--On Wednesday, May 10, 2017 14:04 -0400 Michael Richardson
<mcr+ietf(_at_)sandelman(_dot_)ca> wrote:
...
Are we validating the email address in some way?
If we are not, I don't see the point of the *-required in any
of those places.
...
Michael (and others),
I'm happy to let the IESG manage this rather than getting into
an orgy of nit-picking and micro-managing, but I think there are
at least two separate reasons for wanting remote participants to
register and that, which the desired information may overlap,
confusing the two is probably not helpful. The two are:
(1) For reasons related to IPR policy and issues (including the
"Note Well", but remember it is a summary of policies and
pointer to them, not the policies themselves) and in case
questions arise as to who or what is influencing IETF decisions,
we just need to know who is making Contributions and
influencing, or trying to influence, the IETF. For that
purpose, I believe the information we should be collecting from
remote participants and the mechanisms used to validate that
information should be as nearly identical to the information
obtained from registrants for on-site attendance.
As I've said earlier, I prefer that we make at least a nominal
charge as part of the verification process. I also prefer that
we encourage registration in advance of the meeting, possibly
even providing a reduced fee for advanced registration (as we do
for conventional registrations). I also believe that this is
"one person, one registration" and that separate registrations
for use of the in-person facilities (presumably including access
to cookies) and remote ones are neither desirable nor
appropriate.
Especially if remote registrations are going to continue to be
free and the forms offered when one first tries to access
Meetecho as a participant during a given meeting, the number of
questions asked should be kept to a minimum to avoid forcing
would-be participants in a session to spend any more time than
absolutely necessary filling out forms rather than contribution.
(2) Almost independent of the above, there are lots of reasons
to try to obtain demographic or opinion information from remote
participants. Information of that type might help to inform
decisions about meeting locations, reasons why people are
participating remotely rather than attending meetings in person,
etc. If we are not concerned about poll-stuffing, that
information might reasonably be collected anonymously.
Certainly the incentives for being able to identify and
authenticate a participant are different from those above. It
can also be collected rather more at leisure, including using
post-meeting surveys similar to the used for registrants in the
past.
Again, I'm happy to let the IESG (assisted by staff and the IAOC
as they deem appropriate) sort out the details, but several
recent comments imply that some of the reasons for registering
remote participants are getting confused.
Finally, apologies for singing this song again, but, if we are
going to encourage remote participation hubs in which people
come together at a remote location to participate in (and
contribute to) an IETF meeting going on at the same time, we'd
best be really sure that registration and identification rules
for such participants are clear, consistent, and integrated with
whatever tools are relevant.
best,
john