Subject: Re: IETF Challenges

From: Abdussalam Baryun <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2013 13:12:58 +0100

On 03/03/2013 01:37, Melinda Shore wrote:
> On 3/2/13 2:42 PM, Fred Baker (fred) wrote:
>> I'd suggest you redo your analysis. It doesn't have a lot to do with
>> reality in the working groups I'm in.
>
> I wonder if he's basing this on the main discussion lists.  There
> actually don't seem to be that many people from Japan and China
> posting here on IETF-discuss, despite considerable activity from
> those corners of the globe on individual working group mailing lists.

I think the Internet Community of Japan and China are important to the
IETF, maybe more important challenge to attract them for IETF
purposes. I think the reason is that they my not be posting because
some replies are discouraging in IETF which means there is another
challenge for IETF.

 I still didn't leave the posting because there are good encouraging
people in IETF. Please note that I have been now one year posting and
two years before reading, and have a feeling that IETF SHOULD
encourage people from China, Japan, Africa,

AB
My Origins from Africa Internet Community

---

From: Mikael Abrahamsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2013 14:05:05 +0100 (CET)

On Sun, 3 Mar 2013, Abdussalam Baryun wrote:

> two years before reading, and have a feeling that IETF SHOULD encourage 
> people from China, Japan, Africa,

I read wg mailing lists and participate lightly in 10-20 WGs (most of them 
I follow discussions and rarely comment, some I comment more frequently). 
My background is that I started using BBSes/Fidonet in the 80ties, started 
with Linux/FOSS in the 90ties and then datacom in the late 90ties and 
onwards.

My experience is that there is a huge difference between different WGs. 
Some I have sent email to without response, then actually emailed the WG 
chair and asked if the topic of my email was within the WG scope, still no 
answer. This is an example of an WG that's hard to get into, seems 
populated by people who mostly discuss within an already established group 
and where nobody seems to bother that someone comes in with an idea to 
even give them a reply that their idea is not on topic or alike.

Some other WGs are populated by people who are very happy to respond and 
discuss to anyone who comes up with something, which is very welcoming.

I see the IETF as a meetingplace or "market" for people to gather and 
cooperate in. It's hard to encourage this more than what is done. The 
barrier for entry is quite low (I have only been to a single IETF meeting, 
the one that was in my home town Stockholm a few years back), and even 
before that to participate in a lot of WGs, it's only a matter of having 
access to email and time and willingness to participate. I can imagine 
that language and culture is one of the biggest barriers. For me, coming 
from FOSS/Fidonet discussion culture, joining the IETF was not so 
different. For others, coming from perhaps a fairly closed corporate 
climate or a country culture where hierarchy is important, I can imagine 
it's very different.

So basically, I can't really think of anything the IETF can do to 
encourage people to participate that it's not already doing. Do you have 
any suggestions?

-- 
Mikael Abrahamsson    email: [email-masked]

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From: joel jaeggli <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 03 Mar 2013 07:56:01 -0800

> some replies are discouraging in IETF which means there is another
http://www.arkko.com/tools/rfcstats/countrydistrhist.html

blue = china
grey = japan

http://www.arkko.com/tools/stats/countrydistr.html

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From: Abdussalam Baryun <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2013 21:14:44 +0100

Hi Joel,

I admit that I don't know the statistics but just replied to an
information posted that there are not much posts (discussion post, not
RFCs nor I-Ds) on this list from thoes countries. However, thanks for
your information it will help us see the challenges if we consider the
percentage of thoes contributions per the internet users in the
statistics of countries contributions to IETF.

AB

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From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 03 Mar 2013 16:51:43 -0500

>>>>> "joel" == joel jaeggli <[email-masked]> writes:
    joel> http://www.arkko.com/tools/rfcstats/countrydistrhist.html

    joel> blue = china grey = japan

    joel> http://www.arkko.com/tools/stats/countrydistr.html

The colours are alas confusing, as they are repeated.
I think the thickness is different, but I can't track to the graph.

What happened between 1972 and 1986? :-)

I'm unclear on the countrydistr.html if this is RFCs or IDs.
I'm guessing it is the same data, so it's RFCs.

-- 
Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>, Sandelman Software Works

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From: joel jaeggli <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 03 Mar 2013 14:05:56 -0800

> I'm guessing it is the same data, so it's RFCs.
data is data, the methodology an tools are described on the website.

http://www.arkko.com/tools/authorstats.html

the country dist graph I pointed to is for drafts.

there are a lot more drafts than RFC's so if you want look at the 
distribution of authorship and it's change over time there's more data 
points in the drafts.