Subject: Re: [89attendees] Remote participation is pretty good

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 10:18:11 -0500

--On Friday, 07 March, 2014 13:36 +0100 Hosnieh Rafiee
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> Just a far suggestion
> 
> It would be good that there was possibility like a classroom
> that the remote participant could really talk (raise their
> hands and the jabber scripter gives him/her permission for
> microphone) and talk. Then I guess the remote participant
> wasn't something different than the real participant 
>...

Sadly (from my point of view), we know how to do this at least
moderately well.  It requires some conventions about how the
Jabber user (or other remote) participant gets the attention of
someone in the room and how the person in the room gets the
attention of the chair, ideally on a priority basis to
compensate for the "slow typing" problem you mention.  It
ideally requires someone watching the Jabber list carefully who
is not also charged with scribing and a convention about what
entries that are typed into Jabber are to go to the microphone
(prefixing comments with "Mic:" has been used a lot.  

In Vancouver, we tried giving Jabber scribes and others who were
likely to carry messages to the microphone special hats so they
could easily be seen by chairs, but I'm not convinced it
accomplished anything.  And, of course, if there are
conventions, everyone needs to be told about them.

Of course, more advanced technologies like Meetecho and WebEx
can help too, but also require attention.

But I think the problem is rather more in our taking remote
participation seriously enough to actually execute on what I
think we know how to do than in not knowing how.  And, also,
probably sadly, being an old timer and complaining a lot helps
too.

best,
   john

---

From: "Hosnieh Rafiee" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2014 16:45:22 +0100

John,

> 
> > Just a far suggestion
> >
> > It would be good that there was possibility like a classroom  that the
> >remote participant could really talk (raise their  hands and the jabber
> >scripter gives him/her permission for
> > microphone) and talk. Then I guess the remote participant  wasn't
> >something different than the real participant ...
> 
> Sadly (from my point of view), we know how to do this at least moderately
> well.  It requires some conventions about how the Jabber user (or other
> remote) participant gets the attention of someone in the room and how the
> person in the room gets the attention of the chair, ideally on a priority
basis to
> compensate for the "slow typing" problem you mention.  It ideally requires
> someone watching the Jabber list carefully who is not also charged with
> scribing and a convention about what entries that are typed into Jabber
are to
> go to the microphone (prefixing comments with "Mic:" has been used a lot.
> 
> In Vancouver, we tried giving Jabber scribes and others who were likely to
> carry messages to the microphone special hats so they could easily be seen
by
> chairs, but I'm not convinced it accomplished anything.  And, of course,
if
> there are conventions, everyone needs to be told about them.
> 
> Of course, more advanced technologies like Meetecho and WebEx can help
> too, but also require attention.
> 
> But I think the problem is rather more in our taking remote participation
> seriously enough to actually execute on what I think we know how to do
than
> in not knowing how.  And, also, probably sadly, being an old timer and
> complaining a lot helps too.

This is why I said it is a wild idea...  (it is like the future of IETF
meetings... sorry I think, I am more looking ahead rather than the present).
I just imagine a case where instead of everyone lining at the microphone,
they just use the same software as the remote participant use only for
questioning section and the application gives the permission of mic to each
requester based on FIFO algorithm. Consider a scenario where A is a remote
participant and B is at IETF. Both use software X (at the moment meetecho).

In a time of questions, to have a fairness, only the jabber scribes or admin
of this activate" question status". The application X gives permission to
the participants based on FIFO. For the app, it does not matter whether the
participant is remote or there. If the participant is there and it is his
time, he just start talking on the mic at the room. If it is not there, the
speaker on the admin device or recording device is enabled and let
participant A to talk. Just when folks loging to the app by their names,
they also tells the application whether they are there or remote. This is
good only for microphone permission process. The software can also assign
times to the person who wants to ask question and activate the mic for that
period.  So, this is both fair for both remote and present participant and
also a good time management. The microphone of the room can also enable or
disable via the recording system so, it is only enabled when someone in the
room has permission to talk.

If you're interested I can tell you much of these kinds of fancy ideas and
stories :-)

Hosnieh