On Oct 4, 2014, at 3:30 PM, Abdussalam Baryun
<abdussalambaryun(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com> wrote:
Hi Moonesamy,
On Saturday, October 4, 2014, S Moonesamy wrote:
The argument for the week-long meeting is that it is to encourage cross-area
participation. Has that happened in practice [1]?
IMO not happened in practice and does cost us money. We have WGs with small
attendance that need to join together for cross-participations. For example
when I attended a one day IETF89 meeting I expected MANET WG to have
attendance of above 20 but was not, the room was able to take 100 so we were
using only about 20% which can be seen as waste of money. I suggest if WG
meet in IETF avenues with less than 20 we join it with others for cross
participation.
20 people in the room who know about the subject and have something interesting
to say ([1]) is the best way to run a working group meeting. It’s much better
than having 150 people in the room, only 20 of whom know the subject,
especially if you don’t know which 20 these are. And it’s much much better than
a meeting where the 10 people who know the subject couldn’t make it to the
meeting, and the 150 people in the room are all tourists ([2]).
So yes, 20 people in a room fit for 100 is kind of wasteful, but we’re limited
by what’s available at the venue. I don’t remember specifically about London,
but there is often a short supply of small rooms, and those we reserve for IESG
meetings, NomCom, the IAOC and other non-WG stuff. So working groups often get
scheduled in rooms that are too big. It’s way better than getting a room that’s
too small, with people looking in from outside or sitting on the floor.
Anyway, bringing in more people from other working groups who aren’t
necessarily interested in your subject matter sounds counter-productive to me.
It could work if the subjects are really close. NTP and TICTOC have been doing
it for years. It works for them, but I don’t think that it’s a good idea in
general.
Yoav
[1] - I wasn’t there and I don’t know anything about MANET, so there’re a lot
of assumptions here
[2] - I was at that meeting