[Emo-dir] Newcomer deterrence and abuse

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

Hi.

I assume that at least some of you have been following the
recent threads on  the IETF discussion list and tools-discuss
about ways in which our many of our current collection of web
pages -- the information that is not on them and navigation
among them -- could act as a deterrent to people who have gotten
pointers to IETF activities and who might, if not deterred,
become newcomers and then useful contributors.  Even if more
experienced people encounter abuse or other issues they would
like to discuss or report, missing information (as discussed in
those threads) seems more likely to encourage frustration and
walking away from the IETF rather than, e.g., trying to find a
tutorial or guide or reach out to people in the leadership who
might be able to untangle things.

I wanted to "officially" bring those issues to the attention of
this Directorate because, IMO, the problems are ultimately
Outreach and Education ones: if the IETF's systems and
difficulty navigating them chase people away, then no amount of
education or mentoring is going to help much at all.  And, of
course, if the chased-away people reinforce the rumor that,
despite claims to the contrary, the IETF is basically a small
collection of in-groups that is hostile to anyone who shows up
who is not already connected, e.g., to a company that is already
sending other participants.
 
thanks,
   john

p.s. To help make the point, while the "about" section of your
list description page is close to what I'd like to see more
generally, including a link as to where to go for more
information, it has the same issue with "run by" of all of those
other pages. The group description to which it points is really
excellent except that, if someone actually wanted to contact,
e.g., the chairs, there are no addresses, only links to profile
pages that do not, in general, contain them.   In Greg's and
Karen's cases, there are at least email addresses on the profile
pages, but, unless sweeping improvements have been made in the
last week or so, that does not seem to be the case in general.