Subject: scribes

From: Avri Doria <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 09:09:00 -0600

hi,

i have noticed in the last few days that there are very few scribes 
working the jabber conferences.  i know it is hard to get volunteers, 
but we should at least be trying.

a.

---

From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 22:52:08 -0500

>>>>> "Avri" == Avri Doria <[email-masked]> writes:

    Avri> hi, i have noticed in the last few days that there are very
    Avri> few scribes working the jabber conferences.  i know it is
    Avri> hard to get volunteers, but we should at least be trying.

Is that really useful?  To the extent they are usful I've found Jabber
to be much more useful for side discussions than for text
participation by third parties?

---

From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 23:30:23 -0500

>participation by third parties?

It can be useful, for parties not in the room to be able to "listen".  
I've used it that way in the past.

		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb

---

From: "RL 'Bob' Morgan" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 22:56:56 -0600 (CST)

> I've used it that way in the past.

It all depends on who's connected.  In one WG this week we got realtime
feedback from a remote AD that was very useful, and in another from a
remote document author.  Worth the price of admission right there.

 - RL "Bob"

---

From: Marshall Rose <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 23:05:42 -0600

> I've used it that way in the past.

exactly. i scribe in one room, so i can read the output from a scribe in one or
two others...

/mtr

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From: Spencer Dawkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2003 05:46:42 -0800 (PST)

Ya know, a lot of it depends on the quality of the Jabberers...

Harald had asked me to note-take the plenaries in Vienna.
Afterwards, I was amazed at the high quality of the Jabber logs
- I wasn't just using them to fill in stuff I missed, I was
using them to verify quotes etc. They were almost word-for-word,
slide-bullet-for-bullet descriptions, and had the most
comprehensive speaker-identification I've seen. If you wish you
had transcripts of your working group discussions, you would be
envious.

I've chaired two meetings under Jabber - the first had good
Jabber logs, afterwards, and we ended up filling in minutes gaps
when one of our scribes submerged for about a month afterwards.
The second had almost no notes - I was disappointed, because I
was spoiled from the first meeting.

Sadly, I actually take notes in he said/she said format, which
would work well for Jabber, but I don't ever seem to actually be
Jabber scribing during the meetings. The last couple of
meetings, the high rate of people running around in ad-hoc mode
(that would torch my connection, or at least break my stream of
notes) has scared me off. Maybe if we will be penalty-boxing
these people (see [email-masked]) in the future, I'll make the
jump to hyperspace...

Spencer

---

From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2003 09:52:43 -0500

>>>>> "Marshall" == Marshall Rose <[email-masked]> writes:

    >> It can be useful, for parties not in the room to be able to
    >> "listen".  I've used it that way in the past.

    Marshall> exactly. i scribe in one room, so i can read the output
    Marshall> from a scribe in one or two others...

Have you actually tended to find this useful?  I've mostly found that
monitoring rooms I'm not in is completely useless.  If other people
find this not to be the case, that would be interesting to me.

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2003 10:14:42 -0500

Yes, it is useful, especially for those who can not make it to a meeting. 
One of the people wanting to attend a session this week was able to read 
Jabber items but not post.  That was probably something wrong on their 
part.  However, for our group, many people like the Jabber idea.  Before 
Jabber was brought in, we tried to do AOL instant messaging. For example, 
if one of the editors of a draft was not able to attend, and we needed an 
answer to a question, we put it out on AOL.  Those we needed to contact 
made a point of being "online."  Jabber made it even better.  The issue 
with Jabber is finding a willing scribe - exactly the question of this 
original thread. 

Sam Hartman <[email-masked]> 
Sent by: [email-masked]
11/12/2003 09:52

To
Marshall Rose <[email-masked]>
cc
"Steven M. Bellovin" <[email-masked]>, Avri Doria <[email-masked]>, 
[email-masked]
Subject
Re: scribes

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2003 07:41:06 -0800 (PST)

> find this not to be the case, that would be interesting to me.

I for one find it quite useful. As I type this I'm able to track what's going
on in the IMAPEXT working group meeting even through I'm in Los Angeles.
Yesterday I was able to track CALSCH in a similar way, to the point of being
able to make topical comments that were then relayed to the meeting.

The biggest factor in this is the quality of the scribe. A bad scribe makes
it useless, a good scribe makes it useful.

Another major factor is familiarity with the material. I doubt very much that a
tourist watching Jabber traffic would find it useful. But when you know the
topic, have read the drafts, and know the people involved, it isn't hard to
fill in the inevitable gaps.

One problem I've observed during this meeting is that occasionally the Jabber
sessions seem to cut out. When this happens I have to disconnect and reconnect
to get the flow started again. I'd say it is a client problem at my end except
for the fact that others seem to be having the same difficulty.

Finally, I do note that being able to watch the setting on the MBone AND being
able to participate via Jabber, as I was able to do with IEA on Monday, is even
better than Jabber alone.

				Ned

P.S. The audio quality of the MBone was quite good modulo the usual mic
fumbling. Video quality was another matter -- slides were fine but shots of the
room were all way too dark. Hopefully this has been corrected... Pictures of
people aren't very useful when you can't make out the expressions on their
faces, although I did note that posture is often a good predictor of the tone
someone is going to take when they get to the mic.

---

From: Claudio Allocchio <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2003 17:16:24 +0100 (CET)

> for the fact that others seem to be having the same difficulty.

No, Ned... there are serious wireless connectiviy problems here: there is
the "ad Hoc" network experiement also up, and the usual idiots which
create their own computer-to-computer network with the same id and
"ietf58"... the rooms are full of signs telling "please set manualy your
ESSID to ietf58". Not your side!

very good to have you as an expert tester of remote participation!

:-)

regard,

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Claudio Allocchio             G   A   R   R          [email-masked]
                        Project Technical Officer
tel: +39 040 3758523      Italian Academic and       G=Claudio; S=Allocchio;
fax: +39 040 3758565        Research Network         P=garr; A=garr; C=it;

           PGP Key: http://www.cert.garr.it/PGP/keys.php3#ca

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2003 12:41:47 -0600

--On 12. november 2003 07:41 -0800 [email-masked] wrote:

> One problem I've observed during this meeting is that occasionally the
> Jabber sessions seem to cut out. When this happens I have to disconnect
> and reconnect to get the flow started again. I'd say it is a client
> problem at my end except for the fact that others seem to be having the
> same difficulty.

This morning, the ietf.xmpp.org conference server crashed and was rebooted
(verified with the admins). Exodus gave a confusing error message, and did 
not seem to discover the crash until I tried typing into the room.
Stuff happens.

---

From: Marshall Rose <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2003 09:10:56 -0600

> find this not to be the case, that would be interesting to me.

i was in imms yesterday and found sasl to be helpful.

ymmv.

/mtr