On 5/29/13, Jari Arkko <jari(_dot_)arkko(_at_)piuha(_dot_)net> wrote:
by looking into the statistics of I-Ds and RFCs, it is strange that we
get
sometimes high rate in the I-D going in IETF from some regions but the
success rate of I-Ds to become RFCs is very low (5- 50).
There seems to be a general pattern where new participants first participate
and/or produce IDs but it takes some time to produce RFCs.
Yes that is right, so I think we can encourage thoes new participants
to join and continue, of speed up by our guidance, and also the IETF
may be guided by thoes new comers. It is a two way new-participation,
and even IETF is new to participate in other new sub-regions or
sub-communities.
For instance, for
a while it was the case that there was a growing number of proposals and
participants from China,
Yes IETF needs China's participation, so the question is why is China
(as sub-region) having low rate of rfc/year? How can the IETF do
marketing/help to improve that?
but it is only more recently that the RFC
statistics reflect this (see the bright green line in
http://www.arkko.com/tools/rfcstats/countrydistrhist.html). The hypothesis
is that first of all, it takes a while to produce RFCs :-) and that new
participants take a while before they get up to speed on the process, find
enough other parties that share similar needs for the specific technical
work, etc.
So if you agree that they need to find other parties to speed up or
increase rate of rfc/year, that meens it will be a good idea to have
one meeting of IETF per year in Asia region (IETF marketing in Asia
for participation).
Furthermore, IETF can have one meeting per year for each region
equally (for equal marketing opportunities), because North America
region's rate of rfc/year for many years shown to be stable not much
improving (about 200 rfc/year), and all participants in North America
have excellent English and writting skill to explain remotely in
meetings.
Some inputs on this IETF list (sub: IETF meeting in South America) say
that IETF meeting in South America will not increase participation, as
no result of such marketing (I disagree, their argument may be correct
only if South America are well English writers that can easily
remotely communicate). On the other hand, from their argument I
understand that it means there is no affect of IETF meeting for all
regions to increase or decrease participation including North America
(no results of marketing or de-marketing). Therefore, if we reduce the
number of meeting in North America (as not de-marketing because at
least there is a meeting per year) we will not face any decrease of
the 200 rfc/year (so we can give more space to other regions), because
they are mostly not-new-participants (as compared to hypothesis you
explain for China's rate and new-participate speed) and they are well
english/known writers/remote-participants.
AB
My thoughts on the subject and on South America meeting subject.