Re: IETF 107 and Corona Virus? - timezone

[Christian Huitema <[e-mail]>]

I recently attended several Quic interim meetings remotely --2 days of
interop and 2 days of meeting. Couple of other meetings as well. Yes, it
can be hard, and Yes it does feel like jet lag without the jet, and Yes
it has some impact on family life. But as John Klensin said "different
people react in different ways." Overall, I find that less hard than
traveling to another continent for a short meeting. I don't have to
spend a day traveling each way, so "without the jet" is actually nice. I
have way fewer chances of catching an unexpected germ in the plane or in
transit. I am probably more awake for the meeting than if I was
recovering from jet lag.

Of course it is not ideal. When you do that, you are a tiny spoke to a
big hub. This is asymmetric, and it has effects. Inserting yourself in
the conversation requires some practice. The remote audio is a best
effort service provided by volunteers, so you cannot really blame them
for the glitches. But then you have to compensate for by relying on chat
rooms and other tools. And you do miss the most of the little breakaway
sessions and discussions around lunch and dinner.

On the other hand, the Quic WG also organized "Virtual Interop"
sessions, and I found that those worked really well. Pick a calendar
date, and have people join progressively through the day or two as their
time zone permits. Every team was putting a version of their software
online for others to tests, doing frequent updates as issues were found
and fixed. There is always enough overlap between the time zones to give
each pair of teams to test against each other, discuss potential issues
with the spec, etc. This is not a "hub and spoke" model, the
configuration is symmetric for all participants.

It may be that the Virtual Interop scenario worked well because we were
doing a lot of software development and Interop testing -- good old
fashioned rough consensus and running code. But dedicating a day for
"rolling sessions" and discussions of specifications could also work.
Putting decks or videos on line, dedicating rolling time slots to
discussing drafts and issues, etc. That might be worth trying.

-- Christian Huitema

On 2/16/2020 12:04 PM, avri doria wrote:
> Hi,
>
> When I remote attend meetings in another timezone, I think of it as jet
> lag without the jet.
>
> avri
>
>
> On 16-Feb-20 03:29, Stewart Bryant wrote:
>> We all suffer from and recover from jet lag in different ways, and the same with adapting to antisocial work shifts, but I find the TZ argument strange.
>>
>> If you want to attend the whole meeting, then shifting your day is no worse than what first responders such as the police service do every week here in UK. 
>>
>> At least with doing a time shift rather than a trip you do not need to worry about the dehydration and stress of a long flight.
>>
>> Stewart
>>
>>> On 16 Feb 2020, at 07:37, Roni Even (A) <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>>
>>> One issue to consider about having  an entirely virtual meeting is what are the implication on participants in different time zone.
>>> Attending  few scattered session may not be a big issue but if one wants to attend many sessions it becomes a problem.
>>>
>>> My personal experience when trying to attend a QUIC WG Interim meeting in Japan was very bad.
>>>
>>> 1. The meeting time for me was from 2:00AM till 10:00 AM. (9:00-17:00 in Japan) for three days.
>>> 2. I used the lunch break to try to catch some sleep, due to lack of enough time to sleep
>>> 3. Starting at 2:00 AM did not provide enough time to have a healthy night sleep before starting my daily attendance.
>>> 4. The recovery from the "jetlag" was much slower than when attending the meeting in person.
>>>
>>> My conclusion was that I will try to avoid as much as I can this mode of participating from remote in a meeting that takes a couple of days in which I have to attend multiple sessions.
>>> It is not healthy.
>>>
>>>
>>> One other advantage of a f2f meeting is the "official" and non-official off line sessions/meetings that I find very productive while attending the IETF meeting
>>>
>>> If a full virtual meeting will happen and use Vancouver time zone than daily meeting from 9-18 will be 19-4AM for me
>>>
>>>
>>> Roni Even
>>>
>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: ietf [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of Andrew Alston
>>>> Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2020 8:48 AM
>>>> To: [e-mail]
>>>> Subject: IETF 107 and Corona Virus?
>>>>
>>>> Hi All,
>>>>
>>>> I am just wondering if there are any thoughts on the status of the IETF 107
>>>> meeting in light of the corona virus.
>>>>
>>>> Particularly in light of the fact that for safety reasons mobile world congress
>>>> has been cancelled and we're seeing other events being cancelled in light of
>>>> this as well.  Should it be considered a safe and responsible move to go
>>>> ahead with this meeting or should we be looking at an entirely virtual
>>>> meeting in light of the situation?
>>>>
>>>> Andrew