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

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 04 Oct 2013 02:41:48 -0700

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

---

From: Vinayak Hegde <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2013 18:20:07 +0530

On Fri, Oct 4, 2013 at 3:11 PM, S Moonesamy <[email-masked]> 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.
>>
>
> 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.
>

A couple of points about strong opinions that I have gathered from
attending a few IETFs. Strong opinions should be taken with a pinch of salt
though they do have a lot of truth in them generally.

1. The engineers who participate in the IETF get real life feedback and
learn from their hard mistakes. So any design / implementation issues
affect them directly as they are the implementors or the go-to persons for
standards in the organizations. We also learn the hard way that once an
implementation is out on the field it is often hard to change it
(especially that is tied to hardware). Also often the world changes and
use/abuses the protocol in ways that were not envisioned earlier. eg. HTTP
being used as transport and control mechanism for videos and the
corresponding load on last-mile networks.

2. It is often tedious for the old-timers to see newbies and newer
contributors make the same mistakes they did / they suffered. So that is
often the sentiment in expressing an opinion strongly (to avoid making the
same mistakes). It is a way of transmitting knowledge / DNA /Design
principles / philosophies amongst participating engineers. Eg. the way
http-auth is implemented in browsers.

3. However over I have observed (with me as well) that opinions get
calcified with time. The premise for making those decisions no longer
exists and the world has moved on. eg. The NSA surveillance and trust
anyone easily architecture of email.

my 2 bits

-- Vinayak

---

From: Abdussalam Baryun <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 6 Oct 2013 13:24:47 +0100

>> 'pure' researchers have much clue about it.
IMHO, every thing needs research, without research the IETF will fail,

> strong criticism which is unlike what may be experienced at a research

Student may be scared because some people in IETF are not polite within
discussions, I have seen many within my silent watch and now still see it
when my remote participation, but hopefully when f2f participate others
will be scared to face me :-)
So student should be encouraged by their mentors or WG Chair,

>
> 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.
>

It is more important to test the IETF and see if it is delivering real
work/service to community, if the community are the majority and only few
are participating in IETF there will be no success. Diversity is about
bring more people in the IETF and in the meetings to speak/participate not
just watch.

> Is it the strong criticism which brings input and good ideas?

I think it is the reasonable work criticism (not criticising persons or
inputs, which is bad still practiced in IETF) only that makes value, and if
management or any participant does like work-criticism then the works may
not develop or update. We need more comments on I-Ds, we only get few
within the LCs, that means still the IETF is not functioning the way it
should be just because less diversity, which I beleive we will fix in these
efforts here.

AB