RE: Let's look at it from an IETF newbie's perspective... Re: IPv4 Outage Planned for IETF 71 Plenary

["Ed Juskevicius" <[e-mail]>]

What if someone took the initiative to organize a new "newbie training"
session on Sunday in Philadelphia, entitled something like "getting your
laptop ready for the planned IPv4 outage experiment on Wednesday night"
?
 
Would that reduce the potentially negative perspectives that newbies
would take home after the meeting?
 
Just a thought ...
 
Regards,
 
Ed Juskevicius
[e-mail]

________________________________

From: Dan York [mailto:[e-mail]] 
Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2007 12:54 PM
To: [e-mail]; [e-mail]; [e-mail]
Subject: Let's look at it from an IETF newbie's perspective... Re: IPv4
Outage Planned for IETF 71 Plenary


I have resisted adding anything to this debate about the IPv4 outage
because people have already stated many of the good points.  I
particularly agreed with the points made that from a PR point-of-view
this was not a great idea. 

Let me, though, add another perspective.  What about all the newbies?
What are they going to do during this time?

At IETF 70, there was a question raised in one of the plenaries asking
"How many of you are here for the first time?" and a significant number
of hands went up.  So let's look at this proposed IPv4 outage *during
the plenary* from their perspective.  Now, these newcomers may or may
not have been subscribed to IETF mailing lists.  They may or may not
have attended the Sunday "intro to IETF for newcomers" session.  They
may or may not in fact be technical folks.  They are probably still
trying to figure out how all this works and why these people are
humming, etc.

So now we go into one of the plenary sessions and it is announced that
"we will now shut down IPv4 and use only IPv6".  The newcomer notices
that:
1. A good percentage of the audience now dive into their laptops and
become engrossed in diagnosing how their system works with IPv6. Side
conversations are starting everywhere and occasional shouts of "Aha!"
emerge from random groups.
2. Another percentage gets up and leaves in search of cookies.
3. Some percentage who missed reading the emails are suddenly upset
because they lost their IPv4 connectivity.
4. Some percentage pops in their EVDO/EDGE/whatever cards and continues
along as they were before doing their work and completely ignoring the
plenary speakers.
5. Some percentage never showed up at the plenary because they went to
join Richard Shockey at a local steak house.
6. Non-technical users or others who did not subscribe to IETF mailing
lists are sitting there dumbfounded with a deer-caught-in-the-headlights
look wondering what the heck is going on and if this has anything to do
with the hums.
7. NO ONE is paying attention to the speaker(s) in front of the room
during this part of the plenary.

Now maybe the newcomer is all excited about IPv6 and so plunges into the
technical troubleshooting.  Maybe they go look for cookies or steak.
Maybe they sit there dumb-founded.  Probably they are left wondering
what the point of this IETF "plenary" session really was.

I don't dispute that such an exercise could be an interesting experiment
in IPv6 connectivity (and one in which I would join), although in many
cases I think we can already know the outcome.  I just question the
wisdom of doing it during the *plenary*.  It would seem to me to be a
great exercise to do at some other point during the week when the people
who care can attend and identify issues, work through them, etc.  Or we
do as Ted suggested and just run an entire event with only IPv6
wireless. (and count how many people are using EVDO/EDGE cards!)


It goes back to a more fundamental question - what is the purpose of the
plenary?  What information do we want to get across to attendees to the
session?  (And if we *do* plan an IPv4 outage, what is going to be
talked about during the time of the outage?)

My 2 cents, (now worth less than when I lived in Canada)
Dan

-- 
Dan York, CISSP, Director of Emerging Communication Technology
Office of the CTO    Voxeo Corporation     [e-mail]
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