Subject: a suggestion....

From: [email-masked] (Mike O'Dell)
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1998 08:41:46 -0500

as an aid to smaller meetings, I suggest outlawing powerpoint
and viewgraphs.  whiteboard or pen&paper (the large pads on stands)
only.  the people who care will be willing to crowd around
and the people who don't care enough will go away.
	
	cheers,
	-Mike O'Dell

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1998 17:40:28 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)

> and the people who don't care enough will go away.

Mike,

Having been stuck in the hall at more than a few sessions I
wanted to attend (Orlando was not the first time that happened,
either), I suspect that there were more than enough people to
"crowd around" to make whiteboard/ pen&pad exclusionary of
people who care and who might have something significant to
contribute. 

Perhaps unfortunately, things have reached the point where it is
necessary for some (many?) of us to attend many BOFs and some
WGs for defensive reasons (e.g., to get early warning of, and
try to prevent stupidity).  That motivation causes a high level
of interest and caring.  And it is arguably legitimate, despite
efforts that would classify such people as "lurkers" or
"tourists" -- categories from which they might be
indistinguishable if stupidity does not occur.

    john

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1998 17:40:28 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)

Mike,

    john

---

From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1998 14:09:48 -0600

On 12/12/98 at 8:41 AM -0500, Mike O'Dell wrote:

> as an aid to smaller meetings, I suggest outlawing powerpoint and viewgraphs.

In all deference to JK, I agree with this wholeheartedly. Inevitably 
the people with the PowerPoint presentations are also those who are 
either trying to teach novices or do marketing presentations during 
sessions, which is not what we are supposed to be doing at these 
things. I became disgusted and walked out of NTPSEC when I had to sit 
through a talk on how time service works. This was justified with, 
"This might be review for some of you, but I think it's worth going 
over for the new people." It's not worth going over; if you don't 
understand the protocol being discussed, you don't belong in the room.

I am also somewhat offended by silly borders and corporate logos on 
these presentations. We spend time to come to these meetings to 
discuss protocols, not to see how artistic you are or that your 
company supports any particular work. This is engineering, not 
marketing.

I do like Scott McNealy's take on this: "We had 12.9 gigabytes of 
PowerPoint slides on our network. And I thought, 'What a huge waste 
of corporate productivity.' So we banned it. And we've had three 
unbelievable record-breaking fiscal quarters since we banned 
PowerPoint. Now, I would argue that every company in the world, if it 
would just ban PowerPoint, would see their earnings skyrocket. 
Employees would stand around going, 'What do I do? Guess I've got to 
go to work.'"

pr
--
Pete Resnick <mailto:[email-masked]>
QUALCOMM Incorporated
Work: (217)337-6377 or (619)651-4478
Fax: (217)337-1980 or (619)651-1102

---

From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1998 14:09:48 -0600

pr

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1998 12:48:05 -0500

>sessions, which is not what we are supposed to be doing at these 
...
>PowerPoint slides on our network. And I thought, 'What a huge waste 

I sometimes wonder whether it is only Americans who focus so heavily on
form and so little on content, but I'm learning that, no, the problem is
universal, though some cultures seem more proficient at it.

Clearly we should also outlaw laptops in the meetings, along with mobile
phones and pagers, since they all provide too much distraction from the
meeting at hand.  For that matter, we'd better put some rules in place
which eject anyone having a side conversation.  And while we are at it, it
would be only logical to administer a test for entrance to the meeting, to
ensure that only those who have read the specs are allowed in.

Can we PLEASE start looking at serious matters that affect group process
and not on the zillion ancillary issues and artifacts?

Meeting process is affected by some basic physical characteristics of the
meeting room, by the knowledge of a sufficient set of attendees, by the
combined intent of all attendees, and by the tone and skill of the meeting
chair.

If these are satisfied, nothing else matters.  If these are NOT satisfied,
nothing else matters.

d/ 

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Dave Crocker                                       Tel: +60 (19) 3299 445
<mailto:[email-masked]>             Post Office Box 296, U.P.M.
                                         Serdang, Selangor 43400 MALAYSIA
Brandenburg Consulting                                          
<http://www.brandenburg.com>                       Tel: +1 (408) 246 8253
Fax: +1(408)273 6464              675 Spruce Dr., Sunnyvale, CA 94086 USA

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1998 12:48:05 -0500

...

d/

---

From: Paul Hoffman / IMC <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1998 13:07:44 -0500

I won't go as far as Pete on an outright ban, but I would like to echo one
thing he said. I find company logos on IETF presentations offensive.
Whether or not you consider it a "polite fiction" that we attend IETF
meetings for the community, not our companies, it is incredibly unlikely
that you are stating a "company position" with your presentation.

And, to disagree with Pete, I think overviews in WG meetings and BOFs are
fine... as long as they are limited to two minutes. I have used them in the
past to get the attention of the non-implementors in the audience so that
they would be more likely to review the documents being discussed. However,
intros have to be very short, given the time constraints and overlapping
duties of many folks at IETF meetings.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium

---

From: Paul Hoffman / IMC <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1998 13:07:44 -0500

--Paul Hoffman, Director

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1998 16:11:30 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)

> either trying to teach novices or do marketing presentations during 

Pete,

FWIW, I could happily live without the Powerpoint stuff, and
certainly without pre-planned presentations consisting of more
than a few slides of any flavor.  My reaction was more to the
overheads and similar things that permit more than a handful of
people to see a sketch, follow and agenda, accurately capture a
reference, etc.

    john

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1998 16:11:30 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)

Pete,

    john

---

From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1998 15:18:12 -0600

On 12/13/98 at 12:48 PM -0500, Dave Crocker wrote:

> I sometimes wonder whether it is only Americans who focus so 
> heavily on form and so little on content, but I'm learning that, 
> no, the problem is universal, though some cultures seem more 
> proficient at it.
>
> Clearly we should also outlaw laptops in the meetings, along with...

It is, of course, much better at a theoretical level to talk about 
content rather than form. But as is true with so many human 
endeavors, it's sometimes easier to address the form issue and the 
content follows rather naturally. When teaching tennis, it would 
theoretically be best to teach the person to move their arm in a 
certain trajectory at the ball, calculating the angle that the ball 
will intersect the plane of the racket, but in fact it's much easier 
to say, "Keep your eye on the ball" and the correct anatomical stuff 
just happens naturally.

> Can we PLEASE start looking at serious matters that affect group 
> process and not on the zillion ancillary issues and artifacts?
>
> Meeting process is affected by some basic physical characteristics 
> of the meeting room, by the knowledge of a sufficient set of 
> attendees, by the combined intent of all attendees, and by the tone 
> and skill of the meeting chair.

Yes, we could check the knowlege of attendees by giving them exams at 
the door; we could check the intent of the attendees by having long 
discussions with them about Kant and Rawls and social contract 
theory. However, my guess is that the elimination of (or, to be less 
extremist, the limitation of number and glitziness of) presentations 
to the working group meetings will serve to disuade people without 
sufficient knowledge or with bad intents from attending next time.

pr

---

From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1998 15:18:12 -0600

pr

---

From: Joel Jaeggli <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1998 13:45:26 -0800 (PST)

> that you are stating a "company position" with your presentation.

I think it would be in error to state that companies don't advocate for
standards which intrest them through their representatives. If that were
not the case it seems extremely unlikely that these same copies would pay
for their emploies to attend.
 
> --Internet Mail Consortium

-------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Joel Jaeggli				       [email-masked]    
Academic User Services			     [email-masked]
     PGP Key Fingerprint: 1DE9 8FCA 51FB 4195 B42A 9C32 A30D 121E
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is clear that the arm of criticism cannot replace the criticism of
arms.  Karl Marx -- Introduction to the critique of Hegel's Philosophy of
the right, 1843.

---

From: Joel Jaeggli <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1998 13:45:26 -0800 (PST)

---

From: "David W. Morris" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1998 13:44:26 -0800 (PST)

> that you are stating a "company position" with your presentation.

While it might be nice to not have company logos on presentation material,
I thinks its a pretty silly issue to not allow acknowledgement of who ever
sponsored the effort ... pretty quick we could insist that no email
address contain the sponsor's identity, after all under internic rules,
one must assume that a *.com is a trademark now or in the future.  And of
course, if corporate sponsors can't be acknowledged, I wouldn't want to
see academic, non-profit, etc. sponsor's either.

I certainly don't assume that a border containing some organization's ID
represents the official position of that organization.

Beyond that, I find the idea that a group of volunteers (to the IETF they
are volunteers even if some organization is paying their salaries) should
be told that they can't use the tools they find most productive use of
their time in preparing presentation materials. It is also absurd to
extrapolate from Sun's experience with Powerpoint or even to believe
there was a cause and effect relationship between banning powerpoint and
organizational productivity. And raw numbers like 12GB of space in power
point presentations is meaningless without knowing the total of all
space, the age of the materials, etc.

The fundamental issue is effective use of everyone's time whether at Sun
or at the IETF and the choice of presentation vehicles should be made on
that basis, not based on an attempt to modify behavior based on antipathy
towards particular presentation tools.

Dave Morris

---

From: "David W. Morris" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1998 13:44:26 -0800 (PST)

Dave Morris

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 01:16:52 -0500

I wouldn't want an outright ban either, but I think PowerPoint and
viewgraphs are used about 10 times too often.  Face to face meetings
are for interaction, and slide presentations longer than a few
minutes tend to lull people to sleep.

The thing that really bothers me is the tendency to use IETF working
group meetings for presentations, rather than discussion.

Keith

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 01:16:52 -0500

Keith

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 09:57:51 +0100

>group meetings for presentations, rather than discussion.

Agreed. BUT.

At times, I need people to wake up and take a look at something different
from what they are currently doing; in this case, sometimes a presentation
is needed, and 3 min (my maximum for "we are here to discuss" presentations)
may be somewhat short.

This is mostly the case in BOFs, "what do we do now" meetings, when multiple
competing proposals should be evaluated and so on.

I feel that chairs should be given wide latitude in what they permit, but
do agree that it's too easy to err on the side of presentations.

                     Harald A

-- 
Harald Tveit Alvestrand, Maxware, Norway
[email-masked]

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 09:57:51 +0100

Agreed. BUT.

                     Harald A

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 07:41:46 -0500

> do agree that it's too easy to err on the side of presentations.

I agree with this also.

Keith

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 07:41:46 -0500

I agree with this also.

Keith

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 13:29:17 +0000

The issue isn't banning slides; it's ensuring that their content is
useful (i.e. issues rather than tutorials, and new ideas rather
the rehash).

I know one company whose revenue would be hurt by a ban on PPT :)

  Brian

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 13:29:17 +0000

Brian

---

From: Christian Huitema <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 09:29:13 -0500 (EST)

A good picture is worth a thousand words -- and this is specially true
when English is not your first language.  We may debate the presence
or absence of corporate logos -- moving your powerpoint from the
corporate template to a blank template is really easy.  We can 
definitely impose a time limit on presentations, and enforce it by
a limit to the number of slides -- the five minutes/at most three
slides format is probably a very good module.

But we should not throw away the baby with the bath water.  Saying
something meaningful in less than five minutes requires some 
preparation in advance, and visual aids can indeed be helpful.

-- 
Christian Huitema

---

From: Christian Huitema <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 09:29:13 -0500 (EST)

-- 
Christian Huitema

---

From: "Matt Crawford" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 09:30:02 -0600

> that you are stating a "company position" with your presentation.

Then riddle me this.  Why do the RFC's have company and university
affiliations listed by the authors' names?  The IEEE doesn't do that.

Speaking for myself, I expect to quit using powerpoint qua powerpoint
when I get some time to learn an alternative.  But meanwhile, I use
the same template for IETF slides as for any other presentation I
give and I see no reason to do EXTRA work to make them plainer.  And
some sort of muted background IS easier on the eye than stark black-
on-white.

Get back to the real problems, if you can remember what they are!

---

From: "Matt Crawford" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 09:30:02 -0600

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 10:53:22 -0500

> company supports any particular work. This is engineering, not 

I don't know what the story is at IETF, but at SHARE, I was once told
by an IBM'er that they were required by corporate policy, having to do
with protecting their intellectual rights, even on slides that talk
about things like TCP/IP.

If the presentation was developed on company time, it's probably
legally a work-for-hire and the company wants to protect its
copyright.  Yes, it's probably silly in the context of an IETF
presentation, but the legal types tend to be a bit humorless in that
regard.  It's a lot easier to make a blanket rule "All presentations
must have corporate logo/copyright/trademark/etc on them" rather
than trying to enumerate the exemptions.

On the other hand, I'm presuming we're all smart enough to tell
a marketing presentation when we see one, even if it doesn't have
a logo on it....
-- 
				Valdis Kletnieks
				Computer Systems Senior Engineer
				Virginia Tech

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 10:53:22 -0500

---

From: [email-masked] (Uber, Chet)
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 11:18:52 -0600

While I agree that a number of the Power Point demonstrations I saw were marketing
oriented, this is not the case on all of them. Does this mean that .PDF should also
be banned? I think you are throwing the baby out with the bath water. It is much
easier to read the .ppt through the overhead then it will be the flip chart, and
spelling, long URL references, etc. are better served through this method.

What the complaint seems to be is that there are these "newbies", "lurkers", and
"tourists" which are taking up IETF assets (i.e. chairs, electrical outlets) thus
making contributors to the particular WG suffer. I agree that IETF meetings are not
the same as trade shows, but I feel a great deal of elitism being espoused in this
and the other threads relate to it; such as Per's make the tourists suffer thread.

In my case, I am the Chief Technical Officer for my company; and a great deal of
our future depends on what is being designed, specified and ratified today. I guess
I would be a lurker in your terminology, but that is only because I had not found a
specific WG or ID where I could make significant contributions not already
espoused. Would it help for me to send an "I agree" e-mail to the list?? I did at
the Orlando meeting, finally find a WG that is something I feel I can make a strong
contribution to -- namely Common Intruder Detection standards.

I cannot help telling "you" the wizards, gurus, long-time protocol developers that
people need to start somewhere! If what you want is an organization of Good Ole
Boys, then you should proceed with methods to limit attendance of "newbies" and
"lurkers;" as well as such things as low visibility presentation technologies.
However, since it does not seem that any people have bothered to ask us "outsiders"
why we are even there, that the desire to perpetuate the GOB is a truism.

I find this problem is pervasive through out life. I have taken the time and money
to attend meetings, but at no time has anyone asked me why I am there (well except
one gentlemen from Ascend). If you think that the often banal arguments in meetings
about such trivial items as capitalizing the S in should turns my crank -- you are
wrong. I am looking for productive, informative, cooperative exercises to further
the Internet. There is little done to try to bring people like myself into the
fold.

The worst part for me is that my companies name is, World Media Company; and I seem
to be taken as a reporter. We are part of a 25 company holding group, which has an
extremely diverse holdings; including, polling equipment manufacturing, smart card
technology implementation, follow-me calling, direct mail marketing, publishing,
broadcasting, and technology venture capital. We were originally the New Media
Group for the publishing interests in the holding company; but even back then never
had anything to do with "content" or "reporting." We offer publications, large
corporations, and governments a way dynamically publish numerous forms of
"information;" as well as providing intranet/Internet/extranet solutions to our
parent corporation and its IOCs. We do work at all levels of the stack, and
consider IETF/IESG/IAB, ANSI, NIST and ISO standards important to our companies
future.

I suggest that the Secretariat and people like Fred Baker should try to find out
what the "newbies," "lurkers," and "tourists." are really doing there; before
trying to change variables of the meeting, which may or may not solve the problem.
If you don't understand the entire issue, how can you randomly (seemingly), talk
about making changes to the form and format of the meeting; and hope to become more
productive.

I am not upset with the IETF, nor the people trying to "make it more
productive/better," but before using grep to dismiss people based on participation;
a good scientist would find out why the participation is not happening. All things
evolve! Is it not possible that "The Tao" and the first time meeting seminar is not
enough to bring us to a level of confidently being able to contribute????

Regards,
Chet

PS: You could hold the meetings in a swamp in July and I would still attend. I have
traveled all over, and find little time to "vacation" during IETF meetings as the
content concerns me more than some faux fun.

PPS: I am not saying .ppt presentations are the best, however it is the tool at my
disposal to best fulfill my needs when conveying information to groups.

============================================================
Chet Uber, Chief Technology Officer
World Media Company, a World-Herald Company
http://www.omaha.com [email-masked]
vox 402.444.1158   fax 402.346.7158   pgr 402-899-1854
------------------------------------------------------------
"My life is an MPEG, and I am not the producer.
============================================================

--

---

From: [email-masked] (Uber, Chet)
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 11:18:52 -0600

Regards,
Chet

--

---

From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 11:40:57 -0600

On 12/14/98 at 11:18 AM -0600, Chet Uber wrote:

> ...I feel a great deal of elitism being espoused in this and the 
> other threads relate to it; such as Per's make the tourists suffer 
> thread.
> In my case, I am the Chief Technical Officer for my company; and a 
> great deal of our future depends on what is being designed, 
> specified and ratified today. I guess I would be a lurker in your 
> terminology, but that is only because I had not found a specific WG 
> or ID where I could make significant contributions not already 
> espoused. Would it help for me to send an "I agree" e-mail to the 
> list?? I did at the Orlando meeting, finally find a WG that is 
> something I feel I can make a strong contribution to -- namely 
> Common Intruder Detection standards.
> I cannot help telling "you" the wizards, gurus, long-time protocol 
> developers that people need to start somewhere!

I just got done sending private e-mail to someone about this. Yes, 
newbies need to start somewhere, but the IETF *face-to-face meeting* 
is not the place to do it.  Remember, the official activities of the 
working group, and all decisions made, take place on the mailing 
list. The face-to-face meetings are for high bandwidth interactions 
between working group participants on issues that are a pain to work 
out in e-mail. Face-to-face meetings are most emphatically not the 
place to learn what the working group does or what the topic is 
about; if you need to do that, you need to read the mailing list 
archive and the Internet Drafts for the working group.

Lurking on a mailing list decreases bandwidth by zero. Even sending 
private e-mail to experts on the mailing list to find out non-obvious 
information is pretty low in its effects on bandwidth. And lurking at 
IETF meetings in and of itself doesn't decrease bandwidth so long as 
everyone can get in the room. But having long presentations on a 
topic being discussed for the benefit of people who need review is a 
huge waste of bandwidth. I'd love to go back to the time where WG 
chairs asked "How many people have read this document?" and if the 
number of hands is less than 3, discussion of that item is taken off 
of the agenda.

This is not about elitism; it's about using the face-to-face meetings 
for their designed purposes. Teaching is not one of them.

pr

---

From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 11:40:57 -0600

pr

---

From: [email-masked] (Uber, Chet)
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 14:25:59 -0600

I had read all of the IDs and RFCs related to the working groups I
attended PRIOR to attending the meetings.

I make a concerted effort to do so, and actually took a copy of all
revisions of each ID and appropriate RFCs with me on my laptop into each
meeting.

I am not talking about being taught (God knows I spent years paying for
an education, and take with Continuing Education classes every month)
about what is going on, and I am sorry my words led to that
misperception.

I agree that at least a portion of every meeting I attended dealt with
narrowing down the SHOULDs, MUSTs, and related details. However, new
proposals were made in a number of the meetings I attended. Some seemed
well received and got validation via comments in the WG or BOF; but I
must say that some were vehemently attacked, and conflicting
interpretations of RFCs often pervaded. My best example of this would be
the EAP meeting. To say that all of these items are worked out in the
mailing lists is not accurate.

Another reason for attending for me is to get the information of what
went on at the meeting in real-time. I still don't have my CD from
Chicago, and am glad I was there to take notes!

I still maintain that making comments for the sake of commenting, when
someone else has espoused your thoughts, is a waste of bandwidth. My
experience in USENET is that "me too" and "I agree" replies to the list
were abhorred. If this is not the case in IETF, and the addition of my
voice in favor or dissent is important; then I will begin to do so.

I agree 100% that the face-to-face meeting is not the place to learn from
the beginning, it is however a place to gather new information; and get a
feeling for dissension, opposition and promotion of IDs, etc.. The
corporate pushes are far more evident face-to-face. Previous RFC authors
vehemently expressing views in the same physical space gives me
personally a much clearer picture of the "reality" of the issue then the
mailing lists.

What I had hoped you would have also addressed were some of my issues
concerning finding out what is really broken, before trying a shotgun
approach of "control measures" to hopefully increase bandwidth.

I will strive to "come out of the shadows," and be less of a lurker and
more of a contributor; but my feeling of elitism still stands. Alas,
there is nothing anyone can or should try to do to alleviate this. It is
MY personal feeling and only I can change it.

Thanks for the input as I never like working in a vacuum.

Warmest Regards,
Chet

--

---

From: [email-masked] (Uber, Chet)
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 14:25:59 -0600

Warmest Regards,
Chet

--

---

From: "Theodore Y. Ts'o" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 21:00:41 -0500

Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 09:29:13 -0500 (EST)
   From: Christian Huitema <[email-masked]>

I think the complaint here is that Powerpoint presentations (and
pictures/graphics in particular) are often used to fluff up a
presentation to disguise there was little content to begin with.

In this particular presentation which Pete Resnick was referring to, the
presenter took a good 20-25 minutes to describe something which I
summarized in two sentences and 15 seconds after the long, intermintable
presentation was done.  In that particular case, at least, I suspect the
presenter would have had a lot more trouble frothing the 15 seconds of
technical content into 20-25 minutes boring presentation if he wasn't
allowed to be used his slide materials.

(This is why some of us bring laptops and wireless ethernets --- it's a
natural reaction to the lightweight presentations.  At this particular
BOF, the person sitting next to me commented, "I don't know how you can
be doing kernel programming at the same time as you're paying
attention".  To which I whispered back, "The bit-rate of the presentation
is *really* low" --- to which she allowed that I had a point.)

This being said, I agree that occasionally Powerpoint slides can
be used to better enhance a technical presentation, instead of being
used to hide the fact that there's nothing technical there.  The problem
is that very often they are abused, and the BOF or WG chair is often
faced with the hard problem of deciding when to hit the figurative gong,
and intervene.

						- Ted

---

From: "Theodore Y. Ts'o" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 21:00:41 -0500

- Ted

---

From: Kauto Huopio <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 05:43:33 +0200 (EET)

OK, here speaks a person that hasn't been in a single IETF meeting..so
far. 

I'd suggest that the attendees' nametags are equipped with barcodes to
identify individuals. They are handy for several purposes:

1) Access to the IETF meeting reservation system: everyone can plan a
personal meeting schedule, organisers get headcounts helping meeting room
reservations. This system should be active already at meeting
preregistration phase. All persons attending the meeting are encouraged to
plan their schedules as early as possible. Thiscould help the room
planning a lot. 

2) Nametag could alllow access to a IETF Meeting Poll -system, which could
gather all sorts of interesting data on different sessions, evaluating
speakers etc. There should be somekind of a reward on best presentations /
briefings, perhaps sponsored. Naturally, the identifying data on
individual opinions should be deleted from the end results, badges should
be used just for ensuring only one vote/attendeee. 

3) Nametag could be used at the terminal room to allow access to
workstations with personal disk space during IETF sessions. There is at
least one public library solution over here in Finland that allows access
to a fairly fully equipped (software-wise) PC:s by inserting a library
card into a barcode reader and leaving it there for the length of the
workstation session. When card is removed from the reader, the workstation
resets itself to default settings and (in the library solution) deletes
any work files created by the user. In a IETF solution, nametag could
allow access to a personal storage area for any last minute fiddling of
the powerpoint slides.. :)

Kauto Huopio
[email-masked]

---

From: Kauto Huopio <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 05:43:33 +0200 (EET)

Kauto Huopio
[email-masked]

---

From: Bill Sommerfeld <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 14:17:52 -0500

...

> briefings, perhaps sponsored. 

Working group meetings are for forging consensus on protocol
standards, not for educating an audience.

If we're going to reward someone, we should reward working groups
which reach consensus quickly, not individuals with spiffy and
polished presentations....

BTW, what happened to the gold stars (for the WG chairs in the area
which got its reports in first)?  I don't recall seeing them recently.

					- Bill

---

From: Bill Sommerfeld <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 14:17:52 -0500

...

					- Bill