I think it's still the case that someone who demonstrates knowledge of
the background material and understanding of how the Internet works is
quite welcome at IETF.
That hasn't been my experience; I've seen what can only be described as
an "old-boy" network in operation. I'm not saying that such a thing is
necessarily bad, just that sometimes it takes significant effort to
overcome it if you're a newbie.
(It's entirely possible that I didn't have enough background in the
beginning, but I really thought I did. Maybe that's a separate problem:
how much background do you really need? It's not always obvious to a
newbie)
--Ken