Re: For Review: IESG Statement on Guidance on Face-to-Face and Virtual Interim Meetings

[Yoav Nir <[e-mail]>]

> On 14 Dec 2015, at 1:08 AM, Michael Richardson <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> 
> I read the document, and I replying to Harald's point form summary because it
> captures my concern in fewer words.
> 
> How can I reconcile:
> "Extended sequences of virtual interim meetings should be the exception"
> 
> with:
>> - An expectation that virtual interims will become more commonplace
>> over time
> 
> 6tisch has had 1hr virtual interim meetings approximately every second Friday
> since the WG was chartered.   Perhaps 20 of them occured in each of 2014 and 2015.

So how many show up for a virtual interim vs how many for a physical meeting at IETF week + those who join through jabber/meetecho ?

Perhaps more appropriately: is there an identifiable group of people who participate in the regular meetings but can’t manage to join in the interims?

> 
> I would prefer to have a WG document-foo editing meeting created as a virtual
> interim, with the understanding that:
>      1) anyone can show up with an issue, it's a WG meeting.
>      2) it's not so formal that any decisions can be made, so there is
>         really nothing to "miss”.

I don’t think #2 works well in practice, at least not for the groups I frequent (I don’t know much about 6tisch). It’s considerably worse for physical interims (which tend to be longer - we didn’t all travel to beautiful Elbonia just to meet for two hours) those who miss any meeting, whether it was regular IETF week meeting, physical interim or virtual interim are presented with decisions that have been made, and that they need to work to undo.

We’ve all heard (and said) at regular meetings: “this is the sense of the room, we’ll take it to the list” Then this gets posted to the list. Then somebody asks a question about this decision, and they get the “oh, this was discussed extensively at the meeting.” So yes, all decisions can be reversed on the list, but poorly-attended interims tend to solidify the cabal. At least, that has been my experience.

Yoav