Re: Remote participants, newcomers, and tutorials

Hi Dave,
     I am not Jari, but I do have an opinion on your thoughts below...

On 7/29/13 1:25 AM, Dave Crocker wrote:
> I've been finding discussion and actions about newcomers far more
> interesting this year, than most previous ones.  So I think it's worth
> pressing on several fronts, to see how we can both accommodate such folk
> better, as well as be clear about when and where and how such
> accommodation is /and is not/ appropriate.
>
> Your reply to me, above, lists different types of new folk -- and of
> course the list is reasonable and might be useful -- but I didn't see
> the actual clarification of what you felt was wrong in the target text
> or how you agreed with me an others.  So, now you've got me curious for
> that detail...
>
>
> And while I've got the floor I'll offer a thought I had after a brief
> conversation with Jari at last night's reception:
>
>       Warning:  This calls for working groups to do a little more work.
>
> The working group home page and the working group wiki have become
> excellent tools for assembling relevant documents.  For someone trying
> to get started in the wg, these are incredibly helpful.
>
>       My suggestion is for a 'status' page that gives a brief summary
> about the current state of the working group, ideally listing the
> current, near-term vector of the work -- what's the current focus of
> effort -- and major open issues.
>
>       I'll suggest that it be updated after every meeting.
>
> Arguably, this sort of status statement is good to have even without
> newcomers, since it forces working groups to face the question of what
> progress they are and are not making.
>
> An exercise like this can be cast as onerous or helpful, depending upon
> the surrounding organizational 'tone' we use.  In a supportive
> environment, the exercise is helpful.  In a hostile one, not so much.
>
> Basically, if a wg is being diligent and candid in summarizing its
> problems (as well as progress) the rest of us have an obligation to be
> helpful.
One of the things that I ask the Internet Area chairs to do is send in a 
summary of their WG after each IETF meeting.  Those summaries generally 
give folks a good idea of the current state of each WG.  I post those 
summaries on the Internet Area wiki.  An alternative that would work as 
well is to have each WG post summaries to their own wikis.  Each WG has 
a wiki available via their Tools page (e.g., 
http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/6man/trac/wiki).
I like seeing the summaries from my chairs and I have gotten feedback 
from participants that they find them quite useful for keeping up with 
WGs that are tangential to their primary focus.  I would encourage every 
WG chair to periodically summarize the state of their WG/drafts.
Regards,
Brian