Subject: RE: Fridays (RE: 60th IETF - DRAFT Agenda)

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 15:50:02 +0300

Hi,

> Er, because 2-3 days of IETF is enough to drain most of us?!  But,
> really, you can replace "IETF" in the above with any workshop /
meeting
> / conference.  IMO, people are always going to cut out early --
> especially on Fridays.  We're not going to change this.
> 
> That said, spreading things out to try to reduce the conflicts and
> requiring agenda requests earlier both sound like fine ideas to me.

There seems to be two issues here:

1) We have to many WGs that are meeting to make a sane 4-day schedule.

   Moving to a 4.5 day schedule seems reasonable.

2) Schedules are not published early enough for people to make informed
   travel plans

   Not everyone needs to be at the IETF for all 4/5 days, so that if we 
   published the meeting schedule earlier, folks could make reasonable 
   travel plans - with the caviat that no schedule will be perfect for 
   everyone.  

As a WG chair, I think that I can estimate a reasonable meeting request
early enough.  

John

---

From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 19:09:49 -0400

>>>>> "john" == john loughney <[email-masked]> writes:

    john> 2) Schedules are not published early enough for people to
    john> make informed travel plans

    john>    Not everyone needs to be at the IETF for all 4/5 days, so
    john> that if we published the meeting schedule earlier, folks
    john> could make reasonable travel plans - with the caviat that no
    john> schedule will be perfect for everyone.

Why doesn't everyone need to be at the IETF for the entire meeting?
Here are some things that become much easier if you expect everyone to
be there for the entire week:
el1) Getting people involved in areas that are not their primary focus
for attending so we have good cross-area review.

2) People can attend meetings outside their primary area of focus and
   be informed about other areas of Internet architecture.   Many
   problems that could benefit from similar solutions pop up in
   multiple areas; we need to do a better job of noticing this when it
   happens.

3) There's a higher probability that you'll have the face-to-face time
   necessary to resolve design issues that come up at working group
   meetings or to work out mailing list discussions before the working
   group meets.  AS a chair, it's really nice when the proponents of
   what you expect to be a contentious issue all show up having worked
   out their differences before the meeting and present a unified
   proposal for consideration as a consensus.

In summary, the IETF works better if we are there to design the
Internet, not to attend individual meetings.  We want to make it clear
to participants that the technical quality of standards and the ease
with which decisions can be made depends on participants attending the
entire meeting.

--Sam

---

From: "T.J.Kniveton" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 17:13:11 -0700

> Why doesn't everyone need to be at the IETF for the entire meeting?

Because some of us work for companies that do not want us hanging out 
for the whole week unless there is a direct justification.

> be there for the entire week:
[...]
> with which decisions can be made depends on participants attending the

I agree with all of your points, and everyone camping out for the whole 
week is certainly the way to achieve the most cross-polination and 
interesting discussion. But unfortunately, many people who attend the 
IETF are under more stringent constraints, for one reason or another.

---

From: "The Purple Streak, Hilarie Orman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 18:20:59 -0600

Why don't we hold IETF continuously, in two-week segments, moving from
venue to venue?  That would cut out those wimpy 4-day attendees.

Hilarie

---

From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 14:09:33 -0400

>>>>> "The" == The Purple Streak, Hilarie Orman <[email-masked]> writes:

    The> Why don't we hold IETF continuously, in two-week segments,
    The> moving from venue to venue?  That would cut out those wimpy
    The> 4-day attendees.

I don't think this would work well.  I think there is significant
value in having IETF participants who are involved in engineering
efforts as well as protocol design.  Also, I think it would backfire
somewhat in that it would be even harder for people to justify
attending the entire meeting than under the current system.  Finally,
I think the quality of Internet architecture produced would be
reduced.

Seriously, it's all about finding the balance that gives us the best
Internet.  My personal suspicion is that balance involves an IETF that
strongly encourages people to attend for as much of the meeting as
possible, that encourages and rewards cross-area review, but that
acknowledges there are valuable contributions made by people who
cannot justify this commitment.

---

From: Andy Bierman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 11:57:41 -0700

At 11:09 AM 7/20/2004, Sam Hartman wrote:
>I don't think this would work well. 

Um, she was being sarcastic (I hope!)

It's hard for many people to reserve a week for 
IETF meetings (and make travel plans) when they 
may only need to attend a small number of WG meetings.

I agree with your points about balance, though.

Andy

> I think there is significant