Subject: Re: Bottom feeders

From: "Robert G. Ferrell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 10:10:08 -0600 (CST)

>We *should* worry about people
>who come to the IETF once and never come back - because they probably came
>to the wrong meeting, and went home unhappy. 

Well, you've certainly convinced me never to attend a meeting.

The attitude being promulgated by the majority of these posts, 
whether justified or not, is most likely to lead (IMO) 
to IETF meetings populated by two distinct groups of people: 

1) Old timers
2) The clueless masses 

Everyone else will be afraid to show up.

When the old timers are gone, all that will be left are the clueless;  
down that path lurks madness and anarchy.

Cheers,

RGF

Robert G. Ferrell, CISSP
========================================
 Who goeth without humor goeth unarmed.
========================================

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From: John Day <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 12:08:41 -0500

>to IETF meetings populated by two distinct groups of people:

The properties of this sort of democratic process are well-known and 
well-understood.  As any student of the Soviet Union will tell you, 
this is precisely how the Old Guard maintained control of the CP.

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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 12:04:54 -0600

I think you misheard me, or I misspoke. I would be the last person to suggest
we should turn away new people. But many people come to exactly one meeting
(I can't quote statistics, but the Secretariat knows the numbers), and this
seems all wrong to me - the IETF only makes sense for sustained participation
(by email or in person). So the people who only come to one meeting almost
certainly come under a false presumption about what an IETF meeting is.

With one exception of course - local attendees, especially when we meet
outside the US.

I hope to see you in Minneapolis in March.

  Brian

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From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 14:25:19 -0500

> to IETF meetings populated by two distinct groups of people:

in my experience, clueful newbies are quite welcome at IETF, and
very quickly get recruited to do useful work. 

but I do agree that to the extent we try to discourage clueless
folks from coming, we need to make sure that we don't filter out
clueful people in the process.

keith

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From: Denis Mcmahon <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 19:27:00 +0100

>clueful people in the process.

Hmm, terminology is wrong - clueless may mean doesn't know, but it
does not mean unwilling to learn, and someone who doesn't know but is
willing to learn and wishes to contribute may be more beneficial than
an "observer" merely making sure that a financially orientated entity
somewhere isn't caught off guard.

Rgds
Denis
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