Re: [ericas] Western, individualist conception of things (was: A suggestion for the Tao of the IETF)

["Adrian Farrel" <[e-mail]>]

Hello SM,

No, I'm not subscribed to ericas (I probably should be, please send extra hours
for me to include in my day). And, yes, it is wonderful to thanked for
something.

While we are patting each other on the back, thanks to SM for introducing me to
Ines Robles who is now doing a fine job as working group secretary for the ROLL
working group in the IETF even while still learning about the IETF.

The "pain in travel" issue is amusing to me. It is completely true that folk in
many places do not fully grok the difficulties of travel. It took a number of
years of shouting and screaming to get the wider IETF to understand that having
IETF meetings in the US imposed a bar to participation from China because a
percentage of visa applications were always refused, and because the visa
application period (which is sometimes greater than four months) is prohibitive
because the IETF meeting venues (i.e. hotels) were not announced with sufficient
warning, and it is anyway unreasonable to expect someone to be without their
passport for four months. This accounts for why we have so many meetings in
Canada (it is North America without being the US).

At the same time, if you ask one of the old-time US participants about where to
hold IETF meetings, they will pretty much always whine about the pain and cost
of travel to locations outside of North America (but will put up with Europe if
it is a good tourist location at a nice time of year). So, they *do* understand
some (not all) of the pain of travel, but have a problem with projection and
empathy :-) Not surprising as a large percentage of the IETF are on the autistic
spectrum!!

But, while thanking me is great, I also think you should be telling me I don't
do enough. Yes, I have tried to push this issue hard in the four years I have
been an AD.  But, it is clear to me that this is not enough. 

The rise in Chinese participation is a great success story. But is it clear to
me that this was driven just as much by industry in China being determined to
become a world player, than it was in any way driven by the IETF becoming a more
welcoming place. Maybe the *effectiveness* of Chinese participation was improved
by a number of people working hard in the IETF to provide education. Yet where
is the participation from Africa and South America? Why don't we see that?

Actually, ISOC reports to me that a run-on from the ISOC policy fellows program.
Apparently there are some moves from African nations who sent policy fellows a
few meetings ago (Paris, I think) to send engineers to the next few meetings. I
don't kid myself this is more than a trickle, but one does have to start
somewhere.

The things that I am unable to help with are the things where I don't know what
the problems are, and where I don't know what would help. I am going to guess
that holding an IETF in Cape Town would not be significantly easier for
participants from Morocco than an IETF in Paris. I am also going to guess that
an IETF in Israel would not be a great help for participants from Libya. But I
am also going to make the bold statement that physical participation should not
be our primary goal on day one (of course it would be wonderful and remains a
long-term aim). I want to work out how we raise awareness of the IETF, and how
we get people to start to participate via the mailing lists.

A real dream would be to have an IETF working group formed entirely out of
remote participation (which would completely facilitate people in *any*
country). People post Internet-Drafts; there is a mailing list for discussions;
a good consensus is built; the AD forms a working group; RFCs are published.
There is  zero reason why this should not happen. So what are we missing for
this? Answer: we lack active remote participants, and in particular, we lack
remote participants with pressing requirements that need to be solved and a
willingness/ability to articulate those problems.

Tell me please: what would it take? why doesn't this happen?  Is it lack of
awareness/education about the IETF?  Is it lack of technical skills?  Is it
because all the problems are actually being solved anyway?  Are there barriers
of language?

And please tell me what else is needed? Perhaps the way to look at this is to
draw up a wish-list and to try to order it by things that would make most
difference. Given that each new thing or process change costs (in terms of time,
effort, and reduction in lifespan) it is worth us taking the time to pick off
the most valuable things first (although it may also be worth the time to pick
off low-hanging fruit as well).

Time to stop rambling and get back to work.

Cheers,
Adrian

PS. And if the transparency is needed, Juniper Networks funds me to be an IETF
Area Director.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: S Moonesamy [mailto:[e-mail]]
> Sent: 21 June 2013 22:21
> To: Vinayak Hegde
> Cc: [e-mail]; Adrian Farrel
> Subject: Re: [ericas] Western, individualist conception of things (was: A
> suggestion for the Tao of the IETF)
> 
> Hi Vinayak,
> 
> I am posting this message from an email address so that it is easy
> for you to find out who pays me.  You can determine whether my
> employer will derive any benefit from what I say or do.
> 
> At 10:14 21-06-2013, Vinayak Hegde wrote:
> >Well I wouldn't blame anyone for this. It is hard to get volunteers
> >for any directorate. I am part of the performance directorate. It
> >has been really hard to recruit volunteers for this group (yes some
> >of the work is niche - which doesn't help). We have a lot of pending
> >reviews and the same faces have been raising hands for a couple of
> >years when doing reviews. Let me know if there are any good
> >strategies to overcome this.
> 
> I agree that it is hard to find people who will volunteer.  I too
> encountered the problem where the same people were raising their
> hands to do reviews.  There are a lot of situations which are
> designed in such a way that nobody can be blamed.  This is where I
> would look at who gets credit when things work fine as it is a good
> way to find out who is to blame.
> 
> >Again, there is only so much that the IETF can do about this
> >honestly. IMHO IETF does a decent job at this with letters of
> >invitation and other stuff. I have never had any issues with the IETF for
this.
> 
> I and several other persons had to complain for years.  The IAOC
> finally took that decision.  There are several other things affecting
> people from emerging regions which I had to complain about several
> times as the suggestions were ignored.
> 
> >That said, I have done a bit of travelling myself. Many people from
> >the western world do not have any idea about the amount of pain one
> >has to go through for something they take for granted (or even
> >bother). Just ask someone young from a developing country who has
> 
> I think that one of the problems is what you said above.  People do
> not have any idea about the amount of pain one has to go to and they
> take a lot of things for granted.
> 
> >Honestly there are a lot of armchair revolutionaries on the main
> >IETF mailing list, who like to pontificate from the pulpit. Sad but true.
> 
> Yes.  Some people make pompous speeches at the microphone.  Some
> people from emerging regions are impressed by the speeches or the
> title of the person and believe that what is being said is true.
> 
> I don't know whether Adrian Farrel is subscribed to this mailing
> list.  I would like to thank Mr Farrel for doing something instead of
> asking me a lot of questions to avoid doing something I asked. :-)
> 
> Regards,
> S. Moonesamy