Subject: Important Information about IETF 76 Meeting Registration

From: Alexa Morris <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 13:56:17 -0700

Registration for IETF 76 will open in the next several days and we  
want to alert you to some exciting changes coming your way.

1) New Meeting Registration System
We have moved to a new meeting registration system. The first time you  
use the new system (called ARO) you will need to create an account.  
Your account will be password protected and only you will have access  
to it. Your contact information will be saved, making registration in  
the future much simpler, and you will be able to update your contact  
data, registration information, etc at any time.

2) RFID Tagging Experiment at IETF 76
The hosts for IETF 76 are organizing a RFID tag experiment for the  
meeting. The tag will be affixed to the underside of your meeting  
badge, as a sticker, and will contain only your full name and any  
listed affiliation. The experiment will allow us to explore the  
possibility of electronic blue sheets (though we are still using paper  
blue sheets as the official blue sheets of record). We also hope that  
the RFID tag will improve the experience for remote participants,  
since speakers will be identified through the RFID tags.

While you will be given the option to "opt out" of this experiment  
when you register for the meeting, we sincerely hope you will  
participate.

3)  One-day Guest Pass Experiment
For IETF 76 we are also offering a one-day guest pass for $200. If you  
only plan to attend one day of meetings, you now have the option to  
select which day (Mon, Tues, Weds, Thurs or Fri) when you register.  
After the meeting, we will solicit your feedback on the one-day pass  
option and evaluate to see if it makes sense to offer at future  
meetings.

Please contact me if you have any comments or questions. And I look  
forward to seeing you at IETF 76 in Japan!

Regards,
Alexa

-----------
Alexa Morris / Executive Director / IETF
48377 Fremont Blvd., Suite 117, Fremont, CA  94538
Phone: +1.510.492.4089 / Fax: +1.510.492.4001
Email: [email-masked]

Managed by Association Management Solutions (AMS)
Forum Management, Meeting and Event Planning
www.amsl.com <http://www.amsl.com/>

---

From: David Morris <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 21:54:50 -0700 (PDT)

Great idea ... except from my memory, registration might close before the 
agenda is firm enough to pick a particular day to attend. Picking the day
needs to be really close to the meeting week for this to be an effective
option.

Dave Morris

On Tue, 18 Aug 2009, Alexa Morris wrote:

> Registration for IETF 76 will open in the next several days and we want to 
> alert you to some exciting changes coming your way.
>
> We have moved to a new meeting registration system. The first time you use 
> the new system (called ARO) you will need to create an account. Your account 
> will be password protected and only you will have access to it. Your contact 
> information will be saved, making registration in the future much simpler, 
> and you will be able to update your contact data, registration information, 
> etc at any time.
>
> The hosts for IETF 76 are organizing a RFID tag experiment for the meeting. 
> The tag will be affixed to the underside of your meeting badge, as a sticker, 
> and will contain only your full name and any listed affiliation. The 
> experiment will allow us to explore the possibility of electronic blue sheets 
> (though we are still using paper blue sheets as the official blue sheets of 
> record). We also hope that the RFID tag will improve the experience for 
> remote participants, since speakers will be identified through the RFID tags.
>
> While you will be given the option to "opt out" of this experiment when you 
> register for the meeting, we sincerely hope you will participate.
>
> For IETF 76 we are also offering a one-day guest pass for $200. If you only 
> plan to attend one day of meetings, you now have the option to select which 
> day (Mon, Tues, Weds, Thurs or Fri) when you register. After the meeting, we 
> will solicit your feedback on the one-day pass option and evaluate to see if 
> it makes sense to offer at future meetings.
>
> Please contact me if you have any comments or questions. And I look forward 
> to seeing you at IETF 76 in Japan!

---

From: "J.D. Falk" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2009 11:36:58 -0600

David Morris wrote:

> Great idea ... except from my memory, registration might close before
> the agenda is firm enough to pick a particular day to attend. Picking
> the day

+1

-- 
J.D. Falk
Return Path Inc
http://www.returnpath.net/

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:12:49 -0400

>> needs to be really close to the meeting week for this to be an  

Just my opinion, but I think we need to allow for unrestricted changes  
of the date
of the daily pass, up until the date it is actually used. Any advanced  
selection of
a day should be for planning purposes only (such as catering). If you  
pick up a pass for
Tuesday on Sunday, even as late as Tuesday AM you should be able to  
change it to Wednesday if you need to.
Likewise, if you picked Monday and you don't show up until Friday,  
your pass should still be
good.

I see no reason not to do this, and I suspect many newcomers (who I  
expect to make up a good proportion of the
daily pass users) will be confused by the process and may not figure  
out where they need to go until the
last minute. We should be friendly towards them and not try and make  
them feel ill-used.

Along those lines, I strongly think that any day pass payments should  
be fully applicable to a
full registration, if people decide they want to stay for the whole  
meeting. We want to encourage that.

Regards
Marshall

> _______________________________________________
> Ietf mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
>

---

From: David Morris <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2009 13:14:03 -0700 (PDT)

On Wed, 19 Aug 2009, Marshall Eubanks wrote:

> Just my opinion, but I think we need to allow for unrestricted changes of the 
> date
> a day should be for planning purposes only (such as catering). If you pick up 
> a pass for
> Tuesday on Sunday, even as late as Tuesday AM you should be able to change it 
> to Wednesday if you need to.
> Likewise, if you picked Monday and you don't show up until Friday, your pass 
> should still be
> good.
>
> I see no reason not to do this, and I suspect many newcomers (who I expect to 
> make up a good proportion of the
> daily pass users) will be confused by the process and may not figure out 
> where they need to go until the
> last minute. We should be friendly towards them and not try and make them 
> feel ill-used.
>
> Along those lines, I strongly think that any day pass payments should be 
> fully applicable to a
> full registration, if people decide they want to stay for the whole meeting. 
> We want to encourage that.

I fully agree with your expansion on my comment ... but I think that local
interested participants are at least as important a consideration as 
newcomers. For one meeting in the heat of the original HTTP work, I made 
two one day trips from SFBay to LA rather than spending the week in LA.
For the recent SF meeting, I was unemployed and couldn't justify the
full meeting fee for 1 meeting day and didn't attend. YMMV.

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2009 16:29:52 -0400

--On Wednesday, August 19, 2009 14:12 -0400 Marshall Eubanks
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>...
> Just my opinion, but I think we need to allow for unrestricted
> changes of the date of the daily pass, up until the date it is
> actually used. Any advanced selection of a day should be for
> planning purposes only (such as catering). If you pick up a
> pass for Tuesday on Sunday, even as late as Tuesday AM you
> should be able to change it to Wednesday if you need to.
> Likewise, if you picked Monday and you don't show up until
> Friday, your pass should still be good.
>...
 
> Along those lines, I strongly think that any day pass payments
> should be fully applicable to a
> full registration, if people decide they want to stay for the
> whole meeting. We want to encourage that.

Marshall, I generally agree, but your suggestions raise other
issues that need sorting out.   I would have hoped that they
would have been sorted out before the original announcement...
perhaps they have been and the announcement is just incomplete.

For example, we have a rather steep late registration fee and a
nasty policy if one cancels less than a week before the meeting.
I presume there are good reasons for both (other than inflicting
pain on registrants) or we wouldn't be doing it, but I don't
think either the reasoning nor the amount have been explained to
the community since the registration process became automated.
I do note that the early registration cutoff is now only a bit
over a week before the meeting starts, which is clearly an
improvement.

However, suppose a "day pass" costs only $200.  I presume, but
Alexa's note didn't say, that number is independent of whether I
register for one a few weeks in advance or at the meeting.  If I
won't know if I can attend the meeting, what are the tradeoffs
between my buying a day pass and then upgrading on site if
needed and registering and paying early and risking incurring
the late cancellation penalty?  On the other hand, if the same
late registration fee is to be imposed on "day passes", they
become a lot less useful and we are back to encouraging people
who want to attend only one or two WG sessions to just sneak in.

I assume that the IAOC has signed off on the day pass plan and
that all of these sorts of issues have been thought out.  Care
to share the details and reasoning?  I note without comment that
I can find no evidence of a discussion on this subject in any
recent posted IAOC minutes.

    john

---

From: Ross Finlayson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2009 13:46:29 -0700

I'm not convinced that this new "One Day Guest Pass" is even a good 
idea at all.  Do we no longer want to encourage participants to be 
familiar with activities beyond their primary working group?  Do we 
not want to encourage participants to attend the plenaries (to help 
familiarize them with the IETF process), in addition to their primary 
working group meeting?

If the Secretariat feels that attendance is suffering because of the 
price of the full meeting registration fee, then perhaps a better 
solution is to drop the price of that fee.

	Ross.

---

From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:02:35 -0700 (PDT)

Ross,

It's an experiment, as Alexa stated.

Experience from RIPE tend to suggest that the OVERALL attendance goes 
up as a result of the availability of day passes. We don't yet know if 
this applies to the IETF. Yes, we want to encourage people to stay for 
the whole week for all the reasons you cite, but the economic- and 
time-related reality tells us that this isn't always possible. As John 
Klensin pointed out, this leaves us with three options:

* Make day-passes available

* Let people "sneak in"

* Accept that some people will not attend who would attend if we gave 
  them the one-day option.

It is quite possible that a one-day pass option would cause people to
pay for one day and stay for the whole week, particularly since we're
not known for having armed guards and badge checkers, but I don't get
the sense that there are many people in this community who would want
to cheat in that way. The cookies etc do have a cost associated with
them after all, and I think this is generally understood. But the 
experiment will hopefully tell us this as well.

So, we're aiming to find out if this is indeed a good idea. There are
some "local reasons" to try this in Japan where bosses typically don't
allow their staff to stay away from the office for more than a day for
events like this (unless they are "fully onboard" with what the IETF
is or does). You might consider such one-day visitors as "IETF 
tourists", but it might very well help us gain new attendees in the
long run. Again, the experiment could tell us that too.

Ole

Ole J. Jacobsen
Editor and Publisher,  The Internet Protocol Journal
Cisco Systems
Tel: +1 408-527-8972   Mobile: +1 415-370-4628
E-mail: [email-masked]  URL: http://www.cisco.com/ipj

On Wed, 19 Aug 2009, Ross Finlayson wrote:

> I'm not convinced that this new "One Day Guest Pass" is even a good idea at
> all.  Do we no longer want to encourage participants to be familiar with
> activities beyond their primary working group?  Do we not want to encourage
> participants to attend the plenaries (to help familiarize them with the IETF
> process), in addition to their primary working group meeting?
> 
> If the Secretariat feels that attendance is suffering because of the price of
> the full meeting registration fee, then perhaps a better solution is to drop
> the price of that fee.
> 
> 	Ross.

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:53:06 -0400

Dear John;

> perhaps they have been and the announcement is just incomplete.

First, this is an experiment. Suggestions are certainly welcomed.

> over a week before the meeting starts, which is clearly an

With the automating of the system, it might be reasonable to change or  
even remove the cancelation policy (as is
done already for people with visa issues) but I think that this needs  
a little thought and
should be considered separately.

> register for one a few weeks in advance or at the meeting.

The current planning is that the day pass fee will be fixed, with no  
early bird benefit and no late fees.

>  If I
> the late cancellation penalty?

I am not quite sure I understand why you think there is a difference  
here. If I get you, either way, you would wind up paying the full walk  
up fee, just once in a lump sum and the other way in two stages. It's  
not like you have to reserve early to be sure we don't run out of  
tickets - we can always print more !

Either way, the revenue to the IETF would be the same, so I don't see  
a risk (to the IETF) here. Of course, if the Secretariat is  
overwhelmed with additional work, that would have to be reconsidered.

>  On the other hand, if the same
> that all of these sorts of issues have been thought out.

In large part, this is a response to the tough economic times we find  
ourselves in. There have
been complaints about the overall cost of attending the meetings, and  
some particular circumstances pertaining to
Japan, so an experiment seemed in order. I hope that we find it  
increases the total attendance and also income; we shall see.

As this is an experiment, comments and suggestions are especially  
welcomed.

Ole's recent comments are germane here and I fully agree with them.

All of the above is just my opinion. I am specifically not speaking  
for the IAOC or other members.

Regards
Marshall

> Care

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2009 20:56:10 -0400

Dear Marshall,

--On Wednesday, August 19, 2009 17:53 -0400 Marshall Eubanks
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>>> Along those lines, I strongly think that any day pass
>>> payments should be fully applicable to a

No problem with that.

>> For example, we have a rather steep late registration fee and
>> a nasty policy if one cancels less than a week before the
>> meeting. I presume there are good reasons for both (other
>...
> With the automating of the system, it might be reasonable to
> change or even remove the cancelation policy (as is
> done already for people with visa issues) but I think that
> this needs a little thought and

Absolutely (both to "needs thought" and "separately").  I think
these questions and changes/experiments suggest each other, but
that doesn't turn them into the same question.

>> Alexa's note didn't say, that number is independent of
>> whether I register for one a few weeks in advance or at the
>> meeting.
> 
> The current planning is that the day pass fee will be fixed,
> with no early bird benefit and no late fees.

Ok.  See below.

> I am not quite sure I understand why you think there is a
> difference here. If I get you, either way, you would wind up
> paying the full walk up fee, just once in a lump sum and the
> other way in two stages. It's not like you have to reserve
> early to be sure we don't run out of tickets - we can always
> print more !

Maybe you have answered the question, but let me explain it.
Your "day pass payments should be fully applicable to a full
registration" seems reasonable to me.  I think we should
encourage such conversions because it would give someone more of
the IETF experience and because we could always use the revenue.
However, if the day pass is fully applicable to a full
registration including the on-site registration penalty (whether
that should be described that way or as the absence of an early
registration discount is just semantics at one level, but it
clearly affects the difference in the way we are thinking about
this), then that late registration penalty will wipe out most of
the cost of the day pass.

Put differently and, again, it depends a bit on how you look at
this, if I submit and pay for my day pass two or three weeks
ahead of IETF, when I would have gotten the early registration
discount for the full registration, then letting me get to IETF
and convert the day pass to a full registration after
experiencing a day of the meeting isn't what I would consider
fully-convertible, it is, if my memory that the late
registration penalty is $150, a $50 discount off of what I would
have paid for the full registration had I gotten it earlier. 

Given that the full registration is more than three times that
$200 day fee these days (even without the late registration
penalty), it would be more economic for me to buy three day
passes rather than convert.  With the penalty, it would be more
economic at four.  I think that encourages behavior we don't
want to encourage... unless you prevent someone who is getting
one day pass from getting more to the same IETF meeting (which,
in our community, is going to give you an interesting
authorization problem).

> Either way, the revenue to the IETF would be the same, so I
> don't see a risk (to the IETF) here. Of course, if the
> Secretariat is overwhelmed with additional work, that would
> have to be reconsidered.

If people start buying day passes, especially a couple or three
day passes, instead of registering for the whole meeting, it
definitely carries a "total registration income" financial risk.
This is positive from a financial standpoint only if those who
buy day passes would otherwise not have attended at all (or
would have snuck in).    Please note that, I'm in favor of this
experiment, I'm just curious about how many of the scenarios
have actually been examined.

I am curious --but just curious-- whether buying a day pass
would entitle someone to come to the opening reception or to
register for the social.   Especially given the experience in
Sweden, I would hope that decisions will be made about those
sorts of issues before registration is opened.  I have no idea
what the right decision should be but suggest that having a
decision is important.

> In large part, this is a response to the tough economic times
> we find ourselves in. There have
> been complaints about the overall cost of attending the
> meetings, and some particular circumstances pertaining to
> Japan, so an experiment seemed in order. I hope that we find
> it increases the total attendance and also income; we shall
> see.

Without knowing the "particular circumstances pertaining to
Japan" (unless they are the issue Ole mentioned), my assumption
is that for most people, or most people who would outside east
Asia, the airfares will be enough larger than the registration
fee to make this kind of tuning fairly marginal.  Of course, a
longer stay in Japan is more expensive than a shorter one, more
or less proportionate to the number of days.  But I don't
imagine that very many people are going to fly to Hiroshima for
a one-day meeting.

As far as people who are closer are concerned, I don't see the
Japanese situation as being that unusual, even with Ole's
explanation.  If there is a meeting that is fairly nearby, I
can't imagine many companies releasing employees who are not
directly involved to go to it (with or without a fairly high
registration fee) for a whole week.  A day, maybe, but a week is
a big deal.  I don't know how to separate it from other
fluctuations in meeting attendance, but I think the migration to
five full days is likely to cost us some attendees who can be
away from their desks for four days but for whom being away "a
whole week" is going to be a major psychological barrier.

It will be an interesting experiment.

> As this is an experiment, comments and suggestions are
> especially welcomed.
 
> Ole's recent comments are germane here and I fully agree with

And they are the sort of explanation about why decisions were
made and how they are being thought about that I believe it
would be very helpful if the community heard proactively and
from the IAOC, rather than getting a note with no background
from the Secretariat and then having to fill in the details via
questions to the list.

> All of the above is just my opinion. I am specifically not
> speaking for the IAOC or other members.

Much appreciated.

    john

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2009 21:52:33 -0400

Dear John;

> have paid for the full registration had I gotten it earlier.

Ah, OK, I see your point now. Are you saying that you think that we  
should give a little discount
to people who buy early and convert ? To me, this seems like over- 
engineering the
situation. If we had a "early day fee" of, say $ 150, would it really  
influence very many people ?

You could look at it another way. Suppose you are local to a meeting.  
You could walk-up on Monday,
and try it out. If it seems like it is worthwhile you're not out  
anything, as you would have had to
pay the full walk up fee without the experiment. If it seems like its  
not relevant to
you, you're out 1 day and $ 200, which seems pretty affordable to me.

My assumption going into this was that most of the day passes would go  
to people who one way or another are walk-ups. We shall see.

Let's look at IETF-73 & 72 :

http://iaoc.ietf.org/documents/IETF73_Meeting_Statement.pdf
http://iaoc.ietf.org/documents/IETF72_Meeting_Statement.pdf

IETF 73 Minneapolis, MN
Early            @ $635    780  495,300
Regular          @ $785    149  116,965
Student          @ $150     37    5,550
Comps            @   $0     31        0
Cancellation Fee @  $63.50   5      318

IETF 72 Dublin
Early            @ $635    994 631,190
Regular          @ $785    117  91,845
Student          @ $150     61   9,150
Comps            @   $0     35       0
Cancellation Fee @ $ 63.50  13     826

My opinion is, if we have a number of "Day-trippers" equal to the  
number of "Regulars", we'll be doing well, and that's about 120  
people. I think that by tweaking this we are talking about maybe  
increasing or decreasing that by order 10%, or 10 people or so, which  
seems "in the noise" to me.

My personal feeling is, let's run the experiment at a fixed fee and  
then we can ask in the survey if a moderately lower advance day fee  
would have made a difference.

> have actually been examined.

I was responding specifically to your scenario in my statement, not to  
the general case.
Clearly, in the general case, there is some risk.

> what the right decision should be but suggest that having a

These are generally sponsored, and that is thus the sponsor's decision.

If it were up to me, and if the event was limited in attendance, then
I think they should be allowed to be on a wait list
after all of the regular registrants (and sponsors). If it doesn't  
"sell out" otherwise, why
not let them in ? If it does, the full registrants should get priority.

Of course, none of this stops the usual trading of tickets, which is  
another way to attend such things.

> Japan" (unless they are the issue Ole mentioned),

They were. That's what I was told. I do not know for myself, but we  
shall see.

> my assumption

Agreed. But you might get some people who will go to Japan and
have  other business there, and so would come fewer days.

Again, this is an experiment. I don't know if it will be positive or  
negative, but
at the least we should learn something useful from it.

Marshall

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2009 06:01:58 -0400

On Aug 19, 2009, at 4:14 PM, David Morris wrote:

>> changes of the date
>> of the daily pass, up until the date it is actually used. Any  
>> advanced selection of
>> a day should be for planning purposes only (such as catering). If  
>> you pick up a pass for
>> daily pass users) will be confused by the process and may not  
>> figure out where they need to go until the
>> last minute. We should be friendly towards them and not try and  
>> make them feel ill-used.
>>
> newcomers. For one meeting in the heat of the original HTTP work, I  
> made two one day trips from SFBay to LA rather than spending the  
> week in LA.

I certainly wasn't trying to imply that we can or should be unpleasant  
to regular attendees ! And, certainly, local
attendees are also important. For all of these cohorts, I think we  
should be as flexible as
reasonably possible.

Regards
Marshall

---

From: "David Harrington" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:01:50 -0400

Hi,

We are running multiple experiments.
One is automated registration.
One is RFID. 
Another is charging for subsets of attendance.

Maybe we should have an RFID reader/recorder at the door to each
session, and to send bills to people based on what they actually
attend (plus a base fee). Attendees could get their RFID badge, attend
whatever they want during the week, we record their attendance using
RFID, and then bill them afterwards for the sessions they actually
attended. This approach might also cut down on people using sessions
to just read email and power their computers; the terminal room might
become more popular.

I suggest the automated registration allow people to specify the
sessions they are interested in when they register, which would help
scheduling match rooms to expected attendees, and help avoid timing
conflicts.  The registration process should identify ADs and chairs
and editors, whose conflicts are more important than regular
attendees. When chairs decide what presentations will be given, maybe
they could update the registration to identify presenters, so that
could also be used for conflict resolution.  These could of course be
features in v2.0.

Can we RFID-tag the cookies so we can charge according to how many one
eats? ;-)

dbh

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On 
> Behalf Of Ole Jacobsen
> Sent: Wednesday, August 19, 2009 5:03 PM
> To: Ross Finlayson
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: One Day Guest Pass
> 
> 
> Ross,
>

---

From: "David Harrington" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:05:58 -0400

Hi,

Some social events have attendance limits. Are day-pass holders
allowed to attend the social? Do full-week registrants get preference
for social tickets? 

dbh

---

From: "David Harrington" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:12:57 -0400

If part of the purpose of the one-day pass is to let new attendees
understand how the IETF works, why don't we make attendance in the
newcomers' tutorial free - no paid attendance required, just
registration (for planning purposes).

I would rather have newcomers learn from the newcomers' training than
from attending (and trying to participate in) sessions on a one day
pass, with no newcomers' training.

dbh

---

From: Alexey Melnikov <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:33:07 +0100

>registration (for planning purposes).
I think this is a good idea.

---

From: Lars Eggert <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2009 16:55:40 +0200

Hi,

On 2009-8-21, at 16:01, David Harrington wrote:
> attend (plus a base fee).
...
> This approach might also cut down on people using sessions

I think this would be bad. I don't want to make it harder for people  
to attend WGs, I want to make it easier. The nice thing with a flat  
fee is that you can just go to a WG you don't normally attend to see  
what they're about.

I do agree with what I think you intend to achieve here: creating a  
lower-latency interaction channel for the folks who actually came  
prepared to *work* at a meeting. Long distances to the mike and seats  
of rows make that currently very hard. Some rooms at the venue in  
Stockholm were particularly bad.

One half-baked proposal that a few of us discussed was to go back to  
the seating system we had in place a few years back, i.e., only sit in  
the first n rows if you have read the docs and are prepared to work.  
Actually, the proposal was even more radical: Put a conference table  
(rectangular seating) with omni mikes on it at the front of the room  
for those who come prepared to work, and leave "spectator seating"  
with the regular floor mikes for everyone who is observing. You could  
even set up some useful remote attendance system for the smaller  
conference table, which we never really figured out how to do for  
larger settings.

That seating change would go hand-in-hand with another proposed  
change, namely, elimination of 10-minute "here's what's changed from  
-0x to -0x+1" talks with no useful purpose. Have the WG decide before  
a meeting which are the top issues to work through at the meeting,  
each issue gets 30 minutes for discussion, i.e., you get 2-5 issues  
per session depending on the slot length.

I may go pitch this to some TSV chairs to see if we can experiment  
with this in Hiroshima...

Lars

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2009 11:49:49 -0400

> fee is that you can just go to a WG you don't normally attend to see  

I strongly agree with Lars on this one. I do not want the IETF to  
become like an Hospital in the USA, where you don't know what the  
actual bill is until some time after you leave.

Regards
Marshall

> prepared to *work* at a meeting. Long distances to the mike and  
> seats of rows make that currently very hard. Some rooms at the venue  
> in Stockholm were particularly bad.
>
> the seating system we had in place a few years back, i.e., only sit  
> in the first n rows if you have read the docs and are prepared to  
> work. Actually, the proposal was even more radical: Put a conference  
> table (rectangular seating) with omni mikes on it at the front of  
> the room for those who come prepared to work, and leave "spectator  
> seating" with the regular floor mikes for everyone who is observing.  
> You could even set up some useful remote attendance system for the  
> smaller conference table, which we never really figured out how to  
> do for larger settings.
>
> -0x to -0x+1" talks with no useful purpose. Have the WG decide  
> before a meeting which are the top issues to work through at the  
> meeting, each issue gets 30 minutes for discussion, i.e., you get  
> 2-5 issues per session depending on the slot length.
>
> Lars_______________________________________________
> Ietf mailing list
> [email-masked]

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2009 11:57:25 -0400

> I think this is a good idea.

+1 from me, unless it creates so many attendees we have to limit  
attendance. Those are problems we want to have...

Marshall

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2009 12:24:26 -0400

On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 04:55:40PM +0200, Lars Eggert wrote:

> That seating change would go hand-in-hand with another proposed change, 
> namely, elimination of 10-minute "here's what's changed from -0x to 
> -0x+1" talks with no useful purpose. Have the WG decide before a meeting 
> which are the top issues to work through at the meeting, each issue gets 
> 30 minutes for discussion, i.e., you get 2-5 issues per session depending 
> on the slot length.

FWIW, we aimed to do this in DNSEXT in SE, going so far as to
eliminate the slot for "WG status" reports.  We sent an update to our
mailing list before the meeting, and solicited discussion in the
meeting (but got none).  The result was that 15 minutes that in the
past had been devoted to administrivia was freed up for substantive
discussion.

I think Chairs could help greatly just by directing presenters not to
outline changes between versions unless there is actually something
still controversial about the change.  It's all supposed to be
confirmed on the mailing list anyway.  Apart from not boring the
people who actually came prepared to work (since they'll already know
about the differences), this strategy could also serve to shorten the
required time for meetings, which might then reduce the number of
slots needed, which would possibly reduce some of the scheduling
trouble.  I look forward to the future day when there is an experiment
to shorten the Friday schedule, ending sessions at lunch time.

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]
Shinkuro, Inc.

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:30:40 -0400

--On Friday, August 21, 2009 11:57 -0400 Marshall Eubanks
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>>> If part of the purpose of the one-day pass is to let new
>>> attendees understand how the IETF works, why don't we make
>>> attendance in the newcomers' tutorial free - no paid
>>> attendance required, just registration (for planning
>>> purposes).
>>> 
> +1 from me, unless it creates so many attendees we have to
> limit attendance. Those are problems we want to have...

Let me extend the suggestion a bit, although I'm happy to leave
the decision as to how many of these experiments to layer on
each other in a given meeting to the IESG and IAOC:

If someone buys a day pass --for any day of the week-- admission
to the newcomer's tutorial session, any other sessions that they
can get into on Sunday, the Sunday reception unless there are
serious sponsor constraints, and both plenaries are free.   If
our goal is to show "day" attendees how we work and integrate
them into the community, we should give them as much chance as
possible to be exposed to those sorts of activities and the
informal contacts they permit.

Note that this is almost independent of whether the newcomer's
tutorial session should be free for someone who does _not_ buy a
day pass.  I'm not certain if that was what David was suggesting
or not.  I can probably argue it either way, but I've generally
found that things work out better if people have to make at
least some investment (other than of time) rather than having
things be completely "free".  So, if someone doesn't get at
least a day pass, I'd be happier if we charged a nominal (even
if only $10 - $20) fee for registration for the tutorial than
just open the doors.

    john

---

From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2009 13:08:54 -0700

+1

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

---

From: Doug Barton <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 2009 14:18:08 -0700

> informal contacts they permit.

For your own safety I'd like to suggest that if you are not already
sitting down that you do so now. Also, please clear your mouth of any
food or beverage related items.

I am in agreement with John Klensin (up to this point anyway). :)

> if only $10 - $20) fee for registration for the tutorial than

I disagree here. I think that opening the newcomer's session and (if
the host is agreeable) the reception on Sunday to all comers would
have way more benefits than costs. Of course we would have to
capitalize on all those fresh bodies by having registration open and
suitable promotional materials for both full and one-day registration
prominently (yet tastefully) displayed.

I think I understand at least some of the issues regarding how we got
to this point regarding registration fees and their relationship to
the organization's funding model. But whether we agree with that
particular status quo or not I don't think anyone could argue against
the ideas that the current costs are (and have been) creating a
barrier to entry that we would like to avoid, and secondly that we
need to attract "new blood" if we're going to survive.

Kudos to whoever came up with the day pass idea, and I look forward to
hearing more about the experiment after Hiroshima.

hth,

Doug

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 2009 19:38:03 -0400

--On Sunday, August 23, 2009 14:18 -0700 Doug Barton
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>...
> So, if someone doesn't get at

> I disagree here. I think that opening the newcomer's session
> and (if the host is agreeable) the reception on Sunday to all
> comers would have way more benefits than costs. Of course we
> would have to capitalize on all those fresh bodies by having
> registration open and suitable promotional materials for both
> full and one-day registration prominently (yet tastefully)
> displayed.

Doug,

I think that the ability for active participants in the IETF to
get into the reception and even eat is fairly important,
probably more important than encouraging first-timers and
visitors.  I hope that you would agree with that, even though we
would both prefer to have no restrictions in that regard.

What caused my suggestion for a nominal fee and some sort of
preregistration (which that fee would imply) was a vision of the
IETF meeting in a location with nearby college campuses and the
possibility of signs (possibly put up by third parties)
advertising the reception and noting "free food" and, depending
on the location and sponsor "free beer".  I leave the rest to
your imagination.

      john

---

From: Doug Barton <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 2009 18:47:15 -0700

> would both prefer to have no restrictions in that regard.

I definitely agree that if I pay for IETF I want my shot at the dried
out chicken wings, yes. :)  FWIW I'm not trying to minimize your
concerns, which I think are valid. I simply think that reasonable
minds can differ on the cost/benefit analysis.

> on the location and sponsor "free beer".  I leave the rest to

Well, you seem to have a darker view of human nature than I do, and
that's saying something. There are ways to solve both problems I
think, such as setting aside the first 30 minutes for paid
participants and opening the doors wide after that.

In any case I don't want to overengineer the social events. I
personally think that we should use the golden rule. Whoever pays the
gold for the event gets to make the rules.

Regardless of where we come out on the socials I think it would be
good to have some kind of consensus on opening the newcomer session
and the plenaries, at minimum to those who pay for day passes (and IMO
for all comers). There's only a little over 2 months till Hiroshima,
so it would be nice to have a settled policy on this soon-ish so that
people can make their plans appropriately.

Doug

---

From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 11:06:31 +0200

On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 01:56:17PM -0700,
 Alexa Morris <[email-masked]> wrote 

...
> While you will be given the option to "opt out" of this experiment when 
> you register for the meeting, we sincerely hope you will participate.

Any statement somewhere explaining what will be done with the data?
Since you talk about "electronic blue sheets", I assume there will be
many sensors, at least one per room so, in theory, the readers may be
able to gather a lot of data about attendees.

---

From: Ray Pelletier <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:37:29 -0400

All;

Let me offer a suggestion for which we would like to receive quick and  
constructive feedback so that the opening of the IETF 76 registration  
will not be delayed.

One Day Pass Program

A person may purchase a One Day Pass to attend any one day of the IETF  
Meeting for $200.

Benefits of the One Day Pass:
1. Attend all sessions during any one day of the Meeting, and partake  
of the food and beverage during the breaks that day
2. Day can be selected during online registration, but can be changed  
onsite without penalty
3. Payments may be made onsite without a late fee
4. Pass can be upgraded to a full Meeting Registration, however, late  
fee may apply if initial Pass payment not made before Early Bird  
deadline (Note: Intended to discourage gaming the system)
5. Attend Sunday Tutorials at no additional charge
6. Attend Sunday Welcome Reception at no additional charge
7. Attend Wednesday and Thursday Plenaries at no additional charge
8. Purchase a ticket 4 - 5 PM on Tuesday to attend the Host's Tuesday  
evening Social, if tickets are available

Ray
IAD

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:48:25 -0400

All of this works for me.

Marshall

On Aug 24, 2009, at 2:37 PM, Ray Pelletier wrote:

> All;
>
> Let me offer a suggestion for which we would like to receive quick  
> and constructive feedback so that the opening of the IETF 76  
> registration will not be delayed.
>
> One Day Pass Program
>
> A person may purchase a One Day Pass to attend any one day of the  
> IETF Meeting for $200.
>
> 1. Attend all sessions during any one day of the Meeting, and  
> partake of the food and beverage during the breaks that day
> 2. Day can be selected during online registration, but can be  
> changed onsite without penalty
> 4. Pass can be upgraded to a full Meeting Registration, however,  
> late fee may apply if initial Pass payment not made before Early  
> Bird deadline (Note: Intended to discourage gaming the system)
> 8. Purchase a ticket 4 - 5 PM on Tuesday to attend the Host's  
> Tuesday evening Social, if tickets are available
>
> Ray
> IAD
>

---

From: David Morris <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 11:57:49 -0700 (PDT)

Me too ... this nicely covers the concerns I've expressed earlier.

On Mon, 24 Aug 2009, Marshall Eubanks wrote:

>> constructive feedback so that the opening of the IETF 76 registration will 
>> not be delayed.
>> 
>> One Day Pass Program
>> 
>> 1. Attend all sessions during any one day of the Meeting, and partake of 
>> the food and beverage during the breaks that day
>> 4. Pass can be upgraded to a full Meeting Registration, however, late fee 
>> may apply if initial Pass payment not made before Early Bird deadline 
>> (Note: Intended to discourage gaming the system)

---

From: Doug Barton <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 12:07:04 -0700

> evening Social, if tickets are available

I agree with all of this except that I would s/may/will/ in item 4.

Thanks for taking the community feedback into account and acting so
quickly on this Ray. I look forward to hearing how well it works!

Doug

---

From: "David Harrington" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:00:38 -0400

Looks good to me.

I have concerns about #6, since it is fairly common that we run light
on food during the reception. And if there are limits on the
reception, then I think it reaosnable to favor those who paid for the
full week. But I can support the experiment.

Will One Day Pass first-timers be invited to the First-Time Attendees
reception as well?

dbh 

> Behalf Of Ray Pelletier
> Sent: Monday, August 24, 2009 2:37 PM
> To: Doug Barton
> Cc: John C Klensin; 'IETF-Discussion'
> Subject: One Day Pass Proposal was Re: One Day Pass for newcomers
> 
> All;
> 
> partake

---

From: Ray Pelletier <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:13:27 -0400

> Will One Day Pass first-timers be invited to the First-Time Attendees

If they self-identify as First Timers they will be invited.

Ray

---

From: Lars Eggert <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 22:40:54 +0200

Hi,

looks good.

I have one (probably stupid) question: who checks this and how? Will  
we use different colored paper for the name tags for different days?  
Will the secretariat patrol the hallways? Or is the abuse angle  
something that we don't think is a realistic issue?

Lars

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:46:20 -0400

> something that we don't think is a realistic issue?

I think that this will be largely on the honor system.

Obvious suggestions are to print each day's pass on colored paper  
and / or to print the date of
validity on the pass.

I would not want to be the man who takes the last available cookie  
with an expired day pass.

Regards
Marshall

>> and
>> IETF

---

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:47:43 -0400

> something that we don't think is a realistic issue?

RFID -> alerts to Ops.

---

From: "James M. Polk" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:21:04 -0500

I think this doesn't address the concern about having a meeting 
agenda done before anyone needs to make travel adjustments.  Quite 
simply having the agenda done the week before any meeting in the past 
30 makes any flight or hotel booking adjustments laughable.

This pressure to have a more robust agenda will be amplified greatly 
by those that count on sessions being on any one given day (say, on 
that provided on any version of a draft agenda) -- and will possibly 
explode some individuals when any session *they* wanted to go to gets 
moved off their day of choice.

I don't see this mentioned in Ray's proposal -- though I don't have a 
good suggestion to solve this, as many things go into getting the 
agenda done early, even though its availability hasn't delivered it 
any earlier.

James

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 17:53:07 -0400

On Aug 24, 2009, at 5:21 PM, James M. Polk wrote:

> simply having the agenda done the week before any meeting in the  
> past 30 makes any flight or hotel booking adjustments laughable.
>
> explode some individuals when any session *they* wanted to go to  
> gets moved off their day of choice.
>
> I don't see this mentioned in Ray's proposal -- though I don't have  
> a good suggestion to solve this, as many things go into getting the  

These are valid observations, but I don't see that they affect the  
current day pass proposal. We plan to allow freedom to change the pass  
at will. While I would love to be able to change airline policy to  
match, I don't think they will listen to the IETF on this issue.

Regards
Marshall

---

From: Bob Braden <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:36:53 -0700

Ray,

My concern about your One Day Pass experiment is that the Hiroshima 
meeting is a particularly bad venue for the experiment. Japan is a 
lovely country, but it is half way around the world for the US and 
Europe. I cannot imagine anyone enduring the pain of endless hours on an 
airplane, plus the hassle of international travel, for one day at IETF.

Bob Braden

---

From: "Adrian Farrel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 23:44:18 +0100

Bob,

It may not have been you're intention, but your comment sounds a little odd.

Are there no people who live in Japan?

Cheers,
Adrian
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bob Braden" <[email-masked]>
To: "Ray Pelletier" <[email-masked]>
Cc: "'IETF-Discussion'" <[email-masked]>
Sent: Monday, August 24, 2009 11:36 PM
Subject: Re: One Day Pass Proposal was Re: One Day Pass for newcomers

> meeting is a particularly bad venue for the experiment. Japan is a lovely 
> country, but it is half way around the world for the US and Europe. I 
> cannot imagine anyone enduring the pain of endless hours on an airplane, 
> plus the hassle of international travel, for one day at IETF.
>
> Bob Braden
>

---

From: Bob Braden <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:50:31 -0700

> Are there no people who live in Japan?

Of course, that is why I specified the US and Europe. There is obviously 
a large potential attendance from Asian/Pacific Rim countries, for which 
my concern does not apply.  It still seems like a concern to me.

Bob Braden

> 
> Cheers,
> Adrian
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bob Braden" <[email-masked]>
>> Europe. I cannot imagine anyone enduring the pain of endless hours on 
>> an airplane, plus the hassle of international travel, for one day at 
>> IETF.
>>
>> Bob Braden
>>

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 18:55:51 -0400

On Aug 24, 2009, at 6:50 PM, Bob Braden wrote:

> Of course, that is why I specified the US and Europe. There is  
> obviously a large potential attendance from Asian/Pacific Rim  
> countries, for which my concern does not apply.  It still seems like  
> a concern to me.
>

This has been under discussion for a while and it has to start  
somewhere; in my opinion any meeting is about as a good a place to try  
the experiment as any other.

Regards
Marshall

>>> My concern about your One Day Pass experiment is that the  
>>> Hiroshima meeting is a particularly bad venue for the experiment.  
>>> Japan is a lovely country, but it is half way around the world for  
>>> the US and Europe. I cannot imagine anyone enduring the pain of  
>>> endless hours on an airplane, plus the hassle of international  
>>> travel, for one day at IETF.
>>>
>>> Bob Braden
>>>

---

From: Doug Barton <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:17:03 -0700

> airplane, plus the hassle of international travel, for one day at IETF.

That concern is equally valid for those in Asia for any IETF held in
!Asia. There are at least 2 obvious benefits of this proposal.

1. Encourage participation from people in the local area who would
otherwise never be able to attend IETF in person.
2. Expose people in the local area to the value of attending IETF in
person so that they are more likely to travel to a future IETF
(whether they then choose to attend the whole conference or not).

Both of those benefits are equally valid regardless of the value of
"local area" that the meeting happens to be held in.

Doug

---

From: Fred Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:27:51 -0700

Agreed. Also, we know of some other groups that have tried it and the  
place didn't burn down, and we are told that Japan specifically is a  
place that really appreciates the option for Japanese locals.

---

From: Ray Pelletier <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 20:43:58 -0400

On Aug 24, 2009, at 7:27 PM, Fred Baker wrote:

> Agreed. Also, we know of some other groups that have tried it and  
> the place didn't burn down, and we are told that Japan specifically  
> is a place that really appreciates the option for Japanese locals.
>

Concur.  I anticipate this will only be attractive for locals, but  
each region will have its opportunity
in turn.

Ray

---

From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 18:09:29 -0700 (PDT)

Bob,

It's honestly not intended for "you and me", but for locals.

Ole

Ole J. Jacobsen

On Mon, 24 Aug 2009, Bob Braden wrote:

> 
> Ray,
> 
> My concern about your One Day Pass experiment is that the Hiroshima meeting is
> a particularly bad venue for the experiment. Japan is a lovely country, but it
> is half way around the world for the US and Europe. I cannot imagine anyone
> enduring the pain of endless hours on an airplane, plus the hassle of
> international travel, for one day at IETF.
> 
> Bob Braden
>

---

From: Joel Jaeggli <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 20:59:34 -0700

Marshall Eubanks wrote:
> I would not want to be the man who takes the last available cookie with
> an expired day pass.
> 

While I'm always shocked by the extend to which all ietf organizational
discussions eventually revolve around either fod or ipr, if someone
goes without in Hiroshima it's because they somehow missed the uniformly
ubiquitous distribution of convenience stores and vending machines in
urban centers.

---

From: Joel Jaeggli <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 21:25:22 -0700

> match, I don't think they will listen to the IETF on this issue.

Bear in mind that we change schedules and cancel meetings
right up to and during the ietf week. There likely is an element of risk
associated with planning on being there for one or very few meetings
that is no different than was previously present. local attendees are
less handicapped in this regard.

---

From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:15:28 +0200

On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 11:06:31AM +0200,
 Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]> wrote 
 a message of 17 lines which said:

> Since you talk about "electronic blue sheets", I assume there will
> be many sensors, at least one per room so, in theory, the readers
> may be able to gather a lot of data about attendees.

OK, the complete lack of answer is in itself a good indication. I will
opt out.

---

From: Alexa Morris <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 05:55:44 -0700

Stephane,

My apologies, I actually thought that I'd responded to this.

Handheld readers will be passed around the meeting rooms, much as the  
clipboards are now (and still will be). Individuals will swipe their  
card through the reader and pass it on. Once collected, the data will  
be used as the current Blue Sheet data is used, that is, to respond to  
subpoena requests for attendance at different sessions typically  
issued during a dispute over intellectual property. At the moment, we  
are planning to print out a copy of the electronically obtained data  
and store it with the regular blue sheets, then keep the source file  
with the rest of our electronic archives.

The data collected consist solely of an individuals full name and  
company/organization affiliation. We are not collecting email address  
information on the e-blue sheets.

Alexa

-----------

---

From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:22:36 -0700 (PDT)

Stephane,

Chill out, it's an experiment. The details are yet to be worked out, 
but for instance it COULD be used to identify the person at the mike 
which would be good for the minutes and good for the Jabber scribe.
WIDE has used it for such in the past. A *possible* use would be to
automate the blue sheet data collection, but there are NO PLANS AT 
THIS TIME to replace the paper version. This is an EXPERIMENT.

Ole

Ole J. Jacobsen

---

From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:27:32 -0700

At 5:55 AM -0700 8/31/09, Alexa Morris wrote:
>The data collected consist solely of an individuals full name and company/organization affiliation. We are not collecting email address information on the e-blue sheets.

Please note that you are now also collecting information that *is not* on the current blue sheets, namely "company/organization affiliation". I have noted that some people I know who have signed a blue sheet before me have used personal email addresses while (I assume) their badge lists their actual "company/organization affiliation". As a person with multiple company/organization affiliations, I sometimes change the email address I put on the blue sheets to be the one most appropriate to the topic of the WG.

It is a bad idea to have this experiment create combined blue sheets that have data that differs depending on the collection method. There are probably a dozen WGs in the IETF who have had this problem come back and bite them on their collective backsides during protocol development or, unfortunately, after their protocols have deployed.

Please strongly consider having the readers record exactly what the current blue sheets record, or change the blue sheets to record what the readers are recording for this meeting. The first of these two will most likely cause less revolt.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

---

From: Steve Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:56:05 -0400

I won't be in Hiroshima and won't be able to participate nor will I be  
able to opt-out, so I don't have a personal stake in this and am  
commenting only as an interested observer.

As has been noted, this won't be an absolutely clean, seamless  
replacement of the blue sheets.  The list of possible downsides is  
already growing, e.g. privacy issues, inflexibility in choosing which  
email address to use for each working group, and I won't be surprised  
if the list grows a bit.  At the same time, the list of possible new  
capabilities is also growing, e.g. identifying the speaking at the  
microphone.

This sort of discussion is similar to other settings that are  
introducing electronic versions of previously manual processes, e.g.  
in the health care industry.  Let me offer a point of view and a  
suggestion.

Point of view: Rather than thinking of the RFID chips as serving to be  
simply a direct replacement of the blue sheets, take as a given that  
this will be a new and somewhat different technical foundation with  
some positives and some negatives.  The blue sheets also had positives  
and negatives, e.g. the cost and pain of storing them, the difficulty  
and cost of reading them, their legal status and retention policy,  
etc.  Look at the RFID chips from a fresh perspective, not solely as  
an automation of the blue sheets.

Suggestion: As noted above, similar issues apply in other settings.   
This community has an opportunity to tackle the interplay of  
technology and social policy issues that affect itself far more  
cogently and efficiently than most communities do.  Let's grasp the  
nettles and see if we can work through the issues in a sensible and  
rational way.  Do we need a privacy policy regarding the information  
collected?  If so, let's create one.  Do we need access controls on  
the information?  If so, let's create them.  Do we need an ability to  
edit information that's been collected if it's inaccurate?  If so,  
let's build it.  Do we need more flexibility in the information stored  
in the record, e.g. a distinct email address for each working group?   
If so, let's add it.

Steve

On Aug 31, 2009, at 12:27 PM, Paul Hoffman wrote:

>> company/organization affiliation. We are not collecting email  
>> address information on the e-blue sheets.
>
> Please note that you are now also collecting information that *is  
> not* on the current blue sheets, namely "company/organization  
> affiliation". I have noted that some people I know who have signed a  
> blue sheet before me have used personal email addresses while (I  
> assume) their badge lists their actual "company/organization  
> affiliation". As a person with multiple company/organization  
> affiliations, I sometimes change the email address I put on the blue  
> sheets to be the one most appropriate to the topic of the WG.
>
> It is a bad idea to have this experiment create combined blue sheets  
> that have data that differs depending on the collection method.  
> There are probably a dozen WGs in the IETF who have had this problem  
> come back and bite them on their collective backsides during  
> protocol development or, unfortunately, after their protocols have  
> deployed.
>
> Please strongly consider having the readers record exactly what the  
> current blue sheets record, or change the blue sheets to record what  
> the readers are recording for this meeting. The first of these two  
> will most likely cause less revolt.
>
> --Paul Hoffman, Director
> --VPN Consortium

---

From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:59:22 -0700 (PDT)

Paul,

The reason this is an EXPERIMENT is exactly to find out 
what/how/where/when information needs to be collected to
be useful for the IETF.

So, I can well imagine that we could have a "alias" or "identity" 
field that would represent exactly what you put on the bluesheet
and THIS is the information that would be collected. It might get
complicated if you have numerous aliases that you use for different 
working groups etc, but anyway, all of this is a matter of 
programming. I am going to assume (without having looked at the 
details) that the RFID card can hold a lot of information.

I am going to suggest that we, with the help of WIDE, start a 
discussion list where some of these details can be ironed out.

Cheers,

Ole

Ole J. Jacobsen

---

From: "Lawrence Rosen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 10:08:53 -0700

Paul Hoffman wrote:
> There are probably a dozen WGs in the IETF who have had this problem come 
> back and bite them on their collective backsides during protocol
development 
> or, unfortunately, after their protocols have deployed.

Can you give examples of how providing "company/organization affiliation"
has caused bites to the backside during protocol development/deployment?
Were the bites well-deserved?

/Larry

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Paul
Hoffman
Sent: Monday, August 31, 2009 9:28 AM
To: Alexa Morris
Cc: IETF-Discussion
Subject: Re: Important Information about IETF 76 Meeting Registration

Please note that you are now also collecting information that *is not* on
the current blue sheets, namely "company/organization affiliation". I have
noted that some people I know who have signed a blue sheet before me have
used personal email addresses while (I assume) their badge lists their
actual "company/organization affiliation". As a person with multiple
company/organization affiliations, I sometimes change the email address I
put on the blue sheets to be the one most appropriate to the topic of the
WG.

It is a bad idea to have this experiment create combined blue sheets that
have data that differs depending on the collection method. There are
probably a dozen WGs in the IETF who have had this problem come back and
bite them on their collective backsides during protocol development or,
unfortunately, after their protocols have deployed.

Please strongly consider having the readers record exactly what the current
blue sheets record, or change the blue sheets to record what the readers are
recording for this meeting. The first of these two will most likely cause
less revolt.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

---

From: Brian Rosen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 13:04:07 -0400

I like this thought quite a bit.

I see the RFID thing as being a good idea in concept, and we need to work
through how to use it most effectively.

In this specific case, I think we treat the tag as an identifier, and allow
the user to decide what the data associated with this identifier should be.

After all, you can write whatever you please on the blue sheets.

I personally would not have a problem if the name was immutable, but I could
see giving up on that.

Suppose there was a website where you could, either before, during, or after
the event, indicate, per session, what you want on the electronic blue
sheet.  The swipe was the token that enabled the content of the website data
to be copied.  Establish a time limit (5 days after the session maybe) to
freeze the content, do the mapping, and delete the website data.

Brian

---

From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 10:18:10 -0700

>Were the bites well-deserved?

Sorry, I hope that others reading my message understood it better. By "this problem" I meant the bit just before what you quoted: "data that differs depending on the collection method". A few examples would be IDNs collected from DNS responses vs. user input, MIME headers that get "fixed" in various transports, IP addresses that differ depending on which side of the NAT you collect them, and so on.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

---

From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 10:21:15 -0700

>what/how/where/when information needs to be collected to

No need to go all-caps on me, dude. :-) I used that word in my response in the way it was intended.

>discussion list where some of these details can be ironed out.

Excellent!

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

---

From: Dave CROCKER <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 10:41:26 -0700

> what/how/where/when information needs to be collected to

a reasonable goal.

nothing has been offered to indicate that this will do that.

there is a tendency in the IETF to confuse data with information.

merely doing something differently doesn't mean that it teaches anything useful.

this will produce some data -- and it's not entirely clear even what that will 
be -- but no indication of what analyses can be done with it to tell us anything 
useful.

d/
-- 

   Dave Crocker
   Brandenburg InternetWorking
   bbiw.net

---

From: Dave CROCKER <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 10:44:13 -0700

Steve Crocker wrote:
> this will be a new and somewhat different technical foundation with some 
> positives and some negatives.  The blue sheets also had positives and 
> negatives, e.g. the cost and pain of storing them, the difficulty and 
> cost of reading them, their legal status and retention policy, etc.  
> Look at the RFID chips from a fresh perspective, not solely as an 
> automation of the blue sheets.

The blue sheets have an established legal role.  There's no indication that 
there is a problem with the information that is obtained, for this role.

They are to be replaced by something that does not provide the same information.

What is the basis for believing they will satisfy the established job for the 
blue sheet?

What do we do if we find that they fail in this primary use?

d/
-- 

   Dave Crocker

---

From: "Lawrence Rosen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 10:50:29 -0700

Paul Hoffman wrote:
> Sorry, I hope that others reading my message understood it better.

Paul, I still don't understand. The first sentence in your original email
was:

> Please note that you are now also collecting information that
> *is not* on the current blue sheets, namely 
> "company/organization affiliation".

I thought that was the "problem" to which you were alluding. And my question
remains: Is there any evidence that participants in IETF should not provide
their company/organization affiliation when they participate? Is there
something to hide?

I appreciate and respect the following comment, also in your email:

> As a person with multiple company/organization affiliations, I sometimes 
> change the email address I put on the blue sheets to be the one most 
> appropriate to the topic of the WG.

But that is not an excuse to provide no affiliation whatsoever, if you have
one (or many). 

Also, what is the "revolt" you are expecting in your email? I've reread this
entire thread about "IETF  76 Meeting Registration"  and can't figure out
who or what you find revolting about meeting registration data being
collected by IETF?

I'm sorry if I'm just being dense.

/Larry

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Hoffman [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Monday, August 31, 2009 10:18 AM
To: Lawrence Rosen; 'Alexa Morris'
Cc: 'IETF-Discussion'
Subject: RE: Important Information about IETF 76 Meeting Registration

>Were the bites well-deserved?

Sorry, I hope that others reading my message understood it better. By "this
problem" I meant the bit just before what you quoted: "data that differs
depending on the collection method". A few examples would be IDNs collected
from DNS responses vs. user input, MIME headers that get "fixed" in various
transports, IP addresses that differ depending on which side of the NAT you
collect them, and so on.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

---

From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 10:57:48 -0700 (PDT)

On Mon, 31 Aug 2009, Dave CROCKER wrote:

> 
> 
> Ole Jacobsen wrote:
> > The reason this is an EXPERIMENT is exactly to find out what/how/where/when
> > information needs to be collected to
> > be useful for the IETF.
> 
> 
> a reasonable goal.
> 

Right, but of of course this hasn't stopped anyone from jumping on 
this and saying it's a bad idea etc.

> there is a tendency in the IETF to confuse data with information.

This is a technology that is being offered by our HOST. The original 
idea expanded beyond the meeting, the card would work on trams, buses
and subways. For various reasons that isn't going to happen, but I 
think you will find a lot of "cool stuff" being demonstrated here,
let's just leave it at that for now.

> merely doing something differently doesn't mean that it teaches anything

There is no obligation to participate in the experiment or observe the 
cool use of the technology.

> be -- but no indication of what analyses can be done with it to tell us
> anything useful.

This isn't something the IAOC came up with as a policy or a bluesheet 
replacement, it is merely a technology demonstration. If all it leads 
to is some DISCUSSION about what/how we might use it in the future, 
then it will have achieved something.

---

From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:01:15 -0700 (PDT)

> They are to be replaced by something that does not provide the same

NO, NO, and NO again. They aren't being replaced by anything, we are 
running an EXPERIMENT.

> What is the basis for believing they will satisfy the established job for the

Nobody is talking about replacing the bluesheets with RFID cards.

> What do we do if we find that they fail in this primary use?

Maybe I should get some sleep before I flame you for such blatant 
mis-information :-)

---

From: Dave CROCKER <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:02:00 -0700

> then it will have achieved something.

oh.  we'll still have the blue sheets?

as a parallel exercise, it sounds dandy.

d/

-- 

   Dave Crocker

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:40:24 -0700

>in the health care industry.  Let me offer a point of view and a

[snip]

>in the record, e.g. a distinct email address for each working group?

I think that the above covers the larger issue.  This is not the 
usual IETF experiment.  It is a social experiment.

There was a time when the IETF was a trend-setter.  We can take the 
view where the IETF only "publishes" technical specifications and it 
cannot influence how the technology is used.  Or we can take this 
opportunity to understand the social impact of the technologies.  We 
have all heard the argument "it's only the 'bad' people who should 
have something to fear about".

The bluesheet is a piece of paper which is used as an attendance 
sheet for Working Group sessions.  It would take some work and time 
to aggregate the information or do data mining on it.  That's one 
advantage (or disadvantage) of paper records.  With the advent of 
information technology, it takes less time to aggregate information 
stored in digital form.  The e-bluesheet system uses a "tag-reader" 
where we still have a manual process to "sign" (or avoid signing) the 
attendance sheet.

The following is unrelated to the existing e-bluesheet experiment.

Let's go one step further.  Imagine the entire floor space 
criss-crossed by scanners that can pick a RFID tag 
automatically.  That is, we can pinpoint the participants in a room 
or hallway and collect information about "social clusters" within the 
different areas.  We could identify where the I* bodies are and who 
are interacting with these people.  This is not your usual (Web 2.0) 
social network where you list your friends.  It's more than that as 
we do not have to ask you to list your interests.  We can get that 
information from our "tracking" system.  We can determine who is 
talking to NomCom.

If you want to create the above as an experiment, separate the "tag" 
IDs from the personal information about the participant.  Correlate 
the information in real-time to show the participants what can be 
done and destroy the "mapping" immediately after the end of the 
meeting.  I don't have to tell you not to use the Internet to publish 
the real-time information as you already know what will happen.

We tend to use the anonymity of the crowd as a protection.  That is 
no longer true with the technologies that are available nowadays.  We 
can identify "individuals of interest" and access information about 
them easily.

Regards,
-sm

---

From: Joel Jaeggli <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 13:13:46 -0700

SM wrote:

> I think that the above covers the larger issue.  This is not the usual
> IETF experiment.  It is a social experiment.

I'm not sure what you'd call the ipv6 hour other than a social experiment...

> There was a time when the IETF was a trend-setter.

The ietf is an organizational framework through which work is organized
and documents are published. The attendees bring the ideas and do the work.

>  We can take the view
> where the IETF only "publishes" technical specifications and it cannot
> influence how the technology is used. 

If I bring work to the IETF, it's either because I intend to benefit
from it or I intend that someone else benefit from it, while there are
other probably less noble intentions that are played out here I don't
believe that there are many people that would dispute that proposition.

> Or we can take this opportunity
> to understand the social impact of the technologies. 

There's an epistemological fallacy here since the social impact can be
know a posteri but can only be speculated on by those of us who live in
the present.

I for one am more interested some simple questions:

will it work?

what is the workflow like?

Can it be integrated into the remote/realtime participation technologies
  in fashion that has some utility?

---

From: "Tony Hain" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 15:16:36 -0700

I agree with Steve that we should look at the issues that arise, then deal
with each in turn. Let me say up front that I am sure our hosts are offering
this technology demo with an honorable intent, so we should in turn have a
respectful discussion of the issues. 

I suspect the announced placement and handling of readers will have a
significant impact on the participation rate. I was a speaker at an event a
few years back that used an rfid reader system, where the readers tracked
entry and exit times from each meeting room, as well as harvesting the badge
proximity sensors which tracked each other and relative position in the
building. I am not suggesting the offered demo has these capabilities, just
noting that they do exist. While the announced functionality of the old
non-IETF demo was to act as an e-business card for information sharing
between the participants, as well as verification of payment for access to
each session, the organizer had a much different data mining intent which
was clear to those who knew of his other sleazy dealings. Somehow my reader
was always forgotten in my room, but since I was a speaker they had to let
me in anyway. At the end of the day, knowing the distance between people
along with the period of time and where in the facility they were provides a
lot of information to people with nefarious intent. 

Clearly from the discussion about aiding remote participation there is an
intent to have a reader at each mic, and something related to the bluesheet
clipboard. If it is clear that those are the only readers, and the badges
don't track each other there is likely to be a higher level of participation
than there would be for an unstated set, or a full mesh tracking system. One
issue that comes to mind is the distance between the reader and badge for
this to work. Physical contact or a swipe would make the mic line awkward
and highlight who was participating and not, while anything more than about
25cm would unintentionally register the person who stepped in the door to
look for someone just as the clipboard passed by. I don't know how much
control they have over reader sensitivity, but the placement issue should be
resolved and announced well in advance of the meeting.

As far as data & retention policy, I would suggest that the only data
associated directly with the tag be the name, then use an out-of-band means
to allow each person to provide whatever other information they are willing
to share, including email aliases for each working group. If one use is
bluesheet emulation, then the backend can do the correlation to create the
logical equivalent. If another use is real-time mic announcement, the data
associated with that should be destroyed as soon as the wg minute taker has
published. I am sure other functionality is possible, but each should be
considered in terms of data retention and possible misuse when the access
controls break down (as they will at some point).

Tony

---

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 22:19:33 -0600

Lawrence Rosen <lrosen at rosenlaw dot com> wrote:

>> affiliation".
> I thought that was the "problem" to which you were alluding. And my 
> question remains: Is there any evidence that participants in IETF 
> should not provide their company/organization affiliation when they 
> participate? Is there something to hide?

Speaking only as an RFC author and WG participant, not as an IETF 
conference attendee, either in the past or in the foreseeable future...

I declined to state either my previous or current employer as my 
"affiliation" for either RFC 4645 or draft-4645bis, and instead listed 
myself as "Consultant," for two reasons: (1) neither employer has ever 
provided any support for my activities in the LTRU WG, and (2) a certain 
particularly ill-willed participant in LTRU had already used another 
participant's "affiliation" against him, writing to the legal department 
of that person's employer and demanding that he be professionally 
disciplined, something I didn't feel like risking for myself.

--
Doug Ewell  *  Thornton, Colorado, USA  *  RFC 4645  *  UTN #14
http://www.ewellic.org
http://www1.ietf.org/html.charters/ltru-charter.html
http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages  ˆ

---

From: Fred Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 22:41:23 -0700

Good grief.

Before we do anything specific depending on the RFID tags, we'd like  
to know whether they are useful for the stated purpose. If they don't  
give us the information we need (if they can't be relied on to be read  
correctly by the RFID reader, which records the RFID tag, which can  
later be associated with a database entry containing the information  
you gave when you registered), they can't replace the blue sheets or  
do anything else that is useful. If they are functional, we can go on  
to rehash a discussion that has happened on this list many times -  
replace the blue sheet, or do other things with it.

We're not selling your souls. We're not taking pictures of you with a  
view to putting you under a spell. We're not selling your passport  
data to witch doctors. We're not doing a whole long list of things.  
We're seeing if the RFID system in question works. Nothing more,  
nothing less.

And BTW, the blue sheet gave a key (your email address) that could be  
associated with the information you gave when you registered, or could  
be looked up in google to find other interesting things about you.

Chill Out.

Go ahead and opt out. PLEASE opt out if you you can't deal with  
technology that might change - as all IETF technology does over time.  
Leave Alexa out of this.