Re: Poster sessions

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

+1.  Very strongly.

Whether the logistics of space and times could be worked out or
not, poster sessions strike me as a really bad idea and Fred has
summarized at least most of the reasons.  If we had a high
barrier to posting I-Ds, it might be different.  But we don't.

   john


--On Monday, January 10, 2011 14:38 -0800 Fred Baker
<[e-mail]> wrote:

> 
> On Jan 10, 2011, at 5:56 AM, Marshall Eubanks wrote:
> 
>> You can go, read the poster and formulate opinions and
>> questions independently of anyone else, including the author.
>> If there is a time when the author is supposed to be present,
>> you can then go back and clarify any issues. You can't
>> establish any consensus this way, but it can be efficient at
>> resolving issues.
> 
> I'm attaching a chart that may be useful in this discussion.
> Using the rsync-able directory of all IETF ID's since 1992
> (btw, I don't believe the database before about 1996, but 14
> years is still interesting data), I did a brief scan of the
> arrival of drafts to the Internet Draft directory. The blue
> line shows the arrivals by month; the red bar graph tries
> (somewhat crudely) to aggregate drafts-by-IETF-meeting.
> 
> I'm envisioning the process and requirements of the poster
> sessions. In terms of process, today if I post a -00 draft to
> a working group, I can generally get discussion during the
> coming IETF meeting. What I think this suggests is that
> instead I would show a poster at the coming meeting and get
> working group discussion the meeting following. I'm not sure I
> like that implication.
> 
> I'm also thinking about the implications of 500-or-so posters.
> In terms of simple floor space, if we presume a poster and the
> conversation in front of it occupy a 3 meter-by 3 meter (10' X
> 10') space, we need 4500 square meters or 50,000 square feet
> of floor space to park them in. Time-wise, we need to assume
> that 1/3-to-1/2 of people who attend an IETF meeting will,
> instead of chairing or presenting in sessions, be out standing
> by their posters - and not wandering around looking at other
> posters. The mechanics look a little daunting.
> 
> Personally, call me stuck-in-the-mud, but this isn't an
> academic conference in which grad students are advertising for
> a professor that might be interested in mentoring them or a
> sponsor might fund their research. This is an SDO, and
> internet drafts are what any other SDO calls "contributions"
> or "work in progress". I would far rather have people who ant
> to talk about something contribute an internet draft on their
> topic, and talk with other people about their ideas - whether
> on working group lists or other places. For those of us that
> *do* participate, it seems to mostly work.
>