On Aug 3, 2013, at 7:25 PM, John C Klensin <john-ietf(_at_)jck(_dot_)com> wrote:
First, probably to the "when meetings begin" part, but noting
that someone who gets onto the audio a few minutes late is in
exactly the same situation as someone who walks into the meeting
room a few minutes late -- announcements at the beginning of the
session are ineffective.
Jabber appears to have some way of setting a banner/announcement thing that
shows up when you first join a jabber session, because I've seen such a thing
on occasion. I don't know if it's defined in some standard way in XMPP or a
proprietary extension. But assuming it's either standard or defacto and
popular, we could put the NOTE WELL in it (or a URL to a NOTE WELL).
Likewise for the IETF web pages with the audio links, so that you see the NOTE
WELL before clicking the audio link. Or even have an annoying pop-up if you
prefer. (ugh)
We regularize remote participation [1] a bit by doing the
following. At some level, if remote participants expect to be
treated as serious members of the community, they (we) can
reasonably be expected to behave that way.
* A mechanism for remote participants should be set up
and remote participants should be to register. The
registration procedure should include the Note Well and
any other announcement the IETF Trust, IAOC, or IESG
consider necessary (just like the registration procedure
for f2f attendance).
Sure - to *participate*, i.e. have a chance at the mic. Not to
listen/watch/read.
* In the hope of increased equity, lowered overall
registration fees, and consequently more access to IETF
participation by a broader and more diverse community,
the IAOC should establish a target/ recommended
registration fee for remote participants. That fee
should reflect the portion of the registration fee that
is not specifically associated with meeting expenses
(i.e., I don't believe that remote participants should
be supporting anyone's cookies other than their own).
* In the interest of maximum participation and inclusion
of people are aren't attending f2f for economic reasons,
I think we should treat the registration fee as
voluntary, with people contributing all or part of it as
they consider possible. No questions asked and no
special waiver procedures. On the other hand,
participation without registration should be considered
as being in extremely bad taste or worse, on a par with
violations of the IPR disclosure rules.
I don't agree - I go to the meetings physically, but I *want* remote people to
participate. It's to everyone's benefit that they do so, including the
physical attendees. I don't want to charge them for it. Making them register
(for free) is fine, but don't make them pay money. Don't even make them feel
guilty. The people who can afford the time and money to go to the physical
meetings still get their money's worth.
* I don't see a practical and non-obtrusive way to
enforce registration, i.e., preventing anyone
unregistered from speaking, modulo the "bad taste"
comment above. But we rarely inspect badges before
letting people stand in a microphone line either.
Sure there is. Have the current "[wg-name]@jabber.ietf.org" jabber rooms be
for open access lurking, from any XMPP domain, and not allow microphone
representation in the WG by simply having jabber scribes ignore such requests
in those rooms. And have separate rooms that require registering, like
"[wg-name]@members.ietf.org" or whatever, where you have to have a registered
account on 'members.ietf.org'. I assume XMPP servers support such a policy?
It would be a free account, but require filling out the blue-sheet type
information, verified email address, etc. Or maybe even have it all in the
same current jabber room but only accounts with "members.ietf.org" as the
domain portion are represented at the mic by the jabber scribes.
In return, the IETF generally (and particularly people in the
room) needs to commit to a level of seriousness about remote
participation that has not consistently been in evidence. In
particular:
* Remote participants should have as much access to mic
lines and the ability to participate in discussions as
those who are present in the room. That includes
recognizing that, if there is an audio lag and it takes
a few moments to type in a question or comment, some
flexibility about "the comment queue is closed" may have
to be in order. For some sessions, it might require
doing what ICANN has started doing (at least sometimes),
which is treating the remote participants as a separate
mic queue rather than expecting the Jabber scribe (or
remote participant messenger/ channeler) to get at the
end of whatever line is most convenient.
Do you find this is an actual problem in WG meetings? My experience has been
the opposite. The WG chairs always seem to let jabber participants get their 2
cents in, even if the queue line has been capped... especially if there's lag.
* It is really, really, important that those speaking,
even if they happen to be sitting at the chair's table,
clearly and carefully identify themselves. Last week,
there were a few rooms in which the audio was, to put it
very politely, a little marginal. That happens. But,
when it combines with people mumbling their names or
saying them very quickly, the result is as little
speaker identification as would have been the case if
the name hadn't been used as all. In addition, some of
us suffer from the disability of not being able to keep
track of unfamiliar voices while juggling a few decks of
slides, a jabber session, audio, and so on. "I
identified myself 10 minutes ago" is not generally
adequate.
Do you find this is an actual problem in WG meetings? Are the jabber scribes
not able to tell you who is at the mic if you ask them? People have forgotten
to state their names in WGs I go to, but the scribes have been fairly vocal
about reminding folks to do it.
-hadriel