This is a great idea! I think I've attended about fifteen IETF's now
and at each one I've been to many multicast sessions but I've never,
NEVER heard a live question from a multicast viewer.
I have, though not very often. I've also heard multicast viewers
try to ask questions and be ignored.
I have mixed feelings about multicast at IETF meetings.
On one hand I find the microphone discipline that is necessary for multicast
extremely disruptive to having an effective discussion - at least for small
to medium sized groups - say less than 100 people. (I don't know of any way
to have an effective discussion for a larger group anyway). And my strong
impression is that the multicast setup that we've been using for many years
is a very expensive tool for serving a very small number of people.
On the other hand I think our meetings are getting more and more expensive
(both in meeting fees and travel expenses) and we are thereby excluding
more and more people who should be participating.
So I think we need to continue to work on remote participation, but we
need to try something different than what we've been using. Unicast
video transmission, and real-time comment submission using instant
messaging or email, seem like worthwhile things to try. Provided of course
that we use standard protocols and data formats with tools that are readily
available on all platforms.
Keith