--On Friday, October 11, 2013 13:22 +0000 "Eggert, Lars"
<lars(_at_)netapp(_dot_)com> wrote:
Hi,
On Oct 11, 2013, at 14:43, Jari Arkko <jari(_dot_)arkko(_at_)piuha(_dot_)net>
wrote:
I do have a question for Lars though. What are your opinions
on this? (You said that there is no consensus, but I'd like
to hear also your thoughts.)
so one key question is what influence the IETF actually has on
an ISOC program. We can certainly state our wishes, but my
belief is that it's ISOC's program in the end, and they can
basically chose to run it as they see fit. That doesn't come
out in the draft at all.
Yes. But discussion of an I-D may help understand what the IETF
thinks would help. Perhaps someone should propose a meeting in
Vancouver with the relevant ISOC people to exchange views about
their agenda and "ours". Such discussions in the past (on a
completely informal, rather than "IETF position" basis, have
contributed to the evolution of the program to be more friendly
to people who are likely to actually do work in the IETF and to
some of the "returning fellows" arrangements.
Another issue I have with the the draft is written with the
implied understanding that the program should fund the
repeated attendance of residents of under-represented regions
who are actively participating in some sort of way. It's not
clear to me that this is really what would be best in terms of
increasing organizational diversity over time. I wouldn't want
to fund the same people over and over; I'd much rather bring
in new people all the time in the hopes of spreading the word
about the IETF widely and hoping that some folks will end up
in roles where they can occasionally attend on their own dime.
This is, to me, the essential tension in the program (or, now,
pair of programs that we often don't think of as separate). One
can optimize it for any of at least three different categories:
(i) Bringing people in to see what the IETF is all about in the
hope that will be beneficial in other ways. While there may be
happy exceptions, the assumption behind this category is that,
while people brought in this way may help with the IETF's role
in various policy contexts, actual contributions to the IETF
are not expected.
(ii) Bringing people in with the hope they will participate in
and contribute to the IETF, but with no realistic expectation
that they will ever show up at a meeting again unless it it
local to them. IMO, this is just wishful thinking unless we
really clean up our acts about remote participation, including
both full remote participation in training activities and
educational materials about IETF participation and procedures
tailored to remote participants, probably to the degree that
people who are almost entirely remote can realistically take on
leadership and WG editorial roles. I don't believe it strikes
the right balance, but Subramanian's draft about Nomcom
participation identifies many of those issues.
(iii) Bringing people in whom we expect to turn into active
participants, with some expectation of support for additional
meetings when that is appropriate for some reason. If nothing
else, it is at least somewhat more realistic in the absence of
significant changes in the IETF to make it much more remote
participant-friendly (and less dependent on personal
relationships and hallway chats).
The current draft seems to be mostly focused on extending and
enhancing the third category. I don't see it as addressing, or
calling for the elimination of, the other two.
I'd like to be able to bring in other under-represented groups
(students, academics, women, etc.) We can certainly have a
discussion about what is best; my point is that the draft has
already decided that one approach is the way to go.
Although I think the draft would benefit from clarification, I
read it differently, as noted above. Of course, one of the
questions becomes resources -- both budgetary and mentoring and
other types of education and support. Given that they are not
unlimited, there may ultimately have to be choices between
bringing in more likely participants and bringing in a wider
range of people to look around and understand what we do,
perhaps with the possibility that they might show up at
convenient subsequent meetings on other funding.
By the way, while I've never actively participated in an IRTF
RG, I suspect that effective mostly-remote participation there
would be a lot more practical than it is today in the IETF.
I also have a few issues with the suggestions it makes:
Section 4.1 requires that an applicant needs to already have
been a participant in the IETF. That seems excessive. For
returning fellows, some sort of engagement in the IETF after a
while would be nice, but I can see valid cases for supporting
someone's repeated attendance who isn't contributing in a very
visible role. Also, I question the possibility to quantify and
compare someone's impact of IETF involvement. And again, there
are others than "resident of a country in an under-represented
region" who we might want to bring in, and we probably don't
need to fund the attendance of employees of large vendors who
happen to be residents of under-represented regions.
...
I think that may generalize into "we have never been good at
developing over-specific rules that don't end up being
constraints when something obviously reasonable needs to be
done".
But my main issue is that the draft sounds like its trying to
take over and redefine an ISOC program, which I don't think
the IETF can or should do. The ISOC program has a purpose, a
history and at least from my perspective is working pretty
well with the budget it has available. I'm not sure we can
actually improve it much.
See above, even though we might disagree about the possibility
of improvements.
best,
john
Lars