Subject: How to get more reviewers for documents

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 21:34:04 +0200

Hi,

I'm going to half bake an idea here on how to get people more involved.

There are on-line gaming communities on the Internet that are loosely assembled on a game site, there are usually no memberships, and people group together to form klans and arrange games against other klans or teams. Tough guys (or increasingly nowadays gals), have high frags rates, or high scores or whatever, and are thus more likely to be "invited" to klans and get-togethers. These high scores don't come easy though, but require vast amounts of play time on-line, so an occasional visitor will not likely get into the "inner circles".

Now, I think such an online gaming community is a pretty good approximation of the IETF. The only thing we don't have is a scoring system.

So how about creating one for the IETF? A participant could get points from reviewing documents, taking part in mailing list discussions, attending meetings, writing drafts etc. The chairs could keep a list of the high scorers and publish it for all to see. We could document this in a BCP, so that all new attendees would immediately know that getting into the inner circles requires vast amounts of play time on-line, instead of say being extra friendly towards a chair or AD.

I think this sort of thing would accomplish the incentive aspect Eric Rescorla was after at the mike last night, and also make the mechanism by which people move up in the hierarchy of the IETF explicit and public (also mentioned at the mike last night).

Cheers,
Aki

---

From: "Nikhil Mittal" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 15:30:20 -0500

Then it becomes a reward based system which breeds aspirations for
recognition and fame more than delivering some good work.
Nikhil

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]On Behalf Of
[email-masked]
Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2003 2:34 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: How to get more reviewers for documents

Hi,

There are on-line gaming communities on the Internet that are loosely
assembled on a game site, there are usually no memberships, and people group
together to form klans and arrange games against other klans or teams. Tough
guys (or increasingly nowadays gals), have high frags rates, or high scores
or whatever, and are thus more likely to be "invited" to klans and
get-togethers. These high scores don't come easy though, but require vast
amounts of play time on-line, so an occasional visitor will not likely get
into the "inner circles".

Now, I think such an online gaming community is a pretty good approximation
of the IETF. The only thing we don't have is a scoring system.

So how about creating one for the IETF? A participant could get points from
reviewing documents, taking part in mailing list discussions, attending
meetings, writing drafts etc. The chairs could keep a list of the high
scorers and publish it for all to see. We could document this in a BCP, so
that all new attendees would immediately know that getting into the inner
circles requires vast amounts of play time on-line, instead of say being
extra friendly towards a chair or AD.

I think this sort of thing would accomplish the incentive aspect Eric
Rescorla was after at the mike last night, and also make the mechanism by
which people move up in the hierarchy of the IETF explicit and public (also
mentioned at the mike last night).

Cheers,
Aki

---

From: "Vach Kompella" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 12:03:30 -0800

Sorry, but I hate this idea.  The whole notion of points is bad.  I was not at
the Plenary so I don't know what exactly went on, but this smells of the "how
many papers did you write?" numbers game that assistant professors have to play.
The IETF is political enough as it is, with endless debates on every topic,
without having to encourage that with points for postings, points for IDs,
points for attendance, ...  This encourages competition of the worst kind.

-Vach

> Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2003 11:34 AM
> To: [email-masked]
> assembled on a game site, there are usually no memberships, and
> people group together to form klans and arrange games against other
> klans or teams. Tough guys (or increasingly nowadays gals), have high
> frags rates, or high scores or whatever, and are thus more likely to
> be "invited" to klans and get-togethers. These high scores don't come
> easy though, but require vast amounts of play time on-line, so an
> occasional visitor will not likely get into the "inner circles".
>
> Now, I think such an online gaming community is a pretty good
> approximation of the IETF. The only thing we don't have is a scoring system.
>
> So how about creating one for the IETF? A participant could get
> points from reviewing documents, taking part in mailing list
> discussions, attending meetings, writing drafts etc. The chairs could
> keep a list of the high scorers and publish it for all to see. We
> could document this in a BCP, so that all new attendees would
> immediately know that getting into the inner circles requires vast
> amounts of play time on-line, instead of say being extra friendly
> towards a chair or AD.
>
> Rescorla was after at the mike last night, and also make the
> mechanism by which people move up in the hierarchy of the IETF
> explicit and public (also mentioned at the mike last night).
>
> Cheers,
> Aki
>
>
>
>

---

From: "David J. Aronson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 16:36:57 -0500

> recognition and fame more than delivering some good work.

This can be "fixed" to some extent by having the number of points 
awarded for various pieces of work output depend not only on what it is, 
but a popular vote as well.  (Hey, what are all these worms doing all 
over the floor?  Where did that empty can come from?)

-- 
David J. Aronson, Software Engineer for hire in Washington DC area.
See http://destined.to/program/ for online resume, references, etc.