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Re: Last Call: <draft-eggert-successful-bar-bof-05.txt> (Considerationsfor Having a Successful "Bar BOF" Side Meeting) to Informational RFC

2011-08-17 03:38:43

I think this is a nice document, with many useful suggestions
and insights.  I think it would make a great ION if we still had
IONs, a fine IESG statement, or perhaps an I-D that was reissued
every 5 1/2 months to keep it active.  The more I think about
it, the less I like the idea of publishing it as an RFC.

The problem is that RFCs are forever.  RFCs subjected to IETF
Last Call and published in the IETF Stream --especially ones
that advise on IETF processes-- are also official, at least in
the sense of representing some level of community consensus and
IESG approval.  Publishing this document in the RFC Series runs
a considerable risk of causing (or at least reinforcing) exactly
the situation the it argues against -- creating a permanent
structure of meetings for which "informal" is as much of a
misnomer as "bar BOF" has become.

I also note that we hold, or try to hold, a lot of "side
meetings" that don't fall anywhere on the "Bar BOF" - "pre BOF
or pre Charter" spectrum.  They include some directorate
meetings, ADs meeting with WG Chairs, WG Chairs meeting with
authors, various design team meetings, extra IAB, IESG or IAOC
meetings, meeting related to parts of the RFC Editor function,
and so on for what is probably a rather long list.  Those
meetings draw on the same resources as the types of meetings
discussed in the document and those resources are not unlimited.


Let me give two examples of the problem with the understanding
that there are more:

        * If we have an official-looking, cast-in-RFC-stone,
        discussion of what "success" means for an informal
        meeting, it means that the IETF has established success
        criteria for a meeting type that we simultaneously claim
        is not part of the WG-formation or consensus processes.
        One really can't have it both ways and, in that sense,
        the document reinforces the "first you need a mailing
        list, then a Bar-BOF (sic) or two, then a "real" BOF (or
        two), ..." trend.
        
        * The draft says "Quiet restaurants are not hard to find
        and many offer private dining rooms..." (Section 3,
        paragraph 2).  Well, that depends on the venue.  We've
        certainly met in places where quiet restaurants _are_
        hard to find (at least anywhere near the meeting
        location) and in places (not necessarily the same ones)
        in which the number of private dining rooms near the
        meeting location is not nearly sufficient to accommodate
        the number of side meetings (see extended definition
        above) that people want to hold.  If anyone wants to add
        whining about how the IAOC didn't choose a venue with a
        sufficient nearby supply of quiet restaurants with
        private dining rooms to the regular cycles of complaints
        about venue choices, this document's recommendations
        would be a good place to start.  

        Presumably we don't want to put the IESG or the
        Secretariat into the business or allocating, or
        refereeing, priorities for informal meeting spaces
        either... but, again, that is exactly the direction in
        which this draft seems to take us.

Again, this doesn't make the draft any less useful as good
advice; it merely argues against publishing it as an RFC,
especially in the IETF Stream.


If the IESG wants to stop the worst parts of the problem, it
needs to verify community support and then put its collective
foot down.  IMO, any of the following would be of help:

(1) Set an application cutoff for allocations of IETF space for
pre-charter informal meetings before the cutoff for BOF
requests, thereby eliminating one issue that does not appear to
be mentioned in the I-D: use of Bar-BOFs by people who couldn't
get their acts together to make a timely and satisfactory BOF
request.

(2) Just say "no".  Once upon a time, we had a relatively strict
rule against any IETF-related open (or semi-open, or publicly
announced)  meetings in the IETF venue unless those meetings
were either on the agenda or a formal IETF group.  That was in
the time when Bar-BoFs (and Bar-Design-Teams, and
Bar-other-things) were held in Bars, with Bar-sized groups, and
those were not considered meetings of any type.   We could do
that again -- forcing pre-charter meetings into other venues
would at least reinforce the message that they weren't WG
meetings of unchartered WGs.

(3) Get rid of the "two BOF" rule, replacing it with criteria
that simply made it harder to get a BOF approved, and harder to
get a WG proposal taken seriously, the more face to face
meetings it took to get it organized.   One of the causes of "WG
in disguise"-style pre-charter meetings appears to be a
combination of fear of hitting the two BOF limit and deciding to
hold regular meetings despite not being able to get a WG charter
or BOF proposal together that would satisfy the IESG.

(4) Make it clear that any claims of consensus arising from an
informal meeting would not only be ignored, but would cause BOF
or WG proposals from the leadership of that information meeting
to be discarded on the grounds that the people were clueless and
incapable of working within the IETF.   Taking these "unofficial
BOF" discussions seriously merely reinforces their misuse.

best,
   john


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