Re: Last Call: <draft-eggert-successful-bar-bof-05.txt> (Considerationsf

I have been looking at various revisions of this draft since -00. I'm glad 
Lars did the first version during IETF 77, and I'm glad that Lars and 
Gonzalo kept working on it.
I think it's important guidance for the community. I think it's on the right 
track. I think it could reasonably be published in its current form.
I have some suggestions.

Frivolous: I TOTALLY get the "don't call it a Bar BOF" thing. I've also seen 
the confusion that results from any sentence that includes the words "Bar 
BOF", and it might even be worth pointing out that even IESG members and IAB 
members drop the "Bar" in conversations from time to time, especially during 
IETF week, resulting in even more confusion. "Side Meeting" could work, but 
it covers a lot more than the kind of "pre-charter planning meetings" you 
guys are talking about for most of the document, and you have access to a 
community of thousands of creative people - could you think of a better 
name? If the search space you're dealing with requires references to 
alcohol, just ask Hadriel Kaplan for a suggestion. He came up with MARTINI 
... :D
More seriously: We're now more than two years into the implementation of the 
RAI DISPATCH process, and RAI DISPATCH has a lot to do with "bringing new 
proposals" into RAI. It seems odd that there's no guidance specific to RAI 
DISPATCH, especially because the current revision also talks about working 
group "ad hoc" meetings, which RAI DISPATCH often uses. It might be helpful 
to mention something about the RAI DISPATCH process - either in this 
document, or in another that deals specifically with working group "ad hoc" 
meetings. And, actually, the discussion of working group "ad hoc" meetings 
seems to have parachuted into the last paragraph of Section 2, with little 
in the title or abstract that would lead anyone to suspect that it might be 
hiding there ... so maybe moving it to its own, very small, document would 
be helpful.
Minor suggestions:

In Section 2, there's a discussion of "tourists". It might be helpful to 
distinguish between the times when you WANT "tourists" - when you're asking 
the entire IETF community for input - and the times when you DON'T - when 
you're trying to wordsmith a charter, etc. The text describes the second 
case nicely; I'm just suggesting that you you include a sentence on the 
first case, and say "you need to hear from the entire community at the right 
time, but your side meeting probably isn't the right time".
Also in Section 2, where you give the "don't count bodies" warning, you 
might also add that people come to meetings about proposals for new work 
just to make sure that the proposal isn't going off-track in ways they care 
about - and if it's not, that's fine, they aren't interested in DOING the 
work, so they disappear. So the area directors know not to count them as 
"interested", too.
Somewhere in Section 2, it would be worth noting that collecting large 
groups of people in "side meetings" tends to result in larger proposed 
working group charters, which makes it harder to get chartered. The IESG has 
not had a problem with charters that were too limited in scope coming out of 
side meetings, at least not since I joined the IAB ...
Section 3 contains this text:

  Many routinely say "yes" to every
  incoming request as long as there are meeting rooms available (and
  there are typically lots of meeting rooms available).

I'm betting that the parenthetical should be "available, outside of normal 
working group meeting slots".
Section 3 contains a sad tail of woe about an area director being trapped in 
a hotel for a few days during IETF 77, but I'm thinking area directors are 
going to be trapped in hotels for a few days during IETF weeks, whether 
there are side meetings scheduled during meals or not.
There might be a few points conflated here - (1) my understanding is that 
most area directors are trying to dodge "side meetings", because the very 
presence of an area director signals "gee, Gonzalo came, he must be 
interested, and if he's interested, he'll approve us as a working group 
soon!" - if the area directors ARE dodging side meetings, you might say 
that, so everyone has realistic expectations; (2) "if you schedule a side 
meeting during a meal break, everyone there will be missing a meal unless 
you go to a restaurant like we told you", and (3) "if you schedule a side 
meeting that looks like a BOF during a meal break, you won't fit into most 
restaurants, so have a small side meeting and go to a restaurant like we 
told you" :-)
In Section 4, when you're describing the problems of holding side meetings 
that are indistinguishable from IETF working group meetings, you might 
include the point that we've seen situations where people think the work has 
already been chartered, even making press announcements about that. No one 
makes the same mistake when you meet in a restaurant!
Also in Section 4, where you say

  Finally, some organizers may find
  the process to apply for an official BOF too complex, and so decide
  to simply mimic one.

I don't think complexity has anything to do with it - some people request a 
BOF, get turned down, request an IETF working group meeting-style "side 
meeting", and have the same meeting they had been planning with the same 
agenda they had put toether in the same room where the BOF would have been 
held. I think it's worth saying that ...
In Section 6 on IPR, it might be useful to point out that these side 
meetings are building support for your proposal, and the right time to tell 
your potential supporters about IPR is NOT after they support you and the 
working group has been chartered ... it's great to observe the rules, but 
it's even better if you know that not observing the rules *fails*.
Also in Section 6, this text doesn't parse for me:

  Informally, the above makes it appropriate, in order to provide a
  pointer to the relevant policies, to announce the "Note Well" text
  [NOTEWELL] in all such meetings.

and I think the problem is that I don't understand what "Informally" means 
in this context. 

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