[edu-discuss] Is the EDU team ossified? (was: On the tradition of I-D "Acknowledgements" sections)

[SM <[e-mail]>]

At 18:58 25-03-2013, Peter Saint-Andre wrote:
>Indeed. Thus my subtle suggestion that the original poster complete
>some real technical work in the IETF community before making more
>suggestions about process.

"Real technical work" can mean different things to different 
persons.  It is difficult for people to find their way in the 
IETF.  Some people believe what is written on the IETF web site and 
in RFCs. :-)  I followed the EDU Team link and this is what I found.

   "The EDU Team maintains a web site that contains the minutes of all
    EDU Team meetings as well as other information about ongoing work."

I could not find any minutes.

  "The team also holds periodic open EDU Team meetings (approximately
   once per year at IETF meetings) to report on plans and progress
   and to receive community input and feedback."

Are these reports publicly available?

The last message posted to edu-discuss@ was in December 2010.  It has 
been said that IETF work is done through mailing lists.  The only 
member of the EDU team who posted a message during that year is Brian 
Carpenter.

The little problems that end up as long threads can be attributed to 
lack of educational material, lack of information and poor 
outreach.  I don't know whether anyone followed the WG Chairs lunch 
at the last IETF meeting.  A significant amount of time was spent on 
discussion about style in a RFC as nobody knew whether that 
information was already out there.

Is the EDU team a ossified?  I mentioned previously that the 
Newcomers tutorial is boring.  It may contain a lot of important 
information but that is not useful if the audience do not retain most 
of the material.  There are new people who can and will contribute to 
the IETF if they are given more than an opportunity to do so.

Here is an extract of Administrative and Management Plenary minutes 
from the last meeting:

  "Kathleen Moriarty said that in addition to the technical fellows, ISOC
   also brings a number of policy people from around the world to the
   meetings. That also increases diversity. In terms of looking at other
   organisations: what women and young girls need are examples. In the
   IETF that could mean giving examples that women or people from other
   regions can be good leaders in a technical environment."

I did a quick scan of the IETF mailing list archives.  I can see one 
or two examples and the individuals are not women.  I talked to the 
persons to get a glimpse of the problems they perceive.  I see very 
little active participation from people from other regions.  I would 
describe the outreach efforts as ineffective.

I gather that the EDU team is about education and not about doing a 
public relations exercise.

Regards,
-sm