Re: New-comers

[Wes Hardaker <[e-mail]>]

Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]> writes:

> All the same, my experience from both mentoring and newcomers'
> meet-and-greet is that most people first come because of a specific
> topic, which often (but not always) corresponds to a single WG.

>From the IETF guides perspective, when we go looking at applications
for people that want a guide: 1) yes there are some that are coming for
a particular topic and that's it, but 2) a decent percentage display
a wide range of interest and topics and even make statements indicating
their unsure where to start but are eager to get involved.  For the
percentage interested in multiple topics or just "generally", its
probably at least 25% of the guides applications.

> I may have said this before, but when I first attended an IETF meeting
> it didn't surprise me, because I was used to attending meetings of
> physicists. You need to be thick-skinned for that too. Has the IETF got
> more brutal over the years? I don't think so. That doesn't mean it's OK,
> but let's be clear that this is a long-standing problem.

The IETF may not have gotten worse, but I'd argue the rest of the venues
may have gotten nicer to attend and thus the gap is still wider.  Many
*OGs were much more aggressive internally than they are now (IMHO), as
an example.

-- 
Wes Hardaker
USC/ISI