Subject: Re: [Diversity] Strong criticism (was: ietf networking research)

From: Aaron Yi DING <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 04 Oct 2013 13:04:25 +0100

Hi SM,

Thanks for your anonymous feedback.

For your question, "Is it the strong criticism which brings input and 
good ideas?"

IMO, it depends on the situation. Sometimes the comments from academia 
are not be as sharp as IETF ones. It is true, but certain criticisms are 
just due to that audience didn't fully capture what the researchers are 
doing (partially from the academic presentation style, and of course 
there are work that obviously don't fit in...) Criticism being strong 
probably does not link directly to good feedback nor ideas. Experts 
(engineer/researcher) shall be capable of spotting meaningful feedback 
from either mild or strong criticism. At least, we shall learn it.

For the other comment "the people got a very positive impression of the 
IETF and found it more useful to talk to people at the IETF than people 
at research conferences."

hmm.., that depends on who she/he has been talking to  :)
It's not so hard to find interesting people at both sides.

Cheers,
Aaron

PS: whether IETF work will help research like thesis work, it's still 
too early to judge. And that's actually what we are trying to improve.

On 04/10/13 10:41, S Moonesamy wrote:
> Hi Aaron,
> At 02:04 26-09-2013, Aaron Yi DING wrote:
>> Thanks for your suggestion. IMO, it is a good yet very tough question 
>> - how to identify work that suits IETF. Without collaborating with 
>> experts who already have sufficient experience @IETF, I personally 
>> don't think the 'pure' researchers have much clue about it.
> 
> I received some private feedback.  I suggest that you use it in your 
> initiative as it might be a more value there.
> 
> It was mentioned that there are usually more engineering problems than 
> research problems in the IETF.  The comment mentioned that it was still 
> useful to go to the IETF.  It was also mentioned that the direct and 
> negative feedback fosters discussion on open engineering questions.  
> Note that the students attending the IETF for the first time get a 
> little scared because of this.  I think that the issue is more about 
> how to handle the strong criticism which is unlike what may be 
> experienced at a research conference.
> 
> It was mentioned that the time and effort for actively working in the 
> IETF does often not help directly for a PhD thesis.  Oddly enough, the 
> people got a very positive impression of the IETF and found it more 
> useful to talk to people at the IETF than people at research 
> conferences.
> 
> Is it the strong criticism which brings input and good ideas?
> 
> Regards,
> S. Moonesamy