Re: IETF Challenges

[Mikael Abrahamsson <[e-mail]>]

On Sun, 3 Mar 2013, Abdussalam Baryun wrote:

> I still didn't leave the posting because there are good encouraging 
> people in IETF. Please note that I have been now one year posting and 
> two years before reading, and have a feeling that IETF SHOULD encourage 
> people from China, Japan, Africa,

I read wg mailing lists and participate lightly in 10-20 WGs (most of them 
I follow discussions and rarely comment, some I comment more frequently). 
My background is that I started using BBSes/Fidonet in the 80ties, started 
with Linux/FOSS in the 90ties and then datacom in the late 90ties and 
onwards.

My experience is that there is a huge difference between different WGs. 
Some I have sent email to without response, then actually emailed the WG 
chair and asked if the topic of my email was within the WG scope, still no 
answer. This is an example of an WG that's hard to get into, seems 
populated by people who mostly discuss within an already established group 
and where nobody seems to bother that someone comes in with an idea to 
even give them a reply that their idea is not on topic or alike.

Some other WGs are populated by people who are very happy to respond and 
discuss to anyone who comes up with something, which is very welcoming.

I see the IETF as a meetingplace or "market" for people to gather and 
cooperate in. It's hard to encourage this more than what is done. The 
barrier for entry is quite low (I have only been to a single IETF meeting, 
the one that was in my home town Stockholm a few years back), and even 
before that to participate in a lot of WGs, it's only a matter of having 
access to email and time and willingness to participate. I can imagine 
that language and culture is one of the biggest barriers. For me, coming 
from FOSS/Fidonet discussion culture, joining the IETF was not so 
different. For others, coming from perhaps a fairly closed corporate 
climate or a country culture where hierarchy is important, I can imagine 
it's very different.

So basically, I can't really think of anything the IETF can do to 
encourage people to participate that it's not already doing. Do you have 
any suggestions?

-- 
Mikael Abrahamsson    email: [e-mail]