Subject: Re: Leveraging wireless access -- IRC

From: Graham Klyne <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2001 08:16:53 +0000

At 11:41 PM 12/21/00 -0800, Dave Crocker wrote:
>At 07:33 AM 12/22/00 +0100, Harald Alvestrand wrote:
>>At 20:17 21/12/2000 -0500, Tony Hansen wrote:
>>>...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......
>
>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.

IRC lets you engage in a private side-conversation with any other 
participant in the group (I understand -- I haven't actually done it).

I think the idea of having an IRC service is great, preferably with someone 
in the meeting taking notes into it.  This way, those that can't fit in the 
room can still have a chance of following the general drift and adding 
comments.

#g

------------------------------------------------------------
Graham Klyne                       Content Technologies Ltd.
Strategic Research              <http://www.mimesweeper.com>
<[email-masked]>
------------------------------------------------------------

---

From: Robert Moskowitz <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2001 08:47:28 -0500

At 07:33 AM 12/22/2000 +0100, Harald Alvestrand wrote:

>>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?
>

I originally missed this thread.....

I run an IRC server for my interop workshops.  It is HIGHLY 
effective.  Even the one developer in Armenia was able to 
participate.  Interestingly, it was the corporate participants that had a 
problem with IRC; most firewalls are set up to block it.  A few would open 
up to the specific IP address and ports of my server.  A few testers had to 
use dialup to get to the IRC server and the interop servers (CMP specifies 
port 829).

I DID password my server to keep the rifraff out.  I also ran a client on 
the same subnet to get a log of the conversation.

I MIGHT be willing to open up my IRC server for the duration of next IETF 
as an experiment, but I see three problems.  First I only have 144Kb 
bandwidth, and if people start using the server to transfer files, response 
will tank.  Second, a password shared by 2000 people is not a password, so 
the server will end up being used by all sorts of users.  And finally, 
there is no one here when I am away to fix any problems.

What I might recommend is to get our host to supply the test IRC 
server.  They could configure 'rooms' for each workgroup.  They could also 
make the log files.  I would be happy to work out details of this with our 
host and anyone that thinks this is worthwhile.

---

From: "Jeffrey I. Schiller" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 13:27:30 -0500

I can probably scrounge the necessary hardware, and MIT has decent
bandwidth. Of course it might be better to simply have the server at
the IETF location.

			-Jeff