Re: the old fellowship program, was Wow, we're famous

[Michael Thomas <[e-mail]>]

[]

I think the first order question ought to be how to get new 
participation on working group mailing lists. I mean, it's free and just 
a click away so unlike meetings it is not an impediment for anything 
beyond investment in time. I wrote before how some wg mailing lists can 
be toxic in their treatment of "interlopers", and recently tuned out 
from yet another one because of that toxicity. For somebody starting 
out, the last thing you want is to have +3 fire breathed down on you for 
asking questions or pointing things out. Working groups can be rough and 
tumble and that is exacerbated by people who know each other for 
decades, but for newbies that is pretty off-putting.

Maybe one thing that could be done is to have a set of things that 
newbies can do to participate that are likely to be taken very 
favorably. What author doesn't like somebody who's gone through your ID 
with a fine tooth comb for nits, bad grammar, unclear text, etc and 
especially from fresh eyes from the perspective of a potential 
implementer, for example. Everybody would win in that situation. Their 
naivety is a huge benefit.

Mike