Re: [81attendees] diverse meeting locations (was: are we getting complacent? Good job!)

[Yoav Nir <[e-mail]>]

On Aug 9, 2011, at 4:37 AM, Dae Young KIM wrote:

>   >>maybe we can also mitigate the problem of rooms too crowded
>   >> with "IETF tourists" for people interested in doing work to get in?
> 
> What's wrong for a room to be crowded because a lot of people, perhaps most of them watchers(?), are interested in the topic for whatever reasons they may have?

This is true for BoFs. But working groups should, you know, work.

There are working group sessions with about 8-10 people sitting in the front rows and actually listening, plus 30-40 more sitting in the back reading email and charging their laptops. This creates a false impression of the level of interest in the working group, and it also skews the feel of the room when trying to assess consensus. "Who thinks we should take on this item?" 8 people out of 50 raise their hand. How is the chair or AD to know that 40 of those 50 are just tourists?  It looks like the group has said "meh".