Re: New Normal? [[Manycouches] Stay Home Meet Online (SHMO) draft and proposed WG]

[Phillip Hallam-Baker <[e-mail]>]

On Wed, May 13, 2020 at 5:02 PM Brian E Carpenter <
[e-mail]> wrote:

> This is not about the SHMO draft charter.
>
> Are we also going to discuss about the new normal, which should (IMNSHO)
> take in not only the learnings from the pandemic but also the
> sustainability arguments against 1200 people getting on airplanes three
> times a year?
>
> For example, are we going to consider other models such as (purely as an
> example) moving to four deadlines per year (formerly known as I-D cutoff
> dates) but only one plenary f2f meeting, with three on-line meetings? The
> specific argument for that is that by having four cycles per year instead
> of three, we might actually make faster progress as well as making less
> carbon dioxide.
>
> This isn't a tactical question and would take several years to implement.
> But it seems like a topic that we can't duck for long.
>
> Regards
>    Brian Carpenter
>

I like the idea of more deadlines. But the ID cut off seems like the wrong
tool. Its an artifact of the old model. Here an alternative strawman.

IETF is organized around four quarters. Each quarter there is a series of
virtual area meetings followed by a virtual plenary. These should be no
more than two days in combination.

The formal purpose of the area meetings is for WGs to report progress to
their area and the formal purpose of the plenary is to receive progress
reports from the areas.

The informal purpose of course is to provide deadlines but also to actually
facilitate the alleged cross-area fertilization of IETF which is great in
theory but rarely happens if we all have a full slate of area WG meetings.

WGs could hold virtual interims at any time outside those dates with the
proviso that there should be a week before the quarterly. WGs could hold
fortnightly con calls if they liked.

Area meetings would be scheduled so that people can attend all of them if
they choose. Preferably over no more than two days. If the plenary is a
half day, that is a total of 7.5 days for the virtual meetings combined.