ietf
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: IETF Challenges

2013-03-03 07:05:37
On Sun, 3 Mar 2013, Abdussalam Baryun wrote:

I still didn't leave the posting because there are good encouraging people in IETF. Please note that I have been now one year posting and two years before reading, and have a feeling that IETF SHOULD encourage people from China, Japan, Africa,

I read wg mailing lists and participate lightly in 10-20 WGs (most of them I follow discussions and rarely comment, some I comment more frequently). My background is that I started using BBSes/Fidonet in the 80ties, started with Linux/FOSS in the 90ties and then datacom in the late 90ties and onwards.

My experience is that there is a huge difference between different WGs. Some I have sent email to without response, then actually emailed the WG chair and asked if the topic of my email was within the WG scope, still no answer. This is an example of an WG that's hard to get into, seems populated by people who mostly discuss within an already established group and where nobody seems to bother that someone comes in with an idea to even give them a reply that their idea is not on topic or alike.

Some other WGs are populated by people who are very happy to respond and discuss to anyone who comes up with something, which is very welcoming.

I see the IETF as a meetingplace or "market" for people to gather and cooperate in. It's hard to encourage this more than what is done. The barrier for entry is quite low (I have only been to a single IETF meeting, the one that was in my home town Stockholm a few years back), and even before that to participate in a lot of WGs, it's only a matter of having access to email and time and willingness to participate. I can imagine that language and culture is one of the biggest barriers. For me, coming from FOSS/Fidonet discussion culture, joining the IETF was not so different. For others, coming from perhaps a fairly closed corporate climate or a country culture where hierarchy is important, I can imagine it's very different.

So basically, I can't really think of anything the IETF can do to encourage people to participate that it's not already doing. Do you have any suggestions?

--
Mikael Abrahamsson    email: swmike(_at_)swm(_dot_)pp(_dot_)se

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>