IESG Statement: Guidance on Face-to-Face and Virtual Interim Meetings

[The IESG <[e-mail]>]

Dear all,

Here is an update on the "Guidance on Face-to-Face and Virtual Interim
Meetings" IESG statement.

Thanks for the feedback and discussions (both on the ietf and the
wgchairs mailing lists).

Taking this feedback into account, we added a requirement for remote
participation for the face-to-face meetings, we reworded the sentences
about "Extended sequences of virtual interim meetings" that appeared as
discouraging this mode of operations, we inserted a bullet point for
fair access for all participants regarding timing, and finally we
included a series of suggested editorial changes.

The IESG has now approved the following IESG statement ...

Regards, 
the IESG


Guidance on Face-to-Face and Virtual Interim Meetings

Date: 11 January 2016

This statement provides IESG guidance on interim IETF working group 
meetings, both face-to-face and virtual.

Historically the work of the IETF has been conducted over mailing lists. 
This practice ensures the widest possible involvement in the working 
group process. This practice allows more in-depth analysis of proposals 
than extended face-to-face meetings and is much more inclusive. In 
general IETF face-to-face meetings are used to hold high-bandwidth 
discussions on specific issues that have not been able to be resolved on 
a mailing list or, in the case of BOFs, to get a common understanding of 
the issues involved in a particular topic. These face-to-face meetings 
can be quite important but are not substitutes for mailing list 
discussions.

There is a long history in the IETF of working groups occasionally 
holding "interim" face-to-face meetings between the regular IETF 
meetings to focus on specific issues or resolve specific problems. 
Interim face-to-face meetings can consume a lot of community resources, 
including travel costs and time of participants. When considering 
whether to approve an interim face-to-face meeting, area directors are 
expected to balance the costs to the community associated with interim 
meetings and the expected benefits. Also, there could be benefits when 
two or more working groups meet together. Interim face-to-face meetings 
which are proposed to eliminate the need for a working group to meet 
during a regular IETF meeting will not generally be approved.

Working group chairs should propose interim face-to-face meeting 
logistics concerning location, timing, and remote participation to 
maximize meeting participation among WG participants.

The Secretariat is available to help with logistics of face-to-face 
interim meetings. Of course, the larger the meeting, the more lead time 
is needed to make arrangements.

Virtual interim meetings (conference calls and jabber sessions) are 
commonly used by working groups: some working groups organize bi-weekly, 
or even weekly virtual meetings. Those virtual interim meetings prove 
very useful and productive in accelerating the working group process. 
Virtual interim meetings are an integral part of the IETF way of working 
and are expected to become more commonplace over time.

RFC 2418 section 3.1 tells us that "interim meetings are subject to the 
same rules for advance notification, reporting, open participation, and 
process, which apply to other Working Group meetings". This applies to 
all face-to-face meetings to which a large part of the working group is 
invited, even if labeled as 'informal' to distinguish them from 'real' 
working group meetings. This does not apply to meetings, conference 
calls, or jabber sessions for small design teams producing input to 
working groups. Virtual interim meetings have other rules that must be 
obeyed, as specified in this IESG statement.

Extended sequences of virtual interim meetings should be considered when 
numerous specific issues need to be debated. Where working group chairs 
wish to schedule a sequence of more than four virtual interims, the 
chairs must explicitly set out the reasoning for that in a mail to the 
list and check that there is rough consensus for that plan. Such 
extended sequences also require AD approval.

Occasionally working group chairs or ADs might help organize meetings to 
discuss vulnerabilities discovered in IETF protocols or implementations. 
Those are not WG meetings and hence not described here.

The guidelines for interim meetings are as follows:

  o For face-to-face interim meetings of IETF working groups:
    - The meetings need prior approval of relevant AD(s).
    - The meetings must be scheduled (location/timing) with fair access 
      for all working group participants.
    - The meetings must be announced at least four weeks before the 
      meeting.
    - The draft agenda must be published at least two weeks before 
      meeting.
    - Announcement text must be sent to ​[e-mail] for 
      IETF-wide announcement.
    - Remote participation (via Meetecho or similar) should be provided
    - Minutes, including a list of attendees, must be sent to the 
      working group mailing list and, within 10 days of the event (and 
      at least 48 hours before subsequent meeting), uploaded to the 
      Interim Proceedings Tool 
      <​https://datatracker.ietf.org/secr/proceedings/interim/> or sent 
      to ​​[e-mail]. 

  o For virtual interim meetings of IETF working groups:
    - The meetings are scheduled by the working group chairs, who should 
      discuss their plans with the responsible AD(s).
    - The meetings must be scheduled (timing) with fair access for all 
      working group participants.
    - The meetings must be announced and the draft agenda published at 
      least one week (ideally two) before the call or session.
    - Announcement text must be posted to the relevant working group 
      mailing list(s).
    - Recurring meetings (used only if much debate is expected), may be 
      scheduled together, with a single announcement. A separate draft 
      agenda, serving as a meeting reminder, should be posted before 
      each recurrence.
    - Minutes, including a list of attendees, must be sent to the 
      working group mailing list within 10 days of the event (and at 
      least 48 hours before subsequent meeting), and may optionally be 
      uploaded to the Interim Proceedings Tool 
      <​https://datatracker.ietf.org/secr/proceedings/interim/> or sent 
      to ​​[e-mail]. 

  o It should also be noted that as RFC 2418 section 3.2 points out, 
    decisions at meetings (normal, interim. conference call, or jabber 
    session) are not final and must be reviewed on the mailing list. 
    Special care needs to be taken with this for topics or issues which 
    have not been discussed on the mailing list or for outcomes that are 
    significantly different from previously arrived mailing list 
    consensus. 

Information on how to set up conference calls can be found on the WG 
Chairs page (​http://www.ietf.org/wg/chairs-page.html).