Subject: [vmeet] Making remote hubs more formal, more complete, and more integrated

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2017 16:20:26 -0800

Hi.

For obvious reasons, there is some renewed/increased interest in use of 
remote hubs for IETF meetings.  Although there has been quite a bit of 
activity with hubs in recent years, I believe the expectations and 
requirements for them have been kept informal (and possibly 
idiosyncratic, with each hub doing whatever locals prefer.)

If we believe we are going to be relying on the use of remote hubs more, 
we should try to clarify what services they need to provide and how 
their operation should be incorporated into the conduct of face-to-face 
IETF meetings.

By way of example...

    Should they support multiple, parallel sessions, so that different 
groups of hub participants can 'attend' different, parallel sessions?

    Should the interaction between hub participants and participants at 
the 'main' venue be subject to particular procedures/style?

Thoughts?

d/
-- 

   Dave Crocker
   Brandenburg InternetWorking
   bbiw.net

---

From: John Leslie <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2017 19:33:44 -0500

> idiosyncratic, with each hub doing whatever locals prefer.)

   Alas, yes.

   They attract mostly a "local" audience, often with interest concentrated
on a very few sessions. This is less than I hope we'd wish to offer to
folks that were planning to go to Chicago.

> their operation should be incorporated into the conduct of face-to-face 

   Even if we _don't_ believe that, I support such a goal.

> groups of hub participants can 'attend' different, parallel sessions?

   Yes!

   Clearly, not all remote-hubs _can_ do that; but it's not particularly
hard for even the smallest university.

> the 'main' venue be subject to particular procedures/style?

   Yes; but who _can_ enforce that?

   I have experienced sessions where nobody volunteers to jabber-scribe;
and that's the end of the story. (I might as well follow a different
session, and catch up via the session recording.)

   If we arrange for a friendly jabber-scribe willing to make a fuss, I
think progress could be fairly quick. But that's not going to work as
top-down: it will have to be asking friends _before_ the session starts.

> Thoughts?

   The MeetEcho folks are our friends!!!

--
John Leslie <[email-masked]>

---

From: Alia Atlas <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2017 20:21:37 -0500

Hi Dave,

Since I see that John Leslie volunteered me to respond :-), I will give you
my thoughts so far - in a somewhat random order.  I am happy to brainstorm
and chat (or voice chat as well), if higher bandwidth is useful.

At IETF 97, I learned that Karen O'donoghue & Christian O'Flaherty are
working on the operationalization of IETF Hubs.  I have some discussion in
to have with them - but I don't think we've adequately connected yet, so
please understand that I probably have a different perspective and approach.

At IETF 95 in BA, the IESG did discuss having IETF hubs and was generally
in favor of encouraging them, via community/bottom-up organization.  We did
discuss trying to be proactive in clearing away organizational hurdles and
providing basic support.

As far as existing hubs go, I know that Christian has been involved in
Remote Hubs.  In addition, there is an IETF Hub in Bangalore (
[email-masked]), but I don't see much traffic on that list and
an IETF Hub in Boston ([email-masked]).  I also have a request
for a mailing list  for an IETF Hub in Northern Virginia, but I want to
connect fully with Karen & Christian before getting that set up.  There's
also an [email-masked] for coordinating in-country activity
in India.

I really do believe that what is right depends very much on the geography
and how experienced in the IETF the interested folks are.

I would like to add some nuance to the description of IETF Hubs and
distinguish between the activity of being an IETF Remote Hub for one or
more WG meetings during an IETF meeting and being an IETF Community Hub.
A Community Hub is trying to build a semi-permanent community connected to
IETF through a variety of activities (social, technical talks, remote hubs,
etc.).

Let's talk briefly about what is necessary for a Remote Hub and some of the
associated challenges.

1) A physical location for the meeting.   Since an IETF Meeting has about 8
parallel sessions, trying to truly provide access to all of the sessions
would mean at least 8 different conference rooms.

2) Limited attendance and interest:  A particular geography is unlikely to
have folks interested in every WG - and perhaps not even more than 1.

3) Split Community:  Many active IETFers are off attending the physical
IETF meeting, which leaves those who can't go to attend the Remote Hub.
Sometimes that works fine - where there are folks who are well connected
into the IETF and can explain things as needed and yet don't attend all the
physical meetings - and sometimes it can leave an experience gap in the
room.

4) Inconvenience of time-zone: Very few people are interested in getting up
in the middle of the night to drive even 30 minutes to sit in a conference
room by themselves or with a couple other folks - and have the needed
participants for conversations be physically elsewhere.

Now, with all that said, my understanding is that having a Remote Hub with
at least one organizer that focuses on a small number of WGs for which
there is significant local interest can work well.  It combines best with
some social interaction (cookies equiv - going out to lunch/dinner/etc. )
and sometimes some introductory talks.

In the Boston area, Ravi Torvi from Juniper has organized Remote Hubs for
IETF 95 & 96 and is planning to again for IETF 98.  The time-zone
difference for IETF 97 was just too much.  The WGs covered tend to be
routing related, due to the interest of folks at Juniper.  Attendance has
varied, but rarely has more than a couple people who aren't usually at that
Juniper facility and has generally not had more than 10 people.  He has
tried having a social dinner one evening after a session and that has had a
bit more variety of attendance.  He hasn't tried having
additional/different talks.

In the Boston IETF Hub, we have and continue to be trying a few different
things.
   1) We have a couple organizers (Rich Salz and myself) and are looking
for more.
   2) Social interactions:  We've had a couple purely social get-togethers
- for dinner and to celebrate a retirement.   We are planning (but not
organized yet) that another social lunch or dinner should happen during
IETF 98.
   3) Technical talks: We have had two sessions of technical talks that are
related to IETF work and then followed by a social dinner for those
interested.  These seem to be quite successful based on feedback,
willingness of folks to present, and animated conversation.  Rich is
organizing the next session (planned for Feb 21) and it will be focused on
privacy and security.  We are trying this to see if having a focus topic is
popular.

Figuring out how to do effective outreach is and remains a challenge.  I am
sure that with help and focus that will improve and that's my primary hope
and concern at this point - beyond wanting another person or two to help
with the organization.

I realize that's a lot of background to give flavor and context to my
response to your questions.

On Sun, Jan 29, 2017 at 7:20 PM, Dave Crocker <[email-masked]> wrote:

> requirements for them have been kept informal (and possibly idiosyncratic,
> with each hub doing whatever locals prefer.)
>

I strongly believe that what works for each geography and group of people
is different.  While I would like to see a slightly higher amount of
formality - like a well-known wiki that lists the various hubs and their
coordinators and gives each hub its own wiki page and mailing list if
desired - I don't see a lot of formality as yet appropriate.

If and as Hubs become more solid, then we have to think about
organizational considerations - such as the management of the coordinators,
how selecting, mentoring, and removing them works, and so on.  There are
also likely to be various IOAC-level considerations to think about.

> we should try to clarify what services they need to provide and how their
> operation should be incorporated into the conduct of face-to-face IETF
> meetings.
>

Personally, I think that we are relying on remote participation and
continuing to improve MeetEcho is great and useful.  I'd  recommend taking
a quick read through
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-manycouches-completely-virtual-meetings/
as
well.   I just don't think that we will have sufficient density of
participants in any particular WG in any particular geography to have the
meaningful conversations not take place via MeetEcho - and I'm not very
comfortable with a split conversation anyway.

There are already a number of interactions that WG Chairs have become
accustomed to for MeetEcho and I think that they mostly generalize
regardless of whether there is one person/remote room or more than one.

>    Should the interaction between hub participants and participants at the
> 'main' venue be subject to particular procedures/style?
>

We've talked repeatedly about having a virtual queue that everyone gets
into - local and remote, but there are concerns around impacting the speed
and interactivity of the in-person interactions too.  Let me turn it around
- what do you see as being needed beyond what we had at IETF 97?

Regards & thanks for reading this far too long email,
Alia

> _______________________________________________
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>

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2017 20:25:15 -0500

--On Sunday, January 29, 2017 19:33 -0500 John Leslie
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>...
>    They attract mostly a "local" audience, often with interest
> concentrated on a very few sessions. This is less than I hope
> we'd wish to offer to folks that were planning to go to
> Chicago.

John, please keep in mind that we ultimately all participate as
individuals.   I'm very much in favor of remote hubs where they
work and meet local needs, but we should do nothing that weakens
the ability of people to participate remotely from their own
offices or desktops.    In particular...

>> If we believe we are going to be relying on the use of remote
>> hubs more,  we should try to clarify what services they need
>> to provide and how  their operation should be incorporated
>> into the conduct of face-to-face  IETF meetings.
> 

Yes, but, again, not at the expense of individual participation
for those for whom the hubs are either not convenient or don't
meet their needs.

>> By way of example...
>...
>>     Should the interaction between hub participants and
>>     participants at  the 'main' venue be subject to
>> particular procedures/style?
> 

Enforcement aside, that is where I start getting worried because
I don't want to see three classes of participation in which
those who participate remotely as individuals are at the bottom
of the heap.   We have enough difficulties now without changing
a two-mode problem into a three mode one.  See below.

>    I have experienced sessions where nobody volunteers to
> jabber-scribe; and that's the end of the story. (I might as
> well follow a different session, and catch up via the session
> recording.)
> 
>    If we arrange for a friendly jabber-scribe willing to make
> a fuss, I think progress could be fairly quick. But that's not
> going to work as top-down: it will have to be asking friends
> _before_ the session starts.

Probably, but I'm not sure I understand what you are talking
about.  Jabber scribes serve multiple purposes.   If you are
talking about the "run to microphone and read something someone
remote manages to type it", it doesn't scale well independent of
any other issues (such as whether there is a Jabber scribe and
how much attention he or she is paying to remove comments).  

Meetecho's rather elegant queue management facilities should be
a big help with that and, used properly, should scale at least
as well as microphone lines in meeting rooms (and integrate with
them).  However, to be effective, those facilities require that
WG Chairs understand the importance of remote participation and
treat remote participants in a fair and balanced way relative to
people in the room.  That is partially an education problem and
partially an attitude one; neither this list nor mtgvenue can
solve either.

>    The MeetEcho folks are our friends!!!

Definitely.

best,
    john

---

From: Paul Kyzivat <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2017 21:34:25 -0500

On 1/29/17 8:21 PM, Alia Atlas wrote:

> Let's talk briefly about what is necessary for a Remote Hub and some of
> the associated challenges.
>
>     1) A physical location for the meeting.   Since an IETF Meeting has
>     about 8 parallel sessions, trying to truly provide access to all of
>     the sessions would mean at least 8 different conference rooms.
>
>     2) Limited attendance and interest:  A particular geography is
>     unlikely to have folks interested in every WG - and perhaps not even
>     more than 1.
>
>     3) Split Community:  Many active IETFers are off attending the
>     physical IETF meeting, which leaves those who can't go to attend the
>     Remote Hub.  Sometimes that works fine - where there are folks who
>     are well connected into the IETF and can explain things as needed
>     and yet don't attend all the physical meetings - and sometimes it
>     can leave an experience gap in the room.
>
>     4) Inconvenience of time-zone: Very few people are interested in
>     getting up in the middle of the night to drive even 30 minutes to
>     sit in a conference room by themselves or with a couple other folks
>     - and have the needed participants for conversations be physically
>     elsewhere.

I concur with all of the above. I don't see how these are likely to be 
overcome.

	Thanks,
	Paul

---

From: John Leslie <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2017 11:15:43 -0500

I see three new emails here on <vmeet>. I intend a reply to each; but
Alia is going to get short-changed until perhaps tomorrow. :^(

> IETF through a variety of activities (social, technical talks, remote hubs,

   I suggest that existing Community Hubs are nonetheless an obvious
place to look when you need a Remote Hub...

> would mean at least 8 different conference rooms.

   Not true.

   IMHO, a Remote Hub needs "at least one" conference room. If that means
groups have to fight it out for which group gets that conference room for
a particular session, so be it!

   But a Remote Hub _does_ need a place for attendees to individually
participate in whatever sessions look interesting. This require bandwidth
and power for a laptop. Audio can be via earphones with attached microphone.
Ideally, there would be a "neutral backdrop" for using the built-in camera.

   (I have declined to attend the Boston Hub because my home office is
_so_much_better_ in that respect.)

> have folks interested in every WG - and perhaps not even more than 1.

   You make my point for #1 above.

> physical meetings - and sometimes it can leave an experience gap in the

   Fortunately, that's not the problem for Boston Hub.

> participants for conversations be physically elsewhere.

   Yes: having to dress for outside-weather and drive an hour to get uncertain
access is a real deterrent! Nonetheless, cheap lodging is available almost
everywhere for folks who can clear one whole day but not two more days for
travel (not to mention uncertain entry into another country).

   (Time to move on... sorry.)

---

From: John Leslie <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2017 11:26:32 -0500

Paul Kyzivat <[email-masked]> wrote:
>> 1) A physical location for the meeting...
>> 2) Limited attendance and interest...
>> 3) Split Community...
>> 4) Inconvenience of time-zone...
> 

   Many of us, in an earlier life, have done our best work after local
midnight. If we no longer can, perhaps there are others younger than us...

   Physical location isn't as hard as some suggest. Two conference rooms
within five-minutes walk would cover most needs, if we add a dozen library
carrels.

   It might well turn out that we could arrange hotel/motel close enough
that the individual carrels could fit within the rented room.

   Understand that $100 out-of-pocket feels quite different than $3,000
out-of-pocket to many of us...

---

From: Alia Atlas <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2017 11:55:36 -0500

John,

> place to look when you need a Remote Hub...

Absolutely!  As one of the activities.

> about 8

Yes - I am pushing back against Dave Crocker's question about what each
Remote
Hub  needs to have to fully participate.

In reality, I think one or more conference rooms are good. I don't quite
think that a place
for a person to just listen is that useful - b/c it wouldn't be great if
anyone actually wanted
to participate verbally in the meeting.

>    Fortunately, that's not the problem for Boston Hub.

Agreed :-)  We have lots of experienced IETFers who don't always travel.

> travel (not to mention uncertain entry into another country).

There has to be enough added value to consider lodging...  That feels to me
like
getting up to at least 50 or more attendees and having good social
interactions local.

Regards,
Alia

---

From: Paul Kyzivat <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2017 12:01:23 -0500

> midnight. If we no longer can, perhaps there are others younger than us...

I'm not saying that time zone differences are a blocker for remote 
participation. I have indeed gotten up in the middle of the night to 
join in.

But the time zone differences are a severe impediment to remote 
participation *via a hub*. At home I can just get up for the meetings I 
care about and then go to bed. For a hub, where I have to get ready to 
go out and then drive some distance, the wasted time is too great.

When actually attending remotely you are actually forced to operate on 
the local time zone. In principle you could also do that for remote 
participation. Doing so from home *might* be workable if you have a lot 
of meetings to attend. Doing so at a hub would be very difficult unless 
you had a place to stay adjacent to the hub. If that is a hotel, it will 
make the cost of participation significant.

The only way I can see this working would be for the IETF to 
simultaneously host an IETF meeting in multiple locations - perhaps one 
per continent. But I don't see much advantage to that.

	Thanks,
	Paul

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2017 16:44:23 -0500

--On Monday, January 30, 2017 11:55 -0500 Alia Atlas
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>...
> Yes - I am pushing back against Dave Crocker's question about
> what each Remote
> In reality, I think one or more conference rooms are good. I
> don't quite think that a place
> for a person to just listen is that useful - b/c it wouldn't
> be great if anyone actually wanted

Yes, but remember two things, the first of which I suggest that
we have discovered empirically in Boston.

(1) Unless the remote hub has space and arrangements for
attendance at every session (or every session about which any
hub attendee might be interested), attendees need to either
return home (typically hard when there are only a few minutes
between sessions) or go hole up in hotel rooms (which might not
be easy either).  And, unless most of those rooms have multiple
people in them, the hub doesn't add much value.

(2) As a small technical matter, the Meetecho queue management
machinery can handle individuals on a par with those who are
present in person and getting in microphone lines (again,
assuming WG Chairs enthusiastically cooperate).  Management of
queues for questions and comments gets far more difficult when
there are many clusters of people who, assuming that we still
believe in individual participation rather than elected/selected
"hub chairs", is quite a bit more complicated.  That
complication is conceptual - not only does Meetecho not have a
good solution, but no one else does either, at least AFAIK.  I
believe in remote participation and am enthused about remote
hubs, but am concerned that the latter, if used for active
meeting participation rather than education, social gathering,
and informal local discussion, may impede our ability to get
work done that actually represents IETF consensus with minority
perspectives adequately represented.

best,
   john

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2017 12:25:38 -0500

I'm very much for making this work in some ways, and we should experiment.
I also think it important that the remote hubs include people who are
not newbies.  For financial reasons, I don't make IETF100, but I would
be happy to travel within Ottawa (i.e. stay at a hotel, even though I live
here), to Montreal or Toronto, or perhaps even Boston.  Although, for the
purposes of dealing with VISA issues, "enhancing" Boston might be a mistake.

Some comments inline:

    > participation

I have done many meetings in my PJs :-)
Ottawa->Europe is relatively easy, as the meetings start at 3am-ish, and I
just have to go to bed early and get up early.   The meetings are over
by 2pm local, which means that as far as my child and wife are concerned,
means they see *more* of me.

For Ottawa->Asia, it's a complete ~12h time reversal, and it's rather
difficult to explain to child that I'm asleep.  And the house isn't quiet
enough to sleep, etc.  So going someplace would be a great thing.

    > meetings to attend. Doing so at a hub would be very difficult unless
    > you had  place to stay adjacent to the hub. If that is a hotel, it will

Yes, that's true, but:
1) we don't need a 5-star $250USD/night hotel.
2) we don't need to accomodate 1000 people and food, etc.
3) the meeting rooms (I like having 8!) could be rather small, and
   could be cobbled together from many company meeting spaces, assuming
   they are willing to deal with the time zone challenge to their
   physical security.

    > per continent. But I don't see much advantage to that.

I actually think this is a good experiment to try, and I'm willing to
participate in such an experiment.

--
Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>, Sandelman Software Works
 -= IPv6 IoT consulting =-

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2017 12:28:16 -0500

> queues for questions and comments gets far more difficult when

I agree that this is a concern.  I think that it is solveable, but it isn't
solved yet.  Really: it's a good problem to have.