Subject: Re: making our meetings more worth the time/expense (was: Re: setting a goal for an inclusive IETF)

From: Abdussalam Baryun <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2013 17:09:21 +0100

Hi Barry,

Sorry for long meesage,

I will give you a real example which I experienced that includes my request
regarding a WG ietf draft that has no presenter but two people in the WG
that want discuss it in meetings as below real story. I want to confirm my
statement of hidden discuss/information related to IETF work,  because
there are intentions/encourages by some to do hidden meetings, and hidden
reviews (they are acknowledged in draft with reviews that are not listed or
hidden, on the other hand, once I have not been acknowledged-listed when I
published my review even), however, I think it can be fixed in future. I am
not against the side meeting but against not documenting information
(excluding side info, and reviews, and comments, that change the work we
are doing).

 A live WG example in IETF is for this Berline-meeting: A request for
discussion was raised [1] by a participant that will attend, and I (as
remote-meeter) support for that request that I did raise [2]. The author
suggested that he has no presentation and would like time within the week
(i.e. I understand it was side meeting) to discuss with that attended
participant [3] (as hidden meeting, but still no reply to the remote
requester, was that remote participant discouraged, maybe). However, it was
nice that the first discuss-requester has added request to only do
discussions in WG meeting (not side meetings) [4].

[1] http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/manet/current/msg15521.html
[2] http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/manet/current/msg15523.html
[3] http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/manet/current/msg15534.html
[4] http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/manet/current/msg15535.html

My comment we need to encourage the discussions to be done in the IETF, and
even if we done a discussion in a side meeting as per your examples, we
SHOULD quickly write it down into the IETF lists (as some participants do,
e.g. the chair's article of diversity done this month). My addition
comments below,

AB

On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 3:00 PM, Barry Leiba <[email-masked]>wrote:

> >> The most valuable part of IETF meeting is and has always been the hall
> >> conversations and side meetings
> >
> > I think *side meetings* are killing IETF, I call it *hidden meetings*,
> there
> > is no input for IETF when we have side meetings. The input to IETF in
> > through meeting sessions and discussion lists.
>
> I have no argument with your last sentence; it's absolutely correct.
>
> But I think you misunderstand the point Donald is making about things
> such as small hallway conversations.
>
> Example: A few people get together in a corner and one says, "About
> that point I made on the list that you brushed off... here's what I'm
> talking about:", and five or ten minutes of discussion ensues.  At the
> end, either the guy with the point now understands why he's wrong (or
> why his point isn't practical), or the document editor says, "OK, I
> get your point now.  Let me work up some proposed text and post it to
> the list."
>

In this example, they (discussion team) should add the result of discussion
into the IETF WG lists, they should document it

>
> Example: A few people get together during a session time they have
> free, and they bash out some text to resolve an issue that came up.
> They come to the working group meeting session with an explanation of
> their conversation and the proposed text, and it's discussed in the
> meeting session (and posted to the list afterward).
>
In this example, they should document the result of discussion and the
event into the IETF WG lists (if they think useful).

> Example: Someone has an idea for a new document or other new work, so
> he gathers some people to have breakfast one morning, explains his
> idea, bashes it around with his colleagues, and as a result of that
> breakfast chat he goes home after the IETF meeting and writes up an
> Internet Draft.
>
So the result is already an input draft, IMHO, that side meeting is
respected by IETF because it is a usual birth of any draft/idea. That side
meeting is not hidden, but also not related to any IETF document. I was
arguing discuss that are related to IETF document which has a value that
will direct the IETF draft.

>
> None of this is hidden; none of this is secret.  It's all the way work
> gets done efficiently: a small group of people crack some tough nuts,
> and present the results to a wider audience.
>

When the discussion is done or encouraged by human habit to make it in a
special TEAM, I will say it is SECRET, as long as it ended there. I hope
our diversity team is not secret because still I seem not to know what is
happening there, nothing is announced on their lists regarding targets.
Furthermore, please see my point above of my real example on one WG, it
happends in IETF that they discuss issues out side the lists/meetings and
then the results of such TEAM/SIDE/HIDDEN meeting is not given (can be
forgotten, because most are bussy, which is always the excuse that can be
used) to the community, but an announced-action is done/listed resulting
from such hidden-discussion (i.e. unlisted).

AB