Subject: Re: this is insane.

From: "Glen Zorn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 06:38:11 -0800

Fleischman, Eric W <[email-masked]> writes:

>I believe that Ole's point about distinguishing between working members and
>the curious is a good one.

It's not too bad, but I think that greater granularity is required.  I know
that I was once a newbie (as were Ole and Perry) and arguably among those
who appear to be being dissed in this thread.  My first IETF had exactly one
WG meeting in which I had any real technical interest, but I stayed the
whole time, checking things out and learning.  I was relatively clueless,
extremely curious and _enthusiastic_.  I don't really think the major
problem is either "tourists" or the quietly clueless: it is the people who
are simultaneously vociferous, clueless and lazy, the folks who are happy to
pontificate on items they don't understand but are unwilling to work on.

>However, his idea about moving the IETF to
>convention centers is another matter altogether...
>
>The bottom line is that unless we change the WG processes, many of the IETF
>WGs will be deprecated if the attendance size continues to grow.
>
>I like the earlier idea of meeting in comparatively undesirable places such
>as Minneapolis in March as a vehicle to constrain attendence. However,
>should we pursue this idea we also need to ensure that we do not discourage
>the attendence of active members.
>
>
>-
>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.
>

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From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 14:27:21 -0500

>pontificate on items they don't understand but are unwilling to work on.

I agree entirely.  We all have to start somewhere, which means that it is
essential to be comfortable having newbies/tourists.

My own wording for the trade-off you characterize is to note that the IETF
is really quite willing to have participation from people who are obnoxious
or ignorant, but not both.

d/

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From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 14:27:21 -0500

d/