Subject: Re: Last Call: <draft-eggert-successful-bar-bof-05.txt> (Considerationsfor Having a Successful "Bar BOF" Side Meeting) to Informational RFC

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 17:40:31 -0500

I have been looking at various revisions of this draft since -00. I'm glad 
Lars did the first version during IETF 77, and I'm glad that Lars and 
Gonzalo kept working on it.

I think it's important guidance for the community. I think it's on the right 
track. I think it could reasonably be published in its current form.

I have some suggestions.

Frivolous: I TOTALLY get the "don't call it a Bar BOF" thing. I've also seen 
the confusion that results from any sentence that includes the words "Bar 
BOF", and it might even be worth pointing out that even IESG members and IAB 
members drop the "Bar" in conversations from time to time, especially during 
IETF week, resulting in even more confusion. "Side Meeting" could work, but 
it covers a lot more than the kind of "pre-charter planning meetings" you 
guys are talking about for most of the document, and you have access to a 
community of thousands of creative people - could you think of a better 
name? If the search space you're dealing with requires references to 
alcohol, just ask Hadriel Kaplan for a suggestion. He came up with MARTINI 
... :D

More seriously: We're now more than two years into the implementation of the 
RAI DISPATCH process, and RAI DISPATCH has a lot to do with "bringing new 
proposals" into RAI. It seems odd that there's no guidance specific to RAI 
DISPATCH, especially because the current revision also talks about working 
group "ad hoc" meetings, which RAI DISPATCH often uses. It might be helpful 
to mention something about the RAI DISPATCH process - either in this 
document, or in another that deals specifically with working group "ad hoc" 
meetings. And, actually, the discussion of working group "ad hoc" meetings 
seems to have parachuted into the last paragraph of Section 2, with little 
in the title or abstract that would lead anyone to suspect that it might be 
hiding there ... so maybe moving it to its own, very small, document would 
be helpful.

Minor suggestions:

In Section 2, there's a discussion of "tourists". It might be helpful to 
distinguish between the times when you WANT "tourists" - when you're asking 
the entire IETF community for input - and the times when you DON'T - when 
you're trying to wordsmith a charter, etc. The text describes the second 
case nicely; I'm just suggesting that you you include a sentence on the 
first case, and say "you need to hear from the entire community at the right 
time, but your side meeting probably isn't the right time".

Also in Section 2, where you give the "don't count bodies" warning, you 
might also add that people come to meetings about proposals for new work 
just to make sure that the proposal isn't going off-track in ways they care 
about - and if it's not, that's fine, they aren't interested in DOING the 
work, so they disappear. So the area directors know not to count them as 
"interested", too.

Somewhere in Section 2, it would be worth noting that collecting large 
groups of people in "side meetings" tends to result in larger proposed 
working group charters, which makes it harder to get chartered. The IESG has 
not had a problem with charters that were too limited in scope coming out of 
side meetings, at least not since I joined the IAB ...

Section 3 contains this text:

   Many routinely say "yes" to every
   incoming request as long as there are meeting rooms available (and
   there are typically lots of meeting rooms available).

I'm betting that the parenthetical should be "available, outside of normal 
working group meeting slots".

Section 3 contains a sad tail of woe about an area director being trapped in 
a hotel for a few days during IETF 77, but I'm thinking area directors are 
going to be trapped in hotels for a few days during IETF weeks, whether 
there are side meetings scheduled during meals or not.

There might be a few points conflated here - (1) my understanding is that 
most area directors are trying to dodge "side meetings", because the very 
presence of an area director signals "gee, Gonzalo came, he must be 
interested, and if he's interested, he'll approve us as a working group 
soon!" - if the area directors ARE dodging side meetings, you might say 
that, so everyone has realistic expectations; (2) "if you schedule a side 
meeting during a meal break, everyone there will be missing a meal unless 
you go to a restaurant like we told you", and (3) "if you schedule a side 
meeting that looks like a BOF during a meal break, you won't fit into most 
restaurants, so have a small side meeting and go to a restaurant like we 
told you" :-)

In Section 4, when you're describing the problems of holding side meetings 
that are indistinguishable from IETF working group meetings, you might 
include the point that we've seen situations where people think the work has 
already been chartered, even making press announcements about that. No one 
makes the same mistake when you meet in a restaurant!

Also in Section 4, where you say

   Finally, some organizers may find
   the process to apply for an official BOF too complex, and so decide
   to simply mimic one.

I don't think complexity has anything to do with it - some people request a 
BOF, get turned down, request an IETF working group meeting-style "side 
meeting", and have the same meeting they had been planning with the same 
agenda they had put toether in the same room where the BOF would have been 
held. I think it's worth saying that ...

In Section 6 on IPR, it might be useful to point out that these side 
meetings are building support for your proposal, and the right time to tell 
your potential supporters about IPR is NOT after they support you and the 
working group has been chartered ... it's great to observe the rules, but 
it's even better if you know that not observing the rules *fails*.

Also in Section 6, this text doesn't parse for me:

   Informally, the above makes it appropriate, in order to provide a
   pointer to the relevant policies, to announce the "Note Well" text
   [NOTEWELL] in all such meetings.

and I think the problem is that I don't understand what "Informally" means 
in this context.

---

From: Peter Saint-Andre <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 13:11:14 -0600

On 8/15/11 4:40 PM, Spencer Dawkins wrote:
> I have been looking at various revisions of this draft since -00. I'm
> glad Lars did the first version during IETF 77, and I'm glad that Lars
> and Gonzalo kept working on it.
> 
> I think it's important guidance for the community. I think it's on the
> right track. I think it could reasonably be published in its current form.
> 
> I have some suggestions.
> 
> Frivolous: I TOTALLY get the "don't call it a Bar BOF" thing.

Keeping with the natural human tendency to fixate on the frivolous, I'll
take the bait.

"Hey boss, I need to go to the IETF meeting in Taipei, we're holding a
BoF about Technology X." "Is that a real BoF or a bar BoF?" "Just a BoF,
you'll authorize the travel, right?"

"We're holding a BoF this week on Technology X." "Sounds interesting,
but I don't see it on the schedule. Is that a real BoF or a bar BoF?"
"It's a bar BoF, but sorry, no bar!"

"Mr. AD, we deserve to have a BoF about Technology X. We've already held
two bar BoFs so it's time for the real deal. You'll approve the request,
right?"

Etc.

Worst of all, usually there's no bar involved at all! :)

Peter

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

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 04:38:16 -0400

I think this is a nice document, with many useful suggestions
and insights.  I think it would make a great ION if we still had
IONs, a fine IESG statement, or perhaps an I-D that was reissued
every 5 1/2 months to keep it active.  The more I think about
it, the less I like the idea of publishing it as an RFC.

The problem is that RFCs are forever.  RFCs subjected to IETF
Last Call and published in the IETF Stream --especially ones
that advise on IETF processes-- are also official, at least in
the sense of representing some level of community consensus and
IESG approval.  Publishing this document in the RFC Series runs
a considerable risk of causing (or at least reinforcing) exactly
the situation the it argues against -- creating a permanent
structure of meetings for which "informal" is as much of a
misnomer as "bar BOF" has become.

I also note that we hold, or try to hold, a lot of "side
meetings" that don't fall anywhere on the "Bar BOF" - "pre BOF
or pre Charter" spectrum.  They include some directorate
meetings, ADs meeting with WG Chairs, WG Chairs meeting with
authors, various design team meetings, extra IAB, IESG or IAOC
meetings, meeting related to parts of the RFC Editor function,
and so on for what is probably a rather long list.  Those
meetings draw on the same resources as the types of meetings
discussed in the document and those resources are not unlimited.

Let me give two examples of the problem with the understanding
that there are more:

	* If we have an official-looking, cast-in-RFC-stone,
	discussion of what "success" means for an informal
	meeting, it means that the IETF has established success
	criteria for a meeting type that we simultaneously claim
	is not part of the WG-formation or consensus processes.
	One really can't have it both ways and, in that sense,
	the document reinforces the "first you need a mailing
	list, then a Bar-BOF (sic) or two, then a "real" BOF (or
	two), ..." trend.
	
	* The draft says "Quiet restaurants are not hard to find
	and many offer private dining rooms..." (Section 3,
	paragraph 2).  Well, that depends on the venue.  We've
	certainly met in places where quiet restaurants _are_
	hard to find (at least anywhere near the meeting
	location) and in places (not necessarily the same ones)
	in which the number of private dining rooms near the
	meeting location is not nearly sufficient to accommodate
	the number of side meetings (see extended definition
	above) that people want to hold.  If anyone wants to add
	whining about how the IAOC didn't choose a venue with a
	sufficient nearby supply of quiet restaurants with
	private dining rooms to the regular cycles of complaints
	about venue choices, this document's recommendations
	would be a good place to start.  

	Presumably we don't want to put the IESG or the
	Secretariat into the business or allocating, or
	refereeing, priorities for informal meeting spaces
	either... but, again, that is exactly the direction in
	which this draft seems to take us.

Again, this doesn't make the draft any less useful as good
advice; it merely argues against publishing it as an RFC,
especially in the IETF Stream.

If the IESG wants to stop the worst parts of the problem, it
needs to verify community support and then put its collective
foot down.  IMO, any of the following would be of help:

(1) Set an application cutoff for allocations of IETF space for
pre-charter informal meetings before the cutoff for BOF
requests, thereby eliminating one issue that does not appear to
be mentioned in the I-D: use of Bar-BOFs by people who couldn't
get their acts together to make a timely and satisfactory BOF
request.

(2) Just say "no".  Once upon a time, we had a relatively strict
rule against any IETF-related open (or semi-open, or publicly
announced)  meetings in the IETF venue unless those meetings
were either on the agenda or a formal IETF group.  That was in
the time when Bar-BoFs (and Bar-Design-Teams, and
Bar-other-things) were held in Bars, with Bar-sized groups, and
those were not considered meetings of any type.   We could do
that again -- forcing pre-charter meetings into other venues
would at least reinforce the message that they weren't WG
meetings of unchartered WGs.

(3) Get rid of the "two BOF" rule, replacing it with criteria
that simply made it harder to get a BOF approved, and harder to
get a WG proposal taken seriously, the more face to face
meetings it took to get it organized.   One of the causes of "WG
in disguise"-style pre-charter meetings appears to be a
combination of fear of hitting the two BOF limit and deciding to
hold regular meetings despite not being able to get a WG charter
or BOF proposal together that would satisfy the IESG.

(4) Make it clear that any claims of consensus arising from an
informal meeting would not only be ignored, but would cause BOF
or WG proposals from the leadership of that information meeting
to be discarded on the grounds that the people were clueless and
incapable of working within the IETF.   Taking these "unofficial
BOF" discussions seriously merely reinforces their misuse.

best,
   john

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 21:14:53 -0700

>misnomer as "bar BOF" has become.

What's problematic is saying that the document represents IETF 
Consensus as it is going to misinterpreted and end up encouraging an 
IETF trilogy.  It wouldn't be the authors' fault; it's more about no 
longer having an appropriate path for publishing well-written 
documents such as draft-eggert-successful-bar-bof.

>         list, then a Bar-BOF (sic) or two, then a "real" BOF (or

This is where the FYI would have been useful.  The document discusses 
about an IETF matter, Bar BoFs without drinks [sic].  Publishing it 
in another stream would be a "political" decision.  Explaining how to 
hold informal meetings formalizes such events.  With the "Note Well" 
(Section 6), the meeting is far from an informal one.

I suggest removing Section 6 as that topic is BCP material.

>meetings of unchartered WGs.

Yes.

>BOF" discussions seriously merely reinforces their misuse.

Yes.

At 15:40 15-08-2011, Spencer Dawkins wrote:
>Section 3 contains a sad tail of woe about an area director being 
>trapped in a hotel for a few days during IETF 77, but I'm thinking 
>area directors are going to be trapped in hotels for a few days 
>during IETF weeks, whether there are side meetings scheduled during 
>meals or not.

Area Directors could find some peace by pushing these meetings 
outside confined IETF space.

>you might say that, so everyone has realistic expectations; (2) "if 
>you schedule a side meeting during a meal break, everyone there will 
>be missing a meal unless you go to a restaurant like we told you", 
>and (3) "if you schedule a side meeting that looks like a BOF during 
>a meal break, you won't fit into most restaurants, so have a small 
>side meeting and go to a restaurant like we told you" :-)

Yes.

Fred Baker once raised a concern about "a lack of regard for people's 
health and time".  He suggested having a web page entitled "Poorly 
Planned Meetings" for them.  Dave Crocker  pointed out that even with 
the excellent title suggested, the web page will move these 
activities down the slippery slope of formality.

Melinda Shore commented on an extreme example, the clouds thing, 
where they wanted a working group before they even had anything to 
work on.  Jelte Jansen mentioned that if you make it more official, 
you'll only extend the process, which will result in another level of 
meetings, and even fuller schedules.  Paul Hoffman mentioned that 
"the number of scheduled-but-ad-hoc BoFs that had fleshed-out ideas 
but no drafts was distressing".  Peter Saint-Andre pointed out that 
"the number of WG sessions (which are ostensibly scheduled for the 
purpose of "working") in which folks have not read the drafts or
otherwise prepared themselves to actively contribute is also 
distressingly high".

Yoav Nir mentioned "formalizing that a bunch of people throwing ideas 
around (the "true" bar BoF) is not a good thing".  Joel Halpern 
mentioned a suggestion that was made to him: part of the problem is 
that some folks can not figure out how to socialize their ideas.

Regards,
-sm