Subject: IETF logistics

From: RJ Atkinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 09:28:02 -0500

Folks,

	Some compare/contrast about then and now, followed by
some (perhaps radical) thoughts to ponder.  I'm NOT interested
in quibbles about the timeframe for THEN or minor differences
in perception about either THEN or NOW, so I'll ignore any
troll-like responses.  This is intended as a very high-level
set of comments -- high-level necessarily implies a certain
lack of crispness.

THEN:
	- Presentations at IETF normally did NOT rehash 
	  material available in the I-Ds in tutorial style.
	- Viewgraphs were hand-scribbled the night before,
		often after some lobby bof before the meeting.
	- More people read the I-Ds before the meeting, though there
	  was griping about inadequate preparation then also.
	- Working Group sessions actually did work, designing
	  in real-time, discussing technical issues in real-time,
	  resolving open technical issues in a higher bandwidth
	  environment.
	- Interim WG meetings were rare.
	- Folks who had read the drafts could generally get into
	  and participate in meetings of interest.

NOW:
	- Presentations mostly do rehash material in the I-Ds
	- Viewgraphs with fancy cartoon graphics, company logos,
	  that required lots of time to create the week before
	  the meeting are shown.
	- Few people (as a percentage of WG attendees) have actually
	  read the I-Ds beforehand, relying instead on the 	  presentations.
	- Working Group sessions are mostly educational overviews,
	  without significant real-time discussion or resolution
	  of technical issues.
	- Interim WG meetings are much more frequent, in part 
	  because only people deeply interested in the topic
	  bother to travel for such meetings.
	- Folks who have read the drafts often cannot get into
	  the meetings they have prepared for.  I had abysmal luck
	  at actually attending sessions where I had read the drafts
	  and am actually involved in implementation or use of
	  a specification.

	In the short term, IETF have signed contracts for
3 meetings per year.  We don't want to break any existing
contracts.  What we can do for future IETFs is make the current
sporadic practice of reserving the front few rows of seats for
folks who have actually read the drafts and are involved in
implementation.  We can also end the de facto practice of 
using the sessions as tutorials and discontinue fancy prepared
presentations of the material already in the I-Ds.  While 
tutorials are a fine thing, they are appropriate for USENIX
or Interop, not IETF WG sessions, IMHO.

	However, I'd like to propose that we experiment 
with only having 2 all-area IETF meetings per year when we
can do so without breaking any contracts.

	Further, I'd suggest that each area would have the
option (discretion of the relevant ADs) of having a single 
Area Meeting someplace.  This would last only perhaps 2 days.
It could be held at a rather larger number of venues
(due to smaller attendance) -- a college/university or large
corporate location might well be a very good choice for such
a meeting.  In addition, WGs ought to be encouraged to hold
at least one WG interim meeting per year, to provide a vehicle
for meaty discussion of technical issues by folks who are 
current in the WG, involved in implementation or deployment
of that WG's material, and so forth.  

Sincerely,

Ran
[email-masked]

---

From: Frank Kastenholz <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 11:07:53 -0500

At 09:28 AM 12/19/00 -0500, RJ Atkinson wrote:
>We can also end the de facto practice of 

I tried doing this in my area when I was on the IESG.
It didn't work. The chairs and attendees want this stuff.

>(due to smaller attendance)

I do not believe that this would work. Too many people
just go to see what's going on and be there in case
"something important" happens. If you have a 
meeting, they will go.

I believe that the only choices are
- limit attendance to "the right people" or
- accept the tourists and panda-watchers and
  that the IETF meeting has evolved.

Frank Kastenholz

---

From: "Scott Brim" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 12:04:41 -0500

>   that the IETF meeting has evolved.

The right people include "monitors" these days.  For example there were
newly attending voice people who were there making sure the IETF didn't
do anything which would make their lives miserable.  Now that IP is
critical to almost everything you're going to see more of these people
who aren't there just for tutorials.  They deserve to get in before the
panda-watchers (I love it -- but who's the panda?  Don't answer that),
and after the active engineers.

I would suggest that chairs try setting the agenda around issues, not
around drafts themselves.  The main point of the face-to-face meetings
is to resolve issues that cannot be resolved by mail.  Put those on the
agenda, and let the combatants present as much tutorial information as
they feel is necessary to make their point -- but don't set up the
editor of a particular draft to give a presentation first, followed by
discussion.  Don't even put the draft title on the agenda, just in the
preliminary mail sent out before the meeting.  Thoughts?

...Scott

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 09:26:05 -0800

> preliminary mail sent out before the meeting.  Thoughts?

sounds good to me!

randy

---

From: "Henning G. Schulzrinne" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 12:34:22 -0500

> It didn't work. The chairs and attendees want this stuff.

One can also argue that with 400+ people in a room, having discussions
about minute protocol details is a less efficient use of time than
providing a concise summary of where the authors think the draft is at.
This gives everyone a chance to synchronize and emerge from the usual
"please fix the wording in table 3" minutiae to the bigger picture - is
this generally good/interesting stuff, is it sufficiently ready to move
forwards, is the scope clear, what are the big open issues, etc?. These
types of presentations do serve as a "tutorial" to the vast majority of
people that can't track every wording change in a draft.

A good overview that triggers a "you're going off the rails" remark is
much more useful than the common "shall we use upper case or lower case"
discussion with the same ten participants who are already particpating
in the mailing list discussion.

> "something important" happens. If you have a

It also tends to disenfranchise those who are not on infinite travel
budgets.

-- 
Henning Schulzrinne   http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~hgs

---

From: John Stracke <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 13:22:54 -0500

Scott Brim wrote:

> The right people include "monitors" these days.

Perhaps.  But consider: there were 128 WG/BOF/area meetings (I think).  A
typical working group has a relatively small number of active participants
(let's say 10--more than that usually gets unwieldy).  So that's 1,280
active participants (fewer, since there's overlap) out of 2,768 attendees
in San Diego.  Were there 1400 monitors?

This is different from active participants in one group who sit in on
another group.  This is people who don't actively participate in any
group--and they appear to be in the majority.

And, no, I don't have a solution.  I'm not even positive it's a problem.
It's just that, if it is a problem, it's a bigger one than I previously
realized.

--
/===============================================================\
|John Stracke    | http://www.ecal.com |My opinions are my own. |
|Chief Scientist |==============================================|
|eCal Corp.      |Whose cruel idea was it for the word "lisp" to|
[email-masked]|have an "S" in it?                            |
\===============================================================/

---

From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 11:20:06 -0600

>It didn't work. The chairs and attendees want this stuff.

Maybe I'm the odd exception, but not only don't I want this stuff, I 
try to enforce this as best I can in the sessions I chair. In BOFs, 
there are bound to be some presentations, but in WG sessions, there 
is really very little reason for it.

How about a first step: In WG sessions that I chair, there are going 
to be no more presentations. From now on, one week before the IETF 
meeting, document editors will be required to send me a list of 
outstanding issues they wish to discuss in the WG session for their 
particular drafts. I will make up the slides for all of the editors 
with the lists that they propose and their discussion during the WG 
meeting will be limited to those lists (with some wiggle room for 
last minute additions by the WG). These lists can be posted to the WG 
mailing list before the meeting so that if others need explanation, 
they can ask (either on the list or directly to the document editor) 
what those issues entail.

How about it? Other chairs wish to join me in this mission?

pr

-- 
Pete Resnick <mailto:[email-masked]>
Eudora Engineering - QUALCOMM Incorporated

---

From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 12:12:56 -0600

>preliminary mail sent out before the meeting.  Thoughts?

I think you have this backwards. The job of an IETF WG is not to 
resolve issues per se; it's to write Internet-Drafts. Now, I do agree 
that the editors should NOT be presenting the draft; that's silly. 
However, the issues that the face-to-face meetings should be dealing 
with are *only* those that pertain to a particular draft. If noone 
has written down at least a straw-man I-D, then I don't think it's 
worth discussing the issue at all.

So, have the editors cull out the open issues from their drafts, and 
put only those issues on the agenda. No tutorials at all should be 
needed if there is sufficient text in the I-D (or suggested 
replacement text posted to the mailing list) to define the issue.

pr

-- 
Pete Resnick <mailto:[email-masked]>
Eudora Engineering - QUALCOMM Incorporated
Ph: (217)337-6377 or (858)651-4478, Fax: (858)651-1102

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 14:49:47 -0500

> What we can do for future IETFs is make the current
> implementation.

why don't we reserve all *except* the last three rows for those
who have read the drafts, leaving the last three rows for bottom
feeders?

Keith

---

From: "Timothy J. Salo" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 15:15:17 -0600 (CST)

> From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
> cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: IETF logistics 
> Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 14:49:47 -0500
> 

What happened to the proven and time-honored technique of getting
to a meeting early if you want a seat?  I know the argument is that
we want to hang out in the hallways until the last minute and still
get a seat (because we are more "important" than a bunch of the people
that did get there early), but still...

-tjs

---

From: Paul Hoffman / VPNC <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 13:26:10 -0800

>How about it? Other chairs wish to join me in this mission?

Yup. As someone who chaired a meeting where we had three 
presentations on three drafts that had already been on the list, and 
the discussion was all around topics that could have been brought to 
the list, I share your frustration.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

---

From: "Kurt D. Zeilenga" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 14:38:36 -0800

At 03:15 PM 12/19/00 -0600, Timothy J. Salo wrote:
>to a meeting early if you want a seat?

Don't you mean a seat AND electrical power?  :-)

BTW, much thanks to Steve and his crew for providing a generous
amount of electrical power outlets.

As far as finding a seat for someone who has read all the
materials for the session, that's what the front two rows
are for.  These rows should be open to others only after
those who have read everything have had a chance to sit
down.  Note that the chance comes prior to start time
of the meeting.

Kurt

---

From: Matt Holdrege <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 15:38:34 -0800

>It didn't work. The chairs and attendees want this stuff.

Nothing personal Frank, but in a general sense I'd say you weren't doing 
your job well enough. Chairs serve at the discretion of the AD's. The AD's 
need to choose their chairs wisely and if the chairs feel that they need to 
have tutorials, then the chairs need better guidance or need replacement. 
And one of the points to this thread is that we shouldn't care what the 
attendees want as the IETF is not a tutorial conference. It's a working 
conference and only the people who are working on the drafts should be 
catered to. Others can certainly hang around and learn, but they shouldn't 
be catered to.

As a chair myself I've occasionally fallen into this trap of thinking the 
"audience" needs to be "presented" with the material. But I'm usually 
quickly reminded that we are not there for tutorials. I think the best use 
of a viewgraph is to display a list of to-do items to the group. If the 
people in the room do not understand the overall architecture, they need to 
read the drafts more or find out elsewhere.

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 15:39:21 -0800 (PST)

I respect both Pete and Paul's position here, but I believe this
frustration is endemic to our efforts rather than specific to how the
working group meeting agendas are set.  I also believe that the
frustration is worth the result.

One of the things which sets the IETF apart from other efforts to
produce standards is the breadth of perspective it brings to the
problems which it chooses to tackle.  Where it is fairly easy to get a
group of like-minded people together to tackle a specific network
problem, it is much harder to get a group of people together who can
see how the proposed solution will impact the other parts of the
network.  From my perspective, one of the chief values of the IETF
face-to-face meetings is the opportunity they present to have folks
from different parts of the Internet engineering community provide
input into the solutions which have been proposed by the communities
of interest which the working groups represent.  Sometimes that
results in those communities of interest growing, as individuals
recognize their need to participate.  Sometimes a new perspective
cogently expressed at a face to face meeting is all it takes to move a
working group in a new direction.

In either case, without the participation of the larger IETF community
in the working group meetings, those perspectives do not get expressed
to the working group at early stages of the process.  That means much
more work for the IESG in managing the inter-area issues when drafts
are ready to move forward.  It can also mean delay as things which
might have been caught early have to be unraveled after other elements
of the design depend on them.

Whether the agenda of a working group takes the shape of draft
presentations or issue lists, I believe it is important for working
groups to be open to new voices during the IETF meetings, for they
don't have that many other opportunities to hear them.  This certainly
engenders frustration when the new voices rehash old problems, and it
requires skill on the part of the presenters and chair to keep the
resurgence of old problems from eating all the time.  It also competes
with the use of the meetings to handle pressing technical issues which
benefit from focused face-to-face work.  Balancing those competing
interests, again, requires work and skill on the part of the chair.
As thankless and unsung as that work often is, it is worth it.  We may
not get perfect standards from the process, but we do get engineering
solutions which do a pretty good job of balancing the needs of the
different parts of the network infrastructure.

I believe we can all agree that we need better ways of scaling the
input to IETF working groups.  I hope we can also agree that we need
them because we need to retain the skills and perspective of our
participants, not simply because some group sizes are unwieldy or some
meeting resources constrained.

				regards,
					Ted Hardie

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 17:01:56 -0800

> what those issues entail.

one half of dnsext will join you

randy

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 22:16:32 -0500

> Chairs serve at the discretion of the AD's.

good chairs can be *extremely* difficult to find.  especially if you
want someone to replace an existing chair and inherit a group which
is off in the weeds due to a previous lack of leadership.

Keith

---

From: "Henk Uijterwaal (RIPE-NCC)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 13:30:20 +0100 (CET)

> catered to. Others can certainly hang around and learn, but they shouldn't 

Two comments:

(1)

If people want tutorials, then I think we should have them but not during
the WG meetings.  At most other conferences and meetings, there are
tutorial sessions on the days just before or after the main meeting, for
people who are (probably) experts on one of the topics of the main
meeting and are interested to learn something about a related are.

This is something that can be done at the IETF as well: reserve a few
meeting rooms the weekend before/after the IETF and assign them to WG's
that want to do a tutorial about their work.

In the announcements, make it clear that the WG's session are for people
who want to contribute to further development of the topic of the WG,
while tutorials are for people who want to learn about its present status.
Give people a choice which of the two they want to attend, but don't cater
for the other group in a WG or tutorial.

There are a lot of practical details to be worked out here, but I think we
should take advantage of the fact a lot of potential speakers for
tutorials as well as an interested audience is already in one place.

(2)

There seems to be a general consensus on this list on what is appropriate
for a presentation in a WG meeting.  OTOH, most speakers don't seem to be
aware of that.  (With presentation defined as a speaker briefly
introducing the topic, followed by a discussion amongst the audience).

Isn't it time to write a short introduction for speakers at the WG
meetings, telling them what is (not) appropriate for a presentation at a
WG meeting?

At every IETF that I've attended so-far, I've listened to people who I'd
never seen at an IETF before. Without some guidelines that they can use
when preparing, it is hard to expect that their presentations are
appropriate for the IETF.  A short list of do's and don't's attached to
every agenda, will tell (or remind) people of what is expected from them
and hopefully result in better presentations.  It is also much easier to
interrupt a speaker if his presentation is not appropriate for a WG
meeting.

Henk

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Henk Uijterwaal                    Email: [email-masked]
RIPE Network Coordination Centre     WWW: http://www.ripe.net/home/henk
Singel 258                         Phone: +31.20.535-4414,  Fax -4445
1016 AB Amsterdam                   Home: +31.20.4195305
The Netherlands                   Mobile: +31.6.55861746  
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A man can take a train and never reach his destination.
                                               (Kerouac, well before RFC2780).

---

From: "Melinda Shore" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 07:35:04 -0800

> that did get there early), but still...

I think the problem could, in part, be alleviated
by physically ejecting from the room people either
playing games on their laptops or checking their
portfolios.

Melinda
(and I'm not kidding)

---

From: John Martin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 15:29:48 +0100

Let me give you an example of where this didn't work recently. At San 
Diego, we had back-to-back meetings of WREC followed by OPES BoF and CDNP 
BoF. For the most part, there was a very large overlap in the attendance. 
If you did not forgoe the coffee break and - literally! - run between the 
rooms, you did not get a seat. If you were silly enough to engage in even a 
1 minute conversation and walk slowly, you might not have gotten into the 
room at all. This is of course further exacerbated by those who do the IETF 
equivalent of spreading their towels out on the loungers by the pool before 
going for breakfast...

Some folks who had contributed were excluded because the doors had to be 
closed in order to make the meeting audible. In one case, the door was 
opened to admit someone who was on the agenda as speaking.

I don't believe that any of the solutions offered so far will work because 
they depend on the good manners of strangers which, frankly, is largely 
non-existent at IETF meetings.

So, my only suggestion is that WG chairs strongly encourage work to be done 
on the mailing lists, a deference towards non-presentation formats and the 
strong enforcement of timelines in meetings.... which is, erm, what we're 
supposed to encourage anyway...

John

At 07:35 AM 20/12/00 -0800, Melinda Shore wrote:
>-
>This message was passed through [email-masked], which
>is a sublist of [email-masked]. Not all messages are passed.
>Decisions on what to pass are made solely by Harald Alvestrand.

---------------------------------------------------------------
Network Appliance           Direct / Voicemail: +31 23 567 9615
Kruisweg 799                               Fax: +31 23 567 9699
NL-2132 NG Hoofddorp               Main Office: +31 23 567 9600
---------------------------------------------------------------

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 09:37:30 -0800

>At 11:20 AM 12/19/00 -0600, Pete Resnick wrote:
>How about a first step: In WG sessions that I chair, there are going to be 
>no more presentations. From now on, one week before the IETF meeting, 
>document editors will be required to send me a list of outstanding issues 
>they wish to discuss in the WG session for their particular drafts.

Having just enthusiastically encouraged Pete to be chair of a nascent 
working group that I am heavily involved in, and having noted the many 
responses in support of his suggestion, I will nonetheless note that we are 
focusing entirely too much on symptoms and not enough on causes.

A very major good feature of the IETF is its flexibility.  A working group 
needs only enough bureaucratic cruft to get its job done.  This varies 
enormously, depending upon the background and views of the participants, 
complexity of the work to be done, degree of urgency, etc.

I believe that the core requirement for meeting time use is to properly 
view it as a very scarce resource and apply agenda design -- and 
enforcement -- rules -- that make sense.

Sometimes presentations are exactly the right thing.  Sometimes they 
aren't.  What is important is taking a skeptical view of ALL requests for 
meeting time and adding items to the agenda only when the need for them is 
compelling.

At 12:12 PM 12/19/00 -0600, Pete Resnick wrote:
>>I would suggest that chairs try setting the agenda around issues,
>
>I think you have this backwards. The job of an IETF WG is not to resolve 
>issues per se; it's to write Internet-Drafts.

Please note that Scott was commenting on a possible format for meetings; he 
was not commenting on larger, working group goals.  In particular he was 
trying to suggest a way to focus the very short time of meetings.

I'll guess that his suggestion was motivated by the tendency to have 
per-document agendas spend more time on each document -- in the legitimate 
but misguided goal of being "thorough" -- than is really necessary.

d/

=-=-=-=-=
Dave Crocker  <[email-masked]>
Brandenburg Consulting  <www.brandenburg.com>
Tel: +1.408.246.8253,  Fax: +1.408.273.6464

---

From: "Michael W. Condry" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 07:52:01 -0800

John-

Every IETF meeting results in a discussion of WG chairs asking their attendees
to read the drafts, get involved on the email, etc.

Time has not changed the fact that some folks to and some do not follow this
suggestion. Many folks attend the BOF/WG in order to get started!

However, I must agree that the four "content" meetings had far insufficinet
space, as you noted.

Michael

At 03:29 PM 12/20/2000 +0100, John Martin wrote:
>rooms, you did not get a seat. If you were silly enough to engage in even 
>a 1 minute conversation and walk slowly, you might not have gotten into 
>the room at all. This is of course further exacerbated by those who do the 
>IETF equivalent of spreading their towels out on the loungers by the pool 
>before going for breakfast...
>
>So, my only suggestion is that WG chairs strongly encourage work to be 
>done on the mailing lists, a deference towards non-presentation formats 
>and the strong enforcement of timelines in meetings.... which is, erm, 
>what we're supposed to encourage anyway...
>
>John
>

Michael W. Condry
Director, Internet Strategy
2111 N.E. 25th Ave.
JF3-206
Hillsboro, OR 97124-5961

Phone: (503) 264-9019
FAX: (503) 264-3483
Email: [email-masked]

---

From: Geoff Huston <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 05:46:56 +1100

>If people want tutorials, then I think we should have them

Did you see the Security Tutorial in the IETF 49 Agenda that was scheduled 
on Sunday?

I'm unsure as to the number of folk who attended or their impressions of 
what they got out of it, or what the IETF fgot out of it, as I have not 
spoken to many people afterwards, but I mention it only in the context of 
replacing 'should" with "we have done so, albeit in a limited way as an 
initial exercise".

regards,

    Geoff

---

From: Bill Manning <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 11:17:24 -0800 (PST)

% spoken to many people afterwards, but I mention it only in the context of 
% replacing 'should" with "we have done so, albeit in a limited way as an 
% initial exercise".
% 
% regards,
% 
%     Geoff

The IETF has done many things in the past, some worked well, some not so.
Wireless, IPv6 and multicast are all "experiments" that have gone on to 
something other than one-offs. Tutorial style sessions were popular during
the IPv6 "cooling" phase as we settled on a single approch.  I'd like to
note that Ole's comment about "hijacking" the hotel conference channel(s) to
retransmit the multicast sessions to hotel rooms was a real win the one time
it was done. And with a nod to our commercial brethren, it might bre reasonable
to retransmit sessions over some high-capacity, under-utilized infrastructure like
the I2 fabric to reach more people.  And given the lower costs for video-capture
it ought to be possible to do more than two sessions at a go.

Such would go a long way to keep Steve and/or the firemarshall from getting twitchy.

-- 
--bill

---

From: David Meyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 13:25:58 -0800 (PST)

Bill, just a minor note

> it was done. And with a nod to our commercial brethren, it might bre
> reasonable to retransmit sessions over some high-capacity,
> under-utilized infrastructure like the I2 fabric to reach more people.
> And given the lower costs for video-capture it ought to be possible to
> do more than two sessions at a go. 

	do you mean other than multicasting it? 

	Dave

---

From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 14:41:43 -0600

On 12/20/00 at 9:37 AM -0800, Dave Crocker wrote:

>>How about a first step: In WG sessions that I chair, there are 
>>going to be no more presentations. From now on, one week before the 
>>IETF meeting, document editors will be required to send me a list 
>>of outstanding issues they wish to discuss in the WG session for 
>>their particular drafts.
>
>...I will nonetheless note that we are focusing entirely too much on 
>symptoms and not enough on causes.

When I come upon the guy with an arm lopped-off and blood coming out 
of him, though the causes might be interesting, I suggest that the 
symptoms and the cures thereof are really the important things: Sew 
the arm back on first, find the truck that hit him later.

That said, it's perfectly clear to me that the lack of focus in WG 
sessions is very much caused by (1) some people in the room not doing 
their homework, (2) the willingness of WG chairs to allow 
presentations to catch those people up instead of getting on with the 
work at hand, and (3) more people not doing their homework next time 
because they know that there will be a catch-up presentation. I can 
control (2) as a chair, and the more I do that, the less that (3) 
will happen. I'm stuck with (1), but I'm sure not going to throw up 
my hands and forget about (2).

>I believe that the core requirement for meeting time use is to 
>properly view it as a very scarce resource...

Absolutely!!

>Sometimes presentations are exactly the right thing.

Nonsense. Leaving aside BOFs (which I do think are different), I defy 
you to give me one example where a presentation is the right thing to 
do in a WG face-to-face meeting. Presentations can either be done in 
written form (on the mailing list or by way of an Internet Draft) or 
can be saved for some other venue (like Comdex). Working Groups 
*work*. What justification is there for *ever* giving a presentation 
in a WG face-to-face meeting?

pr

---

From: Bill Manning <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 13:12:47 -0800 (PST)

% 	Bill, just a minor note
% 
% 
% > it was done. And with a nod to our commercial brethren, it might bre
% > reasonable to retransmit sessions over some high-capacity,
% > under-utilized infrastructure like the I2 fabric to reach more people.
% > And given the lower costs for video-capture it ought to be possible to
% > do more than two sessions at a go. 
% 
% 	do you mean other than multicasting it? 
% 
% 	Dave

My impression is that generally two WG/per time slot are multicast
and generally its over commodity Internet provided by the local host.

If more WG were multicast and there was an effort to bring I2 capacity
to the venue - and - we could  use hotel "conference" channels, it would
go a long way to get info to folks who could not otherwise get into the
tiny room(s).

-- 
--bill

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 23:53:00 -0500

> in a WG face-to-face meeting?

Hmm... not being a WG attendee I hate to ask, but.. ;)

I assume that by "Presentations", you mean "tutorial presentations",
and not "Gee George, your proposal on the mailing list looks novel
and interesting, but we're not getting it, could you take 10 mins
in the WG meeting and explain it more fully" presentations?

I know that there's been many times on WG mailing lists that I've
been unsure whether (a) I was an idiot for not understanding a
proposal, or (b) the proposal itself was a bad idea, or (c) the
proposal was a good idea being lost in the translation to ones
and zeros for transmission over the wires.

And in retrospect, I've seen my share of all 3. ;)

				Valdis Kletnieks
				Operating Systems Analyst
				Virginia Tech

---

From: Robert Elz <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 20:48:13 +1100

Date:        Wed, 20 Dec 2000 23:53:00 -0500
    From:        [email-masked]
    Message-ID:  <[email-masked]>

  | I assume that by "Presentations", you mean "tutorial presentations",
  | and not "Gee George, your proposal on the mailing list looks novel
  | and interesting, but we're not getting it, could you take 10 mins
  | in the WG meeting and explain it more fully" presentations?

I suspect that Pete actually meant both, while often both are inappropriate
there are times when the second form are useful to have.  Perhaps not when
just one or two people make that request - that's better handled by a
private chat outside the WG meeting, but when many people in a WG have
read the proposal (this almost only ever happens with new proposals), and
yet still fail to understand it, then it can sometimes be useful to have its
proponent(s) spend a little time explaining the idea in a forum where they
can be interrupted when what they're saying isn't clear (that's an important
part of actually getting the understanding - simply going back and telling
them "we don't understand the draft, rewrite it" doesn't usually help).

So sometimes, though only very occasionally, presentations are useful.

kre

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 07:25:46 -0500

--On Thursday, 21 December, 2000 20:48 +1100 Robert Elz
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> I suspect that Pete actually meant both, while often both are
> inappropriate there are times when the second form are useful
> to have.  Perhaps not when just one or two people make that
> request - that's better handled by a private chat outside the
> WG meeting, but when many people in a WG have read the
> proposal (this almost only ever happens with new proposals),
> and yet still fail to understand it, then it can sometimes be
> useful to have its proponent(s) spend a little time explaining
> the idea in a forum where they can be interrupted when what
> they're saying isn't clear (that's an important part of
> actually getting the understanding - simply going back and
> telling them "we don't understand the draft, rewrite it"
> doesn't usually help).

In particular, much as I hate the idea, we've occasionally had
I-Ds posted that are so confusing and badly written (at least in
English) that it is impossible to detect the basic technical
wisdom or flaws in the design.  But it would seem to me that
this would fall within Pete's rule, given some considerable
discretion and flexibility for and by the WG Chair.   E.g.,
"this might be important, but what on earth is he talking about"
could easily be an issue within the range of issues that Pete
suggests.  And that might, in turn, call for a controlled and
focused presentation of sorts.

I don't see a problem as long as we don't take a general
guideline and turn it into a specific rule that we try to
enforce rigidly.  And the progression from "guideline and
discretion" to "rigid and enforced rule" is almost always a
problem (necessary occasionally, but, even then, problematic).

    john

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 22:46:13 -0500

>>>>> "Melinda" == Melinda Shore <[email-masked]> writes:
    Melinda> I think the problem could, in part, be alleviated by physically
    Melinda> ejecting from the room people either playing games on their
    Melinda> laptops or checking their portfolios.

  I agree.

  As useful as the wireless and power bars are, I think they contribute to
people (myself included) feeling that we should be doing three things at
once.
  
  The wireless access is likely key to actually giving everyone a chance to
get online, but I recall a lot of useful work that occured in the terminal
room. I also recall deciding to go to the terminal room rather than find a 
session that I can "cross-fertilize" --- now if I pick wrong, then I just
don't pay attention, but I still take up room. (I become aware of my own
behaviour at Pittsburgh)

  So maybe WG chairs should have the right to unplug the wireless access
points :-)

] Train travel features AC outlets with no take-off restrictions|gigabit is no[
]   Michael Richardson, Solidum Systems   Oh where, oh where has|problem  with[
]     [email-masked]   www.solidum.com   the little fishy gone?|PAX.port 1100[
] panic("Just another NetBSD/notebook using, kernel hacking, security guy");  [

---

From: V Guruprasad <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 14:17:18 -0500

> don't pay attention, but I still take up room. (I become aware of my own

Here's an outlandish solution:
these problems might go away (as new ones will doubtless emerge) if and when
we get live feeds out and inject keystroke feedback, in reverse direction,
into the live meetings. [visions of hum-counting web pages, holy matrix]

That would take care of non-participation (a) from terminal rooms residence,
(b) because of overcrowding in the meeting rooms, and (c) budgetary constraints
preventing travel to the IETF meetings... In limit t->infinity, enthusiastic
newbies like myself would go there merely to watch the work being done
remotely.

-p.

---

From: "Melinda Shore" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 14:40:49 -0800

>   So maybe WG chairs should have the right to unplug the
wireless access

I wouldn't go that far - I'd rather have people who
enter the room without having read the drafts trying
to fetch them and read them on the fly than I would
have them expecting to have everything explained.

Nevertheless, I was *really* irked to be packed into
the back of the room during OPES BOF and to see
people seated in chairs engrossed in various computer
games.  I'd say that if you see someone sitting in
a seat you'd like to have and they're playing games,
you should feel free to ask them for their seat.

Melinda

---

From: "Scott Brim" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 16:51:18 -0500

> in the WG meeting and explain it more fully" presentations?

I think we can succeed in using mail for clarification (like we're doing
now).  We all just have to be willing to look stupid now and then.

...Scott

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 17:13:53 -0500

> now).  We all just have to be willing to look stupid now and then.

I've got that mastered. ;)

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 15:05:22 -0800

Sorry, no.  Not always.

Let's be clear that email and face-to-face are not equivalent media.  Human 
communications skills vary and sometimes you need to change channels to get 
an idea across.

Sometimes a quick presentation can clarify a point in a way that no amount 
of writing can accomplish.  At least, for some writers and some readers.

I think it is fine to treat presentations with caution; they can consume a 
lot of time and they can be of dubious benefit.  But there is a difference 
between caution and prohibition.

If we first focus on the needed benefit out of each agenda item -- and, 
yes, whether it could instead be done on the list -- the details of how it 
is accomplished will be chosen appropriately.

d/

=-=-=-=-=

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 17:32:55 -0600

In fact, having wireless access to drafts, RFCs and mail archives
during the discussion is a real productivity tool IMHO. Exchanging
email about the topic under discussion can be pretty useful too.

   Brian

---

From: Tony Hansen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 20:17:24 -0500

so too can using instant messaging be a valuable tool during a meeting.

	Tony Hansen
	[email-masked]

---

From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 19:29:21 -0600

On 12/21/00 at 3:05 PM -0800, Dave Crocker wrote:
>>>I assume that by "Presentations", you mean "tutorial 
>>>presentations", and not "Gee George, your proposal on the mailing 
>>>list looks novel and interesting, but we're not getting it, could 
>>>you take 10 mins in the WG meeting and explain it more fully" 
>>>presentations?
>>
>>I think we can succeed in using mail for clarification (like we're 
>>doing now).  We all just have to be willing to look stupid now and 
>>then.
>
>Sorry, no.  Not always.
>[...]
>Sometimes a quick presentation can clarify a point in a way that no 
>amount of writing can accomplish.  At least, for some writers and 
>some readers.
>[...]
>If we first focus on the needed benefit out of each agenda item -- 
>and, yes, whether it could instead be done on the list -- the 
>details of how it is accomplished will be chosen appropriately.

Since everyone is surmising what I meant:

I was talking about agenda items determined pre-meeting. And I do 
think in that sense Dave is dead wrong: Presentations should *never* 
be such an agenda item: No I-D editor should ever have the need to 
make up a PowerPoint slide show. If something needs to be spoken 
about, it needs to be spoken about. If something needs to be written 
down, it can be sent to the list. If the draft is so wildly unclear 
in total, that can and should be dealt with on the list; otherwise 
it's an indication that maybe the editor is not up to the task.  In 
any event, anything that requires a series of slides is (IMNSHO) by 
definition a tutorial presentation, and I again defy Dave to give me 
one example where such a presentation is a good idea.

However, it is perfectly acceptable at the face-to-face meeting for 
someone to bring up for discussion a "Gee editor, what the heck are 
you talking about?" question and get the editor to answer, even if 
that takes them talking for 10 minutes. Even if on the list before 
the meeting, the editor has to say, "This really needs me to draw a 
diagram that's too hard to send to the list and I'll show it to you 
at the next IETF meeting", that could be OK, though in this day and 
age it's pretty unlikely that a GIF can't be posted to the web and 
let people look at it there. But I don't have a problem with 
presentations that answer questions about the draft. What I do have a 
problem with is presentations that describe the draft (in whole or in 
part) when noone has asked for clarification.

pr

---

From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 07:36:28 +0100

At 19:29 21/12/2000 -0600, Pete Resnick wrote:
>I was talking about agenda items determined pre-meeting. And I do think in 
>that sense Dave is dead wrong: Presentations should *never* be such an 
>agenda item: No I-D editor should ever have the need to make up a 
>PowerPoint slide show. If something needs to be spoken about, it needs to 
>be spoken about. If something needs to be written down, it can be sent to 
>the list. If the draft is so wildly unclear in total, that can and should 
>be dealt with on the list; otherwise it's an indication that maybe the 
>editor is not up to the task.  In any event, anything that requires a 
>series of slides is (IMNSHO) by definition a tutorial presentation, and I 
>again defy Dave to give me one example where such a presentation is a good 
>idea.

Two presentations at the IMPP meeting on Friday come to mind:

- My presentation (ok, I am biased) on gateways and security; this was not
   I-D material, and was in fact easier to do in PPT than ASCII. (shudder!)
- Derek Atkins' presentation of an apparent consensus possibility that had
   jelled as late as the night before.

Sometimes presentations are good. If they leave plenty of time to talk 
about them.

--
Harald Tveit Alvestrand, [email-masked]
+47 41 44 29 94
Personal email: [email-masked]

---

From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 07:33:49 +0100

>so too can using instant messaging be a valuable tool during a meeting.
tangential....I wonder whether the IETF could host an IRC server with one 
channel per working group and BOF, as part of the "remote participation" 
effort?

if some organization were to volunteer (and advertise!) this for 
Minneapolis, it could be fun to try.....with the number of laptops in the 
rooms, we could see an interesting example of simultaneous multilevel 
conversations......

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 23:41:16 -0800

At 07:33 AM 12/22/00 +0100, Harald Alvestrand wrote:
>>...an IRC server with one channel per working group and BOF, as part of 
>>the "remote participation" effort?
>

My impression is that the primary benefit of real-time chat/instant-msging 
in a working group is for PRIVATE exchanges, to consider contributions and 
tactics by subsets of participants.  One, open channel for the wg won't 
help that.

d/

=-=-=-=-=

---

From: "Henk Uijterwaal (RIPE-NCC)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 09:59:38 +0100 (CET)

> now).  We all just have to be willing to look stupid now and then.

One picture often says more than a 1000 words.

Henk

---

From: Greg Hudson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 04:52:54 -0500

> One picture often says more than a 1000 words.

Pictures can be sent (by reference, one hopes) over mailing lists as
well.  But it's more than that; it can be a lot more efficient to
learn by watching someone talk about a topic than by reading about it.
Otherwise college lectures would have died soon after the printing
press came into vogue.

Still, I think the tradeoff is in favor of not having presentations
during meeting time, with the occasional exception.  There is a whole
lot more non-meeting-time out there than meeting time; therefore,
making people do an hour's worth of reading to save twenty minutes'
worth of in-meeting presentation is probably a good thing.

---

From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 11:02:00 +0000 (GMT)

> email about the topic under discussion can be pretty useful too.

normos makes tarballs of all the drafts and rfcs available prior to a
meet. mailing lists should archive their mails in downloadable text
format.

You don't need wireless access for this. You just need to do your
homework in advance and download everything you need.

L.

has several thousand drafts and rfcs he still hasn't read on his
laptop.

<[email-masked]>PGP<http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/>

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 09:21:32 -0500

> you should feel free to ask them for their seat.

I tend to agree, and note that game-playing (unlike some other
non-IETF-useful behavior like portfolio-checking) doesn't
require wireless access.  Perhaps one thing we should do is to
make it more clear that, if one is a lurker who comes into a WG
meeting on the theory that it might be interesting, and then it
turns out not to be, there is value and no disgrace in walking
out (and we should keep the aisles sufficiently clear to
facilitate that).  

On the other hand, there is probably an interaction between
"presentations" and in-meeting personal activities that are not
WG-constructive (game-playing being only an extreme point).  I
hope this isn't giving away any dirty little secrets, but, given
a slow-moving marketing-oriented presentation of material that
has already been discussed in I-Ds and on mailing lists, some
people will react by starting to scan email while waiting for
something useful to happen.   And many of those people will
distinctly not be newcomers or quiet lurkers.  I'm guilty of it,
and assume others are too.  But this is another reason to cut
down on (or dramatically shorten, or tightly focus) the
presentations, not to attack tools such as wireless: I'm
perfectly capable of scanning mail during a useless and boring
presentation while not connected, it is just less efficient.

Incidentally, looking at tools and superficial behavior, rather
than causes, is one of the problems with token systems as well.
I quite often finding myself trying to cover more than one WG
that is meeting at the same time, and we've sometimes
deliberately scheduled IAB members to cover more than one
concurrent BOF.  Schedule conflicts are inevitable unless we
figure out how to cut the workload, and these things become
necessary.   Given ability to get into the room, multiple
coverage isn't a problem as long as the S/N ratio is low (or the
signal level is low, independent of noise).

However, the fact that we can cover two groups in one time slot
without missing anything is, again, a symptom.  I won't walk out
(or tune out) on a WG that is discussing issues of substance in
ways that didn't come up on, or couldn't be effectively
discussed in, a WG mailing list or in I-Ds.   But redundant
presentations make the WG meeting more attractive to those who
haven't "done their homework".  In some sense, this suggests
that low-content or repetitive-of-documents presentations
_cause_ lurking and game-playing in the rooms.   And that WG
Chairs need to control those much more aggressively.

    john

---

From: Fred Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 23:59:52 -0800

>Sometimes presentations are good. If they leave plenty of time to talk 

OK, but let's talk about that. Presentations should open and guide 
discussion: present the issues that need to be hashed out, propose and 
explain approaches, and generally lead the working group towards useful 
consensus. If we were handfuls of engineers, we would use white boards to 
hash out ideas; in groups of 500, you need something you can project to 
accomplish the same thing. Presentations are that engineer's white board; 
they should contribute to the discussion, but not replace it.

What we unfortunately commonly find is presentations *instead*of* 
discussion. That's what people are being concerned about and saying is wrong.

---

From: Tony Hansen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 13:24:50 -0500

Before I got my current laptop (which has a LARGE disk) and the advent
of ubiquitous wireless support, before each IETF meeting I would burn a
CD with a copy of all of the RFCs and internet-drafts. This was
extremely useful. Nowadays, I just make a copy of the set on my disk.
With either the CD or the copy on my disk, I don't have to worry about
being within wireless distance (such as when I'm in my hotel room) to
get at them.

I'm surprised some enterprising individual or group hasn't offered to
burn a few hundred CDs and make them available to people. Seems like it
would be a nice sideline for the college group that's usually there
selling T-shirts. :-)

	Tony Hansen
	[email-masked]

---

From: "Theodore Y. Ts'o" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 14:41:32 -0500

Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 09:21:32 -0500
   From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>

   and assume others are too.

I'm reminded of the time during the Secure Time BOF when the speaker was
droning on and on, so I pulled out the laptop and fired up the emacs,
and started doing some hacking.  Someone (I think it was Barbara, but
I'm not sure) looked over, noticed the make running, and asked me how I
could concentrate well enough to be doing development work during a
presentation.  I answered, "low bit rate", whereupon she looked again at
the slides, and said, "I guess you're right."

I tend to rate presentations by categories.  There are the ones which
requre my full attention.  Then there are ones where I can read e-mail
and keep an ear cocked for something interesting (whereupon I'll stop
reading e-mail and give them my full attention).  And then.... there are
the presentations where I start doing kernel hacking.  :-)

						- Ted

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 15:03:53 -0500

> discussion. That's what people are being concerned about and saying is wrong.

right.  and as tools for facilitating discussion, both brief 
presentations and PowerPoint can be quite useful.

simple-sounding rules like "no presentations" or "no powerpoint" 
won't solve the problem.  we actually need to consider whether our
presentations are facilitating discussion.  and this requires additional
effort on the part of (already overworked) speakers and WG chairs.

Keith