Subject: Accessibility of IETF Remote Participation Services

From: IETF Administrative Director <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2013 12:06:37 -0700

From: [email-masked]
Subject:  Accessibility of IETF Remote Participation Services

For more than a decade, the IETF has tried to make it easier for remote 
attendees to participate in regular and interim face-to-face  meetings.   The 
current tools that the IETF has been using, as well as the state of remote 
participation services in the IETF was summarized by the IETF Chair in a 
message to the IETF-Announce list on 5 February 2013:
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg77020.html

Section 1 summarizes the current remote participation system: 

   The IETF's current remote participation system ("RPS") consists of a
   outbound real-time audio stream for each session carried to remote
   attendees over HTTP, textual multi-user chat carried over XMPP
   (commonly called Jabber), and posting of slides prior to the WG
   session so that they can be downloaded from the IETF web site.

   WebEx and Meetecho are experimentally supported, offering outbound
   real-time audio stream synchronized to the slides for the remote
   participant.  Meetecho displays the Jabber Room on the screen with
   slides, and it can also be used to replay the audio and slides from
   a recording.

As noted in Section 4 of the IETF Chair message, the IETF is currently soliciting 
suggestions for improvements in its RPS capabilities.   As part of that, the IETF 
would like to solicit feedback on the accessibility and usability of remote participation 
services by IETF participants with disabilities.  If you would like to comment on 
the accessibility and usability of IETF RPS services, please send email by July 26, 2013 to 
iaoc-rps at ietf.org, Subject: RPS Accessibility, and CC: [email-masked]. 

Bernard Aboba
Chair, IETF Remote Participation Services Committee

---

From: Abdussalam Baryun <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2013 20:45:36 +0100

As per a request I received from you
============================

Dear Bernard,

Thanks for your message. I am a remote participant that never ever came to
the IETF meetings and not sure if I would. I think my experience may help
your committee and it will help my investigation as well about the IETF
performance. I hope that your committee has some people that are remote to
IETF, so they have the feeling of our feelings.

My feedback (as you request it) can be as below:

< The below observation is owned by the sender to be used in future I-draft

1- I don't feel that some WG chairs give importance to remote participants,
maybe even presenters in IETF may not even know who is in remote. This
needs to be improved.

2- I rememebr that once while my participation, I asked about how many f2f
participants in the room agree or disagree, and I was noticed, but it will
be helpful if WG chairs are using Jabber while checking the consensus, and
say what is the situation, because I felt that the remote participants were
not checked if they agree or disagree only f2f participants.

3- I as remote participant when I enter a room I want to know how many
attending the room from both (f2f and remote), I only know how many are
remote, and I seen some f2f participants are also in remote so they can see
both sessions in the room.

4- We need more interaction from remote people than from f2f participants,
I have feeling that the attended f2f are driving the meeting, no equal
opportunity between participants

5- Some use the excuse of time limits, so remote people can easily be
excluded from time used because maybe not important in the room
discussions. Why do you get that feeling, IMHO all are equal and important,
otherwise the IETF should give all regions equal meeting times.

6- I got once an I-D and wanted to present it while I was remote, but the
IETF did not provide a way to enable me to present that I-D. I tried even
to find a person to present but no one done for me. I was excluded even
when I already done some efforts, does that mean that people who cannot
attend cannot get their I-D adopted?

7- I have many other points but would like to leave them to my future I-Ds
that when I get better time will share, but above are the main ones.

Best Regards
AB

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2013 18:12:05 -0400

>>>>> "iaoc-rps" == iaoc-rps  <[email-masked]> writes:
    iaoc-rps> As noted in Section 4 of the IETF Chair message, the IETF is
    iaoc-rps> currently soliciting suggestions for improvements in its RPS
    iaoc-rps> capabilities.   As part of that, the IETF would like to solicit
    iaoc-rps> feedback on the accessibility and usability of remote
    iaoc-rps> participation services by IETF participants with disabilities.
    iaoc-rps> If you would like to comment on

I am unclear about the question.  (I don't think AB read it through at all)

I believe that you are asking about people with disabilities such as physical
(eyes, hands, ears,) and mental (learning, dyslexia, etc.), but the subject
talks about accessibility.  They aren't exactly the same thing.

Sometimes a web site is "accessible" if it "works with any browser" rather
than IE5 in 1024x768.
Is not being willing to run unstable browser plugins a "disability"?
(or being unwilling to run an unstable operating system to run a less stable
browser...)

You have mentioned webex (which comes from a single vendor) and meetecho
(which unifies a number of IETF standards into one place) as well as the
underlying technologies.  Are you asking for *accessibility* issues with
webex (it breaks regularly for me, audio has never, ever, worked), or are you
asking about usability issues that people have with it?
I know two really smart people that never figured out how to find the
chat window on webex, or who muted themselves and were unable to unmute -- I
know that there is lots of undiagnostic austistic-spectrum people in our
community.

--
]               Never tell me the odds!                 | ipv6 mesh networks [
]   Michael Richardson, Sandelman Software Works        | network architect  [
]     [email-masked]  http://www.sandelman.ca/        |   ruby on rails    [

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

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2013 15:33:18 -0700

On 6/27/2013 12:06 PM, IETF Administrative Director wrote:
>    As part of that, the IETF
> the accessibility and usability of IETF RPS services,

To the extent that the intent is to formulate requirements, it would 
probably help to augment community comments by hiring an interaction and 
web usability and accessibility expert to review current and plausible 
capabilities.

Since the topic is a professional specialty that is not certain to be 
represented amongst IETF protocol engineers who choose to comment, it 
seems wise to ask for help from a professional.

d/

-- 
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net