Subject: User Services Area Report - Chicago

From: April Marine <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1998 16:05:34 -0700 (PDT)

User Services Area Report
                        42nd IETF, Chicago, IL
                             August 1998
                            April Marine

Three active working groups were held in the User Services Area (USV)
of the IETF in Chicago, IL.  The User Services Area Council did not meet.

Internet School Networking (ISN) session chaired by Jodi Ito.

ISN had a brief meeting to gauge the energy for continuing the group.
The Area Director noted that the USV momentum was toward WGs with more
focused charters than ISN has, so at the very least the group would
have to revamp the charter and come up with something more concrete.
There was some discussion of a couple of general ideas, but nothing
particularly specific emerged, so the decision was to close the group
for now.  The mailing list, [email-masked], will remain active and if
new business comes up that has a lot of support, a new effort can
certainly be spun up in the future.  The AD thanks the chair and the
group for their years of work and interest!

Site Security Handbook WG (SSH), chaired by Barbara Fraser.

The SSH working group met to finalize the last details of the User's
Security Handbook.  A discussion of the scope of the glossary and some
of its particulars was held, with enough progress made for the
editor(s) to update the current draft.  The group will have a new
draft out by the end of September for WG Last Call, then send it up to
the IESG for publication.  In particular, they wished to ensure that
the Security ADs took a look at the draft, so April will emphasize
that when it arrives.  The group will shut down after the publication
of this document, so will be closed by Orlando.

User Services Working Group (USWG) chaired by April Marine.

USWG had a productive meeting.  Progress was made in soliciting
volunteers to help update FYI4.  A general discussion was held on the
need to manage the FYI document space, i.e. what will be updated, what
will be moved to Historic status, etc.  Information was presented
regarding the latest TERENA/ISUS news, the Internet Scout's Project
Isaac, and resources for developing countries.  The heart of the
meeting was a discussion on evolving the methods used by the Area to
present information, with a call to do more dynamic formats, more
online formats, more focused presentations, and better liaison with
the other Areas.

Responsible Use of the Network (RUN), chaired by Sally Hambridge.

The RUN group did not meet in Chicago.  The first of its drafts,
<draft-ietf-run-spew-06.txt>, has been sent to the IESG for publication
consideration.  The second of its drafts,
<draft-ietf-run-adverts-00.txt>, is now the focus of the group and
will be the topic in Orlando.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
April Marine			
GLOBE Program			1-800-858-9947  --> Help Desk
NASA Ames Research Center	650-604-0762    --> me
(Raytheon ITSS)			[email-masked]

IETF User Services (USV)	http://archimedes.nasa.gov/usv/
     Area Director

---

From: April Marine <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1998 11:51:43 -0700 (PDT)

Hi Amod!  And Hi all.

Thanks for your message, and sorry to be so cryptic!

Amod has sent me a msg in private which highlighted that a new member of
this mailing list could easily get a bit lost just reading my minutes and
other messages because we tend to use terms and refer to things without a
lot of background information.  That, of course, is kind of usual for a
mailing list, but I thought I would share my response to Amod so that if
other people are swimming in the same confusion, some small bit of light
could be shed.  I'm not sure I succeeded in clarifying things, but for
what it's worth:

The charter for the working group, which explains in general terms the
scope of the group, is available on the web.  You have probably already
looked at it, as you said.  As you can see, it is a very general charter
because the USWG is an umbrella group that discusses several general items
that relate to user services, but that no home working group of their own.

USWG in general produces documents called FYI (For Your Information) RFCs,
which are a subset of the general Request for Comment series.  So the RFCs
you see listed on the USWG page are also FYIs, and the last one (RFC 1594)
is also FYI 4.  The FYI number does not change so that when a well-known
document is updated, we will always know the right FYI number, even as the
RFC number changes.  Since there are several versions now of FYI4, we tend
to use that number instead of the RFC number.  At any rate, the short
answer to your question is that FYI 4 is Answers to New Internet User
Questions, which is currently undergoing revision.  I am hoping the team
working on that revision will be posting more info soon to the general
list so that you can get a better idea of its specific contents and so you
and everyone else can provide feedback.

The other thing the group does (other than write docs) in its meetings is
sometimes hear a bit about projects going on around the net that might
pertain to our topic.  So that is why we keep in touch with TERENA
ISUS, and why other people give short talks sometimes on what they are up
to (like Project Isaac at the last meeting).  These things are general
info, collaboration opportunities, or resource updates.  

While USWG does focus on information for end users, a main component of
its focus is also information for people/groups who *support* end users,
so our audience also includes end-user support organizations.  What info
will help them support users better?  That kind of thing.

I think you probably have a good idea of what the group is about and it is
just the specifics of tying that into what we may be specifically talking
about right now that can be confusing.  I hope you will continue to
monitor the list (which I hope will be more active) and share your ideas
as they occur to you because I think you are right and that you would have
an excellent perspective on these issues that we'd love to hear.

A main focus will soon become better ways of presenting information to
users, so feedback from your perspective on what would work in your
environment would be excellent.

Thanks for taking the time to ask!

April

On Sun, 6 Sep 1998, Amod Karve wrote:

> Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1998 23:14:43 +0530
> From: Amod Karve <[email-masked]>
> To: April Marine <[email-masked]>
> Subject: Re: User Services Area Report - Chicago
> 
> Hi April,
> 
>     I have been on this group for a few days now. I had visited the IETF
> website and had enrolled to be on this working group. What I understood from
> the site was that this group was involved in creating ideas and
> methodologies to easen the process of using the internet for the end user.
> 
>     I have received a few mails via the mailing list till now but I am sorry
> to say that I could not make head or tails of it. Could you please take some
> time off and let me know as to what this group is all about and what kind of
> activities go on in this group and where could I find relevant info. (eg. I
> could not understand the term FYI4 etc.) You could consider this as a
> familarization program for a newcomer.
> 
>     As I am from India (a country that is still witnessing the internet
> boom) I think I would be in a position to understand the needs and kinds of
> problems that an average user faces here while on the net.
> 
> Hoping to hear from you
> Amod
> 
>