Subject: Re: Is IAB MarNEW workshop transparent enough?

From: IAB Chair <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 19 Sep 2015 13:36:29 -0400

Hi,

I wanted to acknowledge receipt of this question and tell you that the IAB is going to talk about the topic.  So I don’t have a response for you one way or the other right now, except to acknowledge that there is not currently a plan to provide a recording of the workshop or remote participation.

Best regards,

Andrew

> On Sep 18, 2015, at 15:10, Göran Eriksson AP <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Hi IAB,
> 
> 
> Next week there is the MarNEW workshop,
> https://www.iab.org/activities/workshops/marnew/.
> 
> 
> At the IETF Prague meeting, a feedback in the saag meeting was that a
> transcript was not enough and it should be possible to follow the meeting
> live remotely. Furthermore, this should be possible not only for those
> invited and who submitted a paper.
> 
> 
> But apparently there will only be a transcript from the meeting
> afterwards, supposedly in text format and not a YouTube recording from the
> meeting.
> 
> Personally I co-edited a paper and could have participated but don’t for
> personal reasons. However, the fact that only a transcript and the
> submitted papers is what is made public from the meeting is discomforting
> in my opinion. The workshop concerns user security and privacy and this
> IAB discussions about this subject should be as transparent as possible it
> would
> seem. 
> 
> Assuming there will only be a transcript, I would like to ask IAB the
> following questions:
> 
> 
> 1) Did IAB note and understand the feedback at the saag meeting?
> 2) If IAB did, why still only a transcript?
> 3) Is it IAB’s view that this was a special type of workshop, something
> only done once and therefore an exception or is this the IAB view of how
> workshops in general should be performed in the future?
> 
> 
> I would appreciate if IAB would be able to share their views on this, for
> instance at the next IETF meeting in Yokohama.
> 
> 
> Best Regards
> Göran Eriksson
> 
> <default.xml>

---

From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2015 10:34:12 -0700

Thanks for your comment, Göran.

I think we should let the IAB figure out what they want
to do here.

I just wanted to up-level the discussion a bit and make
two observations. The first one is that some of the things
we discuss at the IETF - including many IAB workshops -
are generally interesting. Interesting not just for my
colleague who cannot make it there, but interesting
to many people, and discuss topics that may have impacts
to lots of people. It is natural that there is interest, and
that interest is a sign of success in picking up the right
topics to discuss.

The other observation is that event organisers often
struggle with the practical tradeoffs, and it is fair to note
that there are downsides (equipment, passing mics etc).
Personally, I think the trouble is worth it almost always,
unless it really is impossible to set it up, which can of
course happen occasionally. I would also like to add that we
have a lot of running code on opening up meetings that have
some sensitive discussions. The IAB workshops sometimes do
benefit from being able to discuss, e.g., ongoing security
vulnerabilities in my network or something else that I
wouldn’t necessarily want to tell everybody openly.
But as an example, the IESG telechats are open for
anybody to listen in, but in case we need to discuss,
 e.g., personnel issues we will have an executive session.

Anyway, in short, a big +1 from me on making workshops
as visible to the interested parties as possible.

Jari

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2015 07:56:45 +1200

On 21/09/2015 05:34, Jari Arkko wrote:
...
> as visible to the interested parties as possible.

I hope we all agree with that. But I have some sympathy with the organizers.
Some of the best workshops I have attended (in terms of effective discussion
and results) were run in a way that would make remote listening and viewing
pretty much useless. Breakout sessions, huddles round a whiteboard, and genuine
free-form discussion simply don't make good television.

    Brian

---

From: Göran Eriksson AP <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2015 19:10:41 +0000

Hi IAB,

Best Regards
Göran Eriksson

---

From: Ted Hardie <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2015 09:01:14 -0700

On Fri, Sep 18, 2015 at 12:10 PM, G
​​
öran Eriksson AP <[email-masked]> wrote:

> live remotely.

​Hi G​​öran,

I was not in saag last time because of a conflict, so I missed the feedback
there.  Can you summarize why it being followed live was considered
crucial?  As it stands, the papers for the workshop are already available,
the presentations will be, and the transcript will give the discussion.
Given that, I'm wondering what data exactly you feel will be missing from
the record.

regards,

Ted Hardie

---

From: Ted Hardie <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2015 14:39:20 -0700

Hi G​öran,

​Thanks for the additional context​.  Some further thoughts in-line.

On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 12:53 PM, G
​​
öran Eriksson AP <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Hi Ted,
>
> I’ll try my best to describe the comments made. I will also separately
> outline personal reflections on this matter:
>
> 1. Comments during the meeting.
>
> As the MarNEW workshop was presented, there was a question about the
> possibility to participate remotely. One answer give was that to
> participate, one had to submit a paper and the organisers had not
> considered remote participation for those who had gotten papers accepted.
>
> A response to this was a question how those who had not submitted a paper
> ​ ​
> could follow since the subject as well as the opinions and statements of
> ​ ​
> participants, i.e the discussion itself, is of interest for many.
>
> The response was that a transcript will be made public after the meeting.
>
>
​So, just to be clear, we are focused in this discussion on the second
question--how to follow what was said, rather than remote participation.

2. Personal reflections
>
>
> What data will be missing of course depends on how accurate and detailed
> the transcript will be. You probably know the plans for the MArNEW
> transcript better than I, :-).
>
>
​Actually, I'm not on the program committee for this one, but for SEMI, you
can see the output here:

https://www.iab.org/wp-content/IAB-uploads/2015/02/26-01-2015_minutes.txt
and
https://www.iab.org/wp-content/IAB-uploads/2015/02/27-01-2015_minutes.txt.
It tells you who said what and in reference to which topic, though you need
some ability to cross-reference ​
​with the presentations and the attendee list. It is pretty close to a
blow-by-blow, though there is some compression going on.

One could assume that especially relevant in this case are opinions of
> different stakeholders.
>
> Personally, I can understand the difficulty in enabling live TV broadcast
> of such an event as well as near impossibility to cover fully the
> discussions in smaller teams, breaks and similar that often takes place in
> this type of tet-a-tet’s.
>
>

​The level of difficulty is pretty variable, depending on the format of an
event.  For a series of presentations, it may be relatively easy, since you
are asking a single presenter to wear a mic and have a single camera
angle.  For a robust discussion, it is much, much more difficult.  In the
worst cases, the discussion and exchange gets sufficiently subordinated to
the mechanics that things don't move as they could (chiefly by making the
discussion pause while the camera and mic catch up). ​

(As an aside, I have never seen a workshop inside or outside of the IETF
where the breaks were covered by mics and/or cameras.  I'm not sure whether
that it is because of its difficulty or the social norm that these times
are for informal social interactions).

However, I think it is of value for both IETF and GSMA to go that extra
> mile in this case to ensure “data” is open.

> It is quite likely that that
> is the intent  and plan of both IAB and GSMA but it is not evident from
> the information available so far, which is why I felt a need to put the
> question(s).
>
> ​Thanks again for your careful consideration of this.  While I don't speak
for the IAB, I believe the IAB and GSMA are striving to find the best
balance between enabling the discussion at the workshop and making sure
that the workshop and its results are appropriately public.  Your input on
that will certainly be heard.

regards,

Ted Hardie
(as an individual, not for the IAB)

​

> Göran

---

From: Göran Eriksson AP <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2015 19:53:12 +0000

>I was not in saag last time because of a conflict, so I missed the
>feedback there.  Can you summarize why it being followed live was
>considered crucial?  As it stands, the papers for the workshop are
>already available, the presentations will be, and the transcript
> will give the discussion.  Given that, I'm wondering what data exactly
>you feel will be missing from the record.

Hi Ted,

2. Personal reflections

However, I think it is of value for both IETF and GSMA to go that extra
mile in this case to ensure “data” is open. It is quite likely that that
is the intent  and plan of both IAB and GSMA but it is not evident from
the information available so far, which is why I felt a need to put the
question(s).

Best Regards
Göran

---

From: "Joe Hildebrand" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2015 11:49:31 -0600

> the information available so far, which is why I felt a need to put 

I'm very much in listening mode on this discussion at the moment, trying 
to form an opinion driven by the community consensus.  Toward that end, 
I have a question about your proposed approach.

 From a logistics point of view, considering that this workshop is being 
organized by folks without having asked for a the major corporate 
sponsorship (however, thank you to AT&T for providing the room for 
MaRNEW!) that would be required for multiple cameras, a crew to operate 
them, and enough space, power, and cooling for all of that equipment to 
coexist with the participants (effectively a good-sized TV studio), with 
none of the organizers being video production people --  how would you 
go about getting a stream of high enough quality to matter to the 
interested parties?  I'm really not trying to say "no" with this 
question, I'm hoping you have an answer that we can use at a future 
workshop.

I'm also worried about the negative impact to the conversation that 
would ensue from putting folks on camera that have sound architectural 
ideas but are not used to speaking in public or don't have English as 
their first language, so hopefully your approach will be unobtrusive 
enough that the people in the room can more-or-less forget that they are 
being streamed.  We achieve that at IETF meetings by constraining the 
conversation to fixed camera positions, with a team of folks that can 
reposition cameras when necessary.  However, for an in-person 
architecture discussion, the friction that this approach adds has the 
potential to impact the technical work to the point of making the 
discussion a waste of time.

I have some other concerns, but I think the might be able to be worked 
through if there is a logistical approch that is feasible in the real 
world.

-- 
Joe Hildebrand