Re: Oh look! [Re: Remote participants, newcomers, and tutorials]

--On Saturday, July 27, 2013 08:38 +1200 Brian E Carpenter
<brian(_dot_)e(_dot_)carpenter(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com> wrote:

> And there is a "Training" section in the meeting materials
> page. It's empty... but thanks to somebody for putting it
> there. All we need to do is figure out how to pre-load it.
And to remember that link appears on  the main meeting page
because it isn't on either of the agenda pages.  I suggest again
that these little treasure hunts work better for very
experienced participants and regular participants who are very
patient about searching for information, but much less well for
newcomers, remote-only participants, and the diverse and curious
potential participants we'd supposedly like to encourage.

I still believe that the agenda pages should be one-step
shopping for these types of meeting program-specific bits of
information, whether it be remote participation bits (or at lest
a pointer to whether they can be found) and meeting material
pages (ditto).  It is slightly extraneous information but I note
that we have had a list of Areas and ADs on the agenda pages
ever since I can remember.  That information is much more easily
located than most of the things I've been commenting on and, if
one locates it (IETF Home Page -> IESG -> Members) one even gets
contact information as a bonus.  And the listing of AD names is
pretty useless without contact info.


More inline.

> ...
> > > (1) The note below strongly implies that none of those
> > > sessions are being audiocast.    Why not and can that be
> > > fixed?
> > I think that would mean that the crew (partly volunteers)
> > would need to mobilise 24 hours earlier. Not impossible, I
> > suppose, but not free of costs either.
Brian, there are two reasons I'm pushing on this set of issues.
One is that there are folks like you and me (and, since he
dropping into a different part of the thread, SM) who are
reasonably experienced participants but who are not likely to
attend most or all f2f meetings in the future.  To the extent to
which it is in the IETF's interest to keep us active --and I
hope that it is-- then a lot of this stuff ought to work (even
though  we will know about and, given enough patience, be able
to find meeting materials lists, mechanisms to subscribe to
slightly-hidden mailing lists, the actual names and locations of
incorrect links to drafts, names of BOF Chairs and responsible
ADs, etc.  If we are desperately concerned about hearing a
particular tutorial, I imagine that, with a little planning,
either of us could find someone to sit in the room and do a
Skype or equivalent if there was a functional network or get
someone to sit in the room with a voice recorder and make
something that could be converted into an MP3 file for
transmission after the network comes up.

I assume that, were the question posed, there would be general
IETF consensus that I run out of patience a lot faster than you
do.  I'm willing to concede that and agree that anything that
doesn't irritate you too is my problem and I should live with
it.  I certainly would have a lot of difficulty arguing for
folks going to a lot of extra trouble or expense on my account
(or even on yours).

However, the IETF has been having a lot of discussions about
newcomers, diversity, and attracting new folks to participate
and get work done.  I think those populations will be better
served if it is possible for people a lot less experienced than
the two of us can participate actively and constructively
without attending every meeting.  I also think that, especially
for many people from developing countries, universities, small
companies, and far-away places, we will be far more successful
in recruiting if we can encourage remote participation as a
starting point with the expectation of getting people physically
to meetings only after the value to them and their organizations
of doing so has been demonstrated.  I'd personally even favor
making remote participation at a could of meeting be a
prerequisite for most applications for ISOC's IETF Fellows
program.

But the above picture isn't going to happen unless we are
serious and treat that seriousness as an integral part of our
strategies about newcomers and diversity.  Seriousness to me
says that we get more careful about how experienced one has to
be to find critical information, that we make sure remote
participation works, and that we make any session that would be
relevant to remote participants accessible to them (and with
materials available as much as possible in advance and from
easy-to-find places).  Seriousness implies that, if there are
extra costs, we figure out how to cover them (or how to cut
somewhere else).  

Or, if we are not serious, it would probably be to the benefit
of the community for us to face that and stop wasting energy and
resources on outreach efforts that are expensive in one or the
other (or both).

best,
   john