Re: [admin-discuss] Next steps towards a net zero IETF

[Daniel Migault <[e-mail]>]

I do have similar thoughts as Kathleen and John - obviously I am not living
too far from them.
LLC mentions they committed to improve remote participation tools [1] and I
am wondering what plan LLC has or what LLC thinks the focus should be, so
we may provide useful feedback - especially as it is quite fresh.

I was wondering if having the remote participants providing their TZ and
group they (strongly) want/need to participate could be considered in the
planning/scheduling - see Mark Nottingham's pain calculator [2]. Of course
planning constraints are already quite high, and the WG chair / AD
should probably consider carefully whether they need to meet at a specific
IETF meeting. There are probably a plethora of criterias, but fundamentally
the question should be what are the expected benefits from meeting at
*that* IETF meeting versus an interim meeting (2 weeks before or after).

Yours,
Daniel

[1]
https://www.ietf.org/blog/ietf-llc-statement-on-remote-meeting-participation/
[2]
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E8SnbkXk4K4rZVgMzK3m0UeNgmJdRfMgeBkA5Z6rQ7Q/edit#gid=1020076867

On Sun, Apr 2, 2023 at 1:44 PM John C Klensin <[e-mail]> wrote:

> (trying to a shift this to admin-discuss, as requested --
> although I question  the wisdom of that decision for which see
> separate note -- again while not cutting off the ietf@
> discussion until others shift too )
>
> Another remote participant response, building on Kathleen's
> response in the hope that something useful can be learned from
> similarities and differences.  It may be relevant that she and I
> are in the same time zone and, indeed, live within several
> miles/km of each other...
>
>
> --On Saturday, April 1, 2023 07:13 -0400 Kathleen Moriarty
> <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
> > Greetings!
> >
> > Earlier in the thread, there was a request to hear from remote
> > participants. I remained remote for this meeting as the
> > distance to travel added too much away time in total. I am
> > planning to be in San Francisco.
>
> In my case, the issue was less too much time away but concerns
> about travel time, costs, some COVID concerns, and, yes, carbon
> footprint.
>
> > In the past, I did stay up all hours to attend meetings. This
> > was because of a direct responsibility as an AD at the time.
> > For this meeting, I attended all sessions where I was a chair
> > or presenting. I had co-chairs in the room or this would not
> > have been possible.
>
> I no longer have any formal leadership responsibilities at the
> IETF (pain-in-the-neck and voice-from-the-rough don't count) and
> was not even signed up for any presentations, so, if I were
> using the logic I deduce from the above, I would have gotten
> much more sleep this last week.
>
> I was not able to switch my personal time onto that in Yokohama,
> with several commitments during the week in local business
> hours.  With some remote meetings, I've been able to do that
> switch and the time zone shift has not been much more of a
> problem than attending in person.  Neither arrangement will be
> true for everyone remote at every meeting so, if the information
> is useful, we should be concerned about blanket generalizations.
>
> I did attend all of the sessions I considered very important,
> including a few side meetings (on this subject and others) and
> the plenary, but my threshold for "important" went way up and I
> did miss one session in which I intended to participate because
> I was just too tired to do a meeting at 3:30AM local time after
> ones between midnight and 3AM.   I believe that meetings halfway
> around the world (twelve hours time difference plus or minus a
> few) are always going to cause different remote experiences and
> related decision-making than ones only a few time zones away.
> As an extreme example, IETF 114 (in the same timezone) posed an
> almost entirely different set of challenges to attend remotely
> than IETF 116.
> >...
>
> > I'm going to watch the recordings of meetings that happened
> > in the very late hours and of course something is missed.
>
> For most of the sessions I did not attend but consider
> interesting, I will not watch the recordings.  Instead, I
> persist in the -- official and told to newcomers but probably
> outdated -- belief that I should be able to get everything I
> need from the mailing list, minutes, and published I-Ds.  When
> those are insufficient or contain pointers elsewhere, I will
> typically ask myself how much I really care --about the topic
> and about WGs that care enough about either the supposed rules
> or about remote participants-- to spend the time to dig into
> those other materials.  The answer is, more often than not,
> "no"... and a strong temptation to appeal decisions to appeal
> decisions to hold Last Calls on the grounds that the behavior of
> the WG was systematically exclusionary wrt a broad range of
> participants and perspectives.
>
> > I do think we can achieve more remotely, but we need to work
> > together for that to be possible.
>
> Let me say that differently and more strongly.  Most paths to
> significantly less carbon impact (much less "net zero") pass
> through "more remote", whether that be individuals staying home,
> reducing the number of in-person meetings, or encouraging
> organizations -- particularly, IMO, the LLC and ISOC-- to
> carefully consider how many people they need to have present f2f
> (and, where appropriate, how to organize things to reduce that
> number without significantly reducing effectiveness).  If "more
> remote" is going to work, the community and its decision-makers
> need to get much more serious along many dimensions.  They range
> from a need for ADs to push hard to get minutes out quickly (not
> let them drag out for a few months); to getting much more
> serious about people (especially ones who do not have large
> images on-camera) carefully announcing their names each time
> they start to speak; and many other things, including
> recognizing that there now seem to be two types of
> "side-meetings".  Stated extremely, one type involves local,
> narrow interest, or quasi-social events. The others are meetings
> that provide information for (or that might lead to) IETF
> decision making even if the group involved is some sort of task
> force or LLC effort.  The latter either need to be treated as
> IETF efforts, with adequate attention to the needs of remote
> participants or they don't need meeting time.  Treating them as
> "side meeting" to avoid cluttering up the main agenda may be
> fine, but, for that type of session, deciding that "side
> meeting" means that remote participation need be no better than
> "best effort" should not be... at least if meaningful remote
> participation is important.
>
> > Michael's suggestion for plenary meetings makes sense. I
> > also appreciate WGs that meet frequently in between meetings
> > as that lessens the need for travel too. The only problem with
> > that (for me) is that I have a standing conflict with one of
> > them and gave to decide each week what to attend.
>
> This may or may not be a net-zero issue but, because all-remote
> interim meetings inevitably involve the sort of schedule
> conflicts Kathleen identifies and some would-be participants
> with day jobs having unreasonable time zone conflicts, I think
> it would be far better for broadly based, inclusive, IETF
> specification development if we focused much more on mailing
> lists, probably with the IESG pushing back on WGs with multiple,
> even regularly scheduled, interim meetings.  That difference
> probably has zero net effect on carbon impact, but it is
> helpful, IMO, to keep looking at the whole system.
>
> > I do think we can do better. We have to be willing.
>
> Indeed.  And, if we are not willing, we should probably be
> asking ourselves hard questions about whether we are
> inadvertently limiting the diversity of participation and
> diversity of technical inputs enough to reduce the IETF's
> overall effectiveness as well as providing disincentives to
> remote participation and f2f meeting reduction.
>
> best,
>    john
>
>
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>


-- 
Daniel Migault
Ericsson