Looking in Jari's statistics site, you have three RFCs. One of those has
several co-authors that I recognize as current "goers". You also have a current
draft with several co-authors, but I have no idea whether they're "goers" or
not. Anyway, you are not a hermit. Through the RFCs and drafts that you have
co-authored, you know people who do attend.
You anyway can't get a really new technical direction all by yourself. You
always need to form a group, whether that group is a "bar BoF" or a formal IETF
mailing list, or whatever. I don't think you can get a new thing into the IETF
without a group of 4-7 people, regardless of whether you attend the meeting.
The only advantage in attending is that it makes it easy to socialize your idea
and "assemble the avengers", but I've seen it done outside a meeting. As long
as you have a "goer" in your team, you can move things forward.
Yes, I attend because I think that makes me more effective. If for any reason I
were no longer able to attend, I think I would still participate meaningfully.
-----Original Message-----
From: l(_dot_)wood(_at_)surrey(_dot_)ac(_dot_)uk
[mailto:l(_dot_)wood(_at_)surrey(_dot_)ac(_dot_)uk]
Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2013 1:12 PM
To: Yoav Nir
Cc: worley(_at_)ariadne(_dot_)com; ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
Subject: RE: The Purpose of WG participants Review (was Re: Purpose of IESG
Review)
I've written RFCs without attending meetings; easy to do if the work is a
aligned with a workgroup.
That's fine if you're happy to be a technical resource with skills to be drawn
upon for problems set by others.
However, if you're sufficiently technical that you can set new technical
directions that are outside the scope of existing wgs -- well, the political
enters the technical, and you need to fake being a goer to build interest and
support for the direction, eg by holding a bof. Many existing "managers" have
run wgs, but have they even attempted to establish new technical directions? If
not, they're just bureaucrats. Safe pairs of hands. And probably not that
technical.
Lloyd Wood
http://sat-net.com/L.Wood/
________________________________________
From: Yoav Nir [ynir(_at_)checkpoint(_dot_)com]
Sent: 18 April 2013 10:02
To: Wood L Dr (Electronic Eng)
Cc: <worley(_at_)ariadne(_dot_)com>; <ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>
Subject: Re: The Purpose of WG participants Review (was Re: Purpose of IESG
Review)
Not entirely true.
It is true that getting "management positions" (chairs, AD, NomCom) requires
meeting attendance. But a non-attender can get recognition for quality
technical points, and can even progress technical work. RFC 4478 was published
long before I attended my first meeting. My own working group (WebSec) has
document authors who never attend meetings. In other areas there are frequent
and prolific contributors, who either never attended a meeting or have quit
attending them years ago. Even the directorates have such people.
So no, you probably can't get a dot for your badge without actually having one,
but you can become "prominent" in the sense that people might say "this
document hasn't had enough review. Let's ask so-and-so to read it", or "I'm
putting together a design team for foo. Let's see if we can get so-and-so to
join"
Yoav
On Apr 18, 2013, at 11:31 AM, l(_dot_)wood(_at_)surrey(_dot_)ac(_dot_)uk wrote:
Not sure about the recognition for technical work.
To progress technical work, you have to go to meetings. To progress in the
IETF (chair, AD, IESG) you have to go to meetings.
Keep turning up and don't be too obviously completely abysmal technically,
and you can get a status dot on your badge.
The IETF is run by goers, and goers like goers.
Lloyd Wood
http://sat-net.com/L.Wood/
________________________________________
From: ietf-bounces(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org [ietf-bounces(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org] On
Behalf Of Dale
R. Worley [worley(_at_)ariadne(_dot_)com]
Sent: 17 April 2013 21:38
To: ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
Subject: Re: The Purpose of WG participants Review (was Re: Purpose of IESG
Review)
From: Ted Lemon <Ted(_dot_)Lemon(_at_)nominum(_dot_)com>
On Apr 16, 2013, at 11:51 AM, Dale R. Worley <worley(_at_)ariadne(_dot_)com>
wrote:
I've advocated the equivalent of the following opinion before
(http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg77479.html),
but in the current context it bears repeating: Here in the IETF we
accept that low-status people may argue regarding technical matters,
but reserve for high-status people having opinions about our procedures.
I thought your original message (the one you cite above) was very
good, but I'm not sure I like the terms "low-status" and
"high-status," simply because tey could be easily taken to mean
something other than what I think you intend them to mean.
We do have a status system within the IETF and generally one gains
status within that system by recognized technical work. And on
certain sorts of issues, particularly changes in processes, we don't
listen well to people who don't have high status within that system.
In that regard, the IETF is far from egalitarian.
In regard to diversity issues, it is important to ask whether position
in the status system is directly affected by factors other than just
technical contribution.
Probably more important for diversity issues is that factors in a
person's life other than their outright technical ability can strongly
affect their ability to contribute to our technical work, and thus
achieve the status needed to be influential.
A more subtle problem is whether technical contribution correlates
well the skills needed for leadership positions -- does being a
quality technical contributor demonstrate the skills needed to be an
effective IAB member? Although given the discussion around "IESG
review", it seems that the reward for gaining the leadership position
of IESG membership is becoming an extremely busy technical reviewer of
standards...
Dale