And yes, it's hard to participate without spending (significant) time. I
don't know how else this could be done though. It's at least my opinion that
if time is made available, the barrier of entry is probably the lowest of any
similar organisation I can think of.
That is my experience as well, at least when talking about organisations that I
think of as standards bodies. There are other forms of co-operation (just a set
of interested people on a mailing list, for instance) where costs might be even
lower. But it is hard for me to think there would not be at least some time
spent, if you are making a comment on anything in any setting. You have to get
somewhat familiar with the topic, you may have spent time finding out that
there is a discussion that you want to participate in to begin with, you may
have invested your own time in building something which made you an expert on
the topic, etc. Anyway, I think relevance, timeliness, openness are probably
higher up in my set of priorities for standards making than cost minimisation,
except where costs are a barrier to the priorities higher up in priority.
But in any case, the point that Keith made about explicitly searching and
soliciting for outsider's input is important. Well run standards efforts do
this, and try to reach out to people who might care. Even if they have no time
or possibility to attend IETFs or join mailing lists. We should probably try to
do it even more than we are now. Sounds like a task for working group chairs.
Jari