Re: Issues in wider geographic participation

Your experience and ideas on how to start-out are useful.

On 27 May 2013 16:13, Yoav Nir <ynir(_at_)checkpoint(_dot_)com> wrote:

> LCD?
>
> Anyway, What I found most useful when I was starting out 9 years ago, was
> to look over the list of areas and working groups (
> http://tools.ietf.org/area/ ) and find out which of them are working on
> something that is of interest to me. In my case it was mostly the security
> area, and the IPsec working group, since that is what I was working on in
> my day job. I subscribed to that list and some others that were also
> related to what I was working on (TLS, PKIX).
>
> So the best thing is to subscribe to the mailing lists, both those that
> interest you personally and those that are of interest to your employer (if
> there are such groups).
>
> Step 2 is to lurk for a couple of weeks at least, and just read what
> others are posting. If they're talking about a particular draft, it's easy
> to find on one of the IETF sites and read it. So you read the drafts, and
> read what people are saying about the drafts. This teaches you both about
> what the group is working on, and the (for lack of a better term)
> "political" part - who are the participants and what are they like.  You
> might also want to read the Tao document, although different groups have
> varying dynamics.
>
> After a while, you've read the drafts, you've read what some people are
> saying, and you may have formed an opinion, either about the draft itself,
> or about one of the comments. That's a good time to speak up by sending a
> message to the list. Maybe the draft got something wrong. Maybe the comment
> is only correct in certain contexts, but doesn't describe some situation
> you're familiar with. Maybe in reading the draft you find it hard to figure
> out what an implementation should do in a certain case, and you present the
> case, and ask that it be clarified. Maybe the proposed protocol would
> require clients, servers, or middleboxes to allocate more memory than
> implementations that you know can afford. Such comments, and even better,
> proposed fixes are how you build a reputation in the IETF for knowing your
> stuff. You can also volunteer to review a whole document, or volunteer to
> write a missing section. That is how you build a reputation for being
> useful. Both are necessary for success in the IETF.
>
> Step 4 is when you have an idea of your own, or you read someone else's
> idea and you want to participate. In that case you either write your own
> draft or join someone else in writing one. It's often not enough to just
> write it. You also have to get people to read it, post about it to the
> correct lists, and in general "sell" it and gather support. It is at about
> that time that you start to feel the need to attend meetings, but you can
> get some things done even without it.
>
> Hope this helps
>
> Yoav
>
> On May 27, 2013, at 3:33 PM, Nthabiseng Pule 
> <npule(_at_)lca(_dot_)org(_dot_)ls>
>  wrote:
>
> > as,
> >
> > I am new to the IETF.  I would like to contribute any way I can, but the
> learning curve seems steep indeed. I am from an LCD country.  I have the
> necessary resources but I just don't know where to start.
> > Some guidance would be welcome. I am reading on stuff and hope that one
> day I will be able to make some meaningful contribution.
> > Nthabiseng Pule
> >
> >
> >
> > On 27 May 2013, at 1:52 PM, Arturo Servin <aservin(_at_)lacnic(_dot_)net> 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > John,
> > >
> > >   Good summary.
> > >
> > >   I would add a "steep learning-curve" to start participating. It takes
> time to get conformable in participating in mailing list and reviewing
> drafts for I think two reasons. One is to get know how the IETF works, and
> another to catch-up in knowing the topic in relation with other WG
> participants.
> > >   About the remote hub I think it would be good to give it a try.
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > > as
> > >
> > > On 27 May 2013, at 02:52, John Levine wrote:
> > >
> > > > I think this is a summary of the issues people have mentioned that
> > > > discourage participation from LDCs, in rough order of importance.
> > > >
> > > > * People aren't aware the IETF exists, or what it does, or that it has
> > > > an open participation model
> > > >
> > > > * People don't read and write English well enough to be comfortable
> > > > participating
> > > >
> > > > * People are unaccustomed to and perhaps uncomfortable expressing
> > > > overt disagreement
> > > >
> > > > * People don't think they have anything to contribute to an
> organization
> > > > that is mostly people from rich countries
> > > >
> > > > * People don't have adequate Internet access for mail, or to use the
> > > > remote participation tools
> > > >
> > > > I have to say that I don't see one or two meetings in South America
> > > > addressing any of these.  Given that the incremental cost to the
> > > > participants, compared to meeting in North America, would likely be on
> > > > the order of a million dollars, it seems to me very likely that there
> > > > are better ways to spend the money.
> > > >
> > > > For example, if language and net access is a problem, it might be
> > > > interesting to set up a remote participation center in B.A. during one
> > > > of the North American meetings (it's one time zone off from Toronto)
> > > > with screens and cameras, paid interpreters, and a few volunteers to
> > > > help explain what's going on.
> > > >
> > > > R's,
> > > > John