Subject: RE: a simple solution to the room crowding problem...

From: Peter Ford <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1998 11:02:42 -0800

Keith,

No, I don't know that they intend to lurk; I observe that in effect people
are lurking.   As you suggest the physical setting (100's of people) might
be keeping people from participating due to their own psychological
limitations. 

I can believe that most people come to the physical meeting for the
_opportunity_ to contribute.  if we had an mbone and/or tele conference into
every session and the people running the meeting were sensitive to their
presence then people "calling in" could participate w/o being in the room.

A very real problem is that someone can want to be in a session, but due to
physical contraints they  can not participate _AT ALL_.  This is the problem
that started this mail thread.  There have been IETF's where I wanted to go
to at least one session but due to work contraints it was impossible to go
to the IETF.  If I could have called in I would have.  (I won't bore the
list with the attempts to participate in the Munich IETF over the Mbone -
grrrrr).

I am proposing an inclusionary mechanism instead of an exclusionary
mechanism such as individual prioritization.  There is a cost, although I
will note that our friendly carriers might be willing to contribute
conferencing resources to something like the IETF.

regards and happy holidays,

peter

-----Original Message-----
From: Keith Moore [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Friday, December 18, 1998 4:29 PM
To: Peter Ford
Cc: [email-masked]'
Subject: Re: a simple solution to the room crowding problem... 

> Most people who show up are lurking.

do we really know that?  at least in Orlando, when I took the trouble to 
poll a few sessions to see what people were there for, the majority of 
attendees were actually there in hope of contributing useful input.
admittedly this is limited data, but I wouldn't want to base a policy
decision on the the belief that most people are lurkers without more
evidence to support that belief.

there may be a group dynamics effect at work here - if you get more than
say 30 people in a room, most of them will keep their mouths shut unless
called on.  only the most bold/obnoxious, or those elected as leaders 
or speakers, are likely to speak.  so it may appear that there are 
large numbers of lurkers, when this is really not the case.

maybe we need to find better ways to give voice to the silent majority
of would-be contributors, rather than implicitly favoring the
bold/obnoxious.

Keith

---

From: Joel Halpern <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1998 18:15:17 -0500 (EST)

> list with the attempts to participate in the Munich IETF over the Mbone -
I must be missing something here.  
I certainly understand that MBone participation simply does not work as
well.  
However, I have arrived late at very crowded meetings, but in time for a
presentation I felt I needed to listen to (and comment on).  Under such
circumstances, with a bit of work, one can get into even the most crowded
of rooms.  And, if you want to participate, you can get to the microphone.
(Without the microphone, and associated queueing, it would be a complete
disaster.)  Certainly, it takes a stronger level of will to participate
under that circumstance.  But it can be done.  Without doing violence to
any other attendees either.  (Polite requests will generally get enough
room to slide by and stand at a wall.  Further polite requests will get
one to the microphone.)

No, its not great.  But it is not disasterous either.

Yours,
Joel M. Halpern                         [email-masked]
Newbridge Networks Inc.

---

From: Joel Halpern <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1998 18:15:17 -0500 (EST)

Yours,