Subject: On attending BoFs

From: "Murray S. Kucherawy" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2011 13:06:00 -0700

I've been encouraged to say this to a wider audience, so here I am.

A BoF is the IETF's tool for gauging interest in a new topic and a potential working group charter.  This doesn't just mean a showing of people that would track this work if it were to begin, but really the main purpose is to determine the level of commitment to do the work, which includes things like counting people willing to review and comment on documents, people willing to act as editors, potential implementers, and perhaps potential co-chairs.

When we ask for a BoF room, we need to give an indication of estimated attendance.  Sometimes it's hard to make a good guess and so we underestimate, intending to keep larger rooms available for groups that need them.  As a result, the BoF room is packed.  But when it's packed with what have come to be known as "tourists", those people that could be counted as committed to the work can't even get into the room, which jeopardizes the creation of an otherwise viable working group.  I suspect I can safely say Dave Crocker would categorize this as an unintentional denial-of-service attack on the new work.

And it's certainly not friendly to the work that's trying to get started by filling a seat in a room "because it's warm."

Perhaps in the future this should be mentioned to BoF attendees before the meeting really gets going.  I certainly plan to do so for future BoFs that I run or at which I present.

Thanks,
-MSK

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From: "Dan Wing" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2011 16:23:59 -0400

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of
> Murray S. Kucherawy
> Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2011 4:06 PM
> To: IETF discussion list
> Subject: On attending BoFs
> 
> A BoF is the IETF's tool for gauging interest in a new topic and a
> potential working group charter.  This doesn't just mean a showing of
> people that would track this work if it were to begin, but really the
> main purpose is to determine the level of commitment to do the work,
> which includes things like counting people willing to review and
> comment on documents, people willing to act as editors, potential
> implementers, and perhaps potential co-chairs.
> 
> 
> 
> When we ask for a BoF room, we need to give an indication of estimated
> attendance.  Sometimes it's hard to make a good guess and so we
> underestimate, intending to keep larger rooms available for groups that
> need them.  As a result, the BoF room is packed.  But when it's packed
> with what have come to be known as "tourists", those people that could
> be counted as committed to the work can't even get into the room, which
> jeopardizes the creation of an otherwise viable working group.  I
> suspect I can safely say Dave Crocker would categorize this as an
> unintentional denial-of-service attack on the new work.
> 
> 
> 
> And it's certainly not friendly to the work that's trying to get
> started by filling a seat in a room "because it's warm."
> 
> 
> 
> Perhaps in the future this should be mentioned to BoF attendees before
> the meeting really gets going.  I certainly plan to do so for future
> BoFs that I run or at which I present.

You're going to ask attendees to self-identify as tourists and leave
the room?  Today's tourists may well become tomorrow's document 
editors.

BoFs are IETF's tchotchkes.  People like new things.  As an example,
Homenet is a new WG (not a BoF), and was well attended (every seat
filled, people sitting on the floor, and standing).

Let's just assign large enough rooms to BoFs and newly-formed WGs
so that the work can start in earnest.

-d

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From: Barry Leiba <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2011 16:35:15 -0400

> the room?  Today's tourists may well become tomorrow's document
...
> so that the work can start in earnest.

I agree.  If people are there paying attention, I want them there.
Lots of people don't know whether they're going to commit to doing
work until the end of the BoF, after they've heard all the stuff about
problem statement, work scope, and proposed work items.

I'd rather just make sure we have rooms that are big enough, and leave
it at that.  BoFs tend to be artificially busy because people like
those tchotchkes -- people are interested in seeing what the new
proposals are about.  Let's not discourage that, but feed it.

Barry

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From: Peter Saint-Andre <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2011 16:37:18 -0400

On 7/28/11 4:06 PM, Murray S. Kucherawy wrote:

> attendance.  Sometimes it’s hard to make a good guess and so we
> need them.

I think the BoF chairs and responsible ADs need to request larger rooms
for BoFs. After the REPUTE BOF, I talked with the Secretariat
(specifically Wanda Lo, who does an amazing job with the schedule!)
about poking the chairs and ADs when they request BoF rooms to make sure
that we don't assign small rooms to BoFs, at least without careful
consideration.

Peter

-- 
Peter Saint-Andre
https://stpeter.im/

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From: Eric Burger <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2011 19:10:11 -0400

+$1.00

Have we ever had a BOF that looked under-attended? Not me: always standing room only!

Big rooms = good BOF.

On Jul 28, 2011, at 4:37 PM, Peter Saint-Andre wrote:

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

---

From: Mark Nottingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2011 16:11:34 -0700

... and if the room isn't full, that's interesting information too.

--
Mark Nottingham   http://www.mnot.net/

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2011 19:17:34 -0400

> Have we ever had a BOF that looked under-attended? Not me: always standing
I would also argue that you want "BOF tourists." They might turn into
participants. They also might point out
things like overlap with previous work in the IETF or some other SDO.

Regards
Marshall

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From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2011 22:01:39 -0400

And do you really only want people in the room who already know the
issues and have decided to be for or against it?  If you already have
so many of them, you don't need a BOF at all, just take a hum and be
done. The main purpose of a BOF is to present. Information to the
community so they can decide if the IETF should adopt the work.

---

From: Eric Burger <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2011 00:12:49 -0400

Just for the record: we want big rooms!

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From: Riccardo Bernardini <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2011 10:10:48 +0200

2011/7/28 Barry Leiba <[email-masked]>

> problem statement, work scope, and proposed work items.

+1.  So far I came only to one IETF meeting.  At that time I attended (as a
"tourist," as you would call it) to a couple of BoF.  My motivation for
attending was that the BoF title sounded close enough to my interests and I
wanted to know something more about it. I could not say if I was willing to
be committed in contributing in the next-to-be WG by the title (and maybe a
brief abstract) only.  Keep also in mind that, although I participate as an
individual, I have an employer and I am not entirely free to decide if
contributing in some WG or not.  (If you are curious: it turned out that one
BoF was fairly orthogonal to my interests, while the other one was
sufficiently close so that I subscribed to the WG ML and spread the word
with few of my colleagues that are more interested in the matter).

Riccardo

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From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2011 06:04:09 -0400

I seem to recall having sometimes seen the chair reserve the front of the 
seating for people who claim to have read the drafts.

d/