently large fraction of 
> those who attended a meeting would answer questions or provide needed
> information to make an evaluation meaningful? Or do you believe that
> those who would provide information would be a sufficiently
> representative sample of the community (i.e., would have the same
> demographics and infection/illness patterns as the population of
> meeting attendees) that useful inferences could be drawn from them?

Thanks for asking.

It is a reasonable suggestion to think that maybe sampling through the
group would be representative enough.

At the same time, in this particular case, I think _all_ should be
tested, to the best of one's effort.  Without testing all, then it makes
no sense.  A poll for election might accept a margin error, but here
even the smallest number is critical.

The privacy sensitive at IETF could be reassured if one thinks that is
IETF testing by IETF.

The full openness of expression of IETF that guaranteed the growth of
Internet across various social organisations might be needed in the
creation of a tool to maintain that method itself.  The method must
continue.

> (3) Several studies of survey populations have shown that, at least 
> in the absence of specific incentives to participate and other things
> being equal, asking more questions or asking questions more often
> reduces the number of people who respond from the population from
> which one is trying get information. Moreover, on at least some 
> dimensions, those who do not respond or who drop out of panel 
> studies, are different from those who remain, leading to different 
> ("biased") results from those who participate than one might have 
> gotten from the population as a whole.  I have no quantitative reason
> to believe that the IETF community would follow that pattern: as far
> as I know, we have never even attempted to ask the kinds of questions
> that would permit us to evaluate that.  But do you see any risk there
> and, if so, are there questions or surveys you would propose to

The representativeness issue is indeed important.  One would want 100%
participation to polls in order to give best results.

But in this particular case I do not propose further polls at IETF.  I
think I have enough myself of those, so to speak.  I think these polls
illustrate how smart we can be, but do not really advance out of the
current problem.

To that end, a consensus-based traditional WG method might be better
adapted than sampling polls.

The problem I see with the consensus-based traditional WG method is that
it is not fast enough for the decision making for organizing a next IETF
meeting.

That speed problem can be addressed in various ways.

The factors that lead to speed reduction can be analyzed.  For example,
auhtoring an I-D takes time because this and that, getting tract for it
takes time because this and that, LC-ing takes time because this and
that.  And so on.

Maybe ultra-short I-Ds are possible, maybe time-bound discussions are
possible, or other methods.

Another problem, currently, is that there seems to be an initiative
towards consensus-based advisory to the upper IETF administration.  But
currently there is a lack of knowledge about what the IETF
administration has at hand as tools and data to plan the next in-person
meeting.

What advice can shmoo WG think to formulated, to build, if there is no
knowledge of the context of where this advice will be potentially applied?

> several times before, things change quickly.  "Things" include virus
>  variants, perceived surges, national and local regulations, 
> concludes that one meeting either resulted in few infections or many,
> what would that tell us about decisions we should make about the next
> meeting or the meeting after that?

If a spread evaluation concludes the spread was 0 then that is a very
important factor in the decision making for the next next meeting.  All
actions that led to the organization of the next meeting should be noted
down and replicated for next next meetings.

If on the other hand the evaluation indicated that the spread might have
been different than 0 during that meeting, even if very small, even if
with very little confidence, then that represents a big problem.  It
means that that particular meeting has contributed to further the
spread, and has not contributed to halting the spread.  That would be a
very harsh option to accept, I think.

Because one can be sure that if there is no in-person component of the
hybrid IETF meeting then the spread due to IETF meeting is guaranteed to
be 0 at 100% confidence.

Alex

> thanks, john