Re: [Manycouches] many-fine-dinners --- a view on how to organize virtual meetings

["Charles Eckel (eckelcu)" <[e-mail]>]

On 11/22/20, 5:32 PM, "Michael Richardson" <[e-mail]> wrote:


    First, I am not certain what I, or the WG wants to do with this document.
    I feel I'm getting feedback as if it was a WG document, suggesting consensus
    words.

    If the WG wants to adopt this, and find a few co-authors... or maybe even
    take it over, that would be good.

    Charles Eckel (eckelcu) <[e-mail]> wrote:
        ce> Section 1.2, "IETF 108 would be best described as a sprint."

        ce> I would classify IETF 108, and IETF 109, more like a typical IETF
        ce> meeting attended remotely, which is not a sprint in my mind. You
        ce> needed to pace yourself for the week, so more like a 10K :)

    I guess that I feel it was more sprint-like, because there was no time for
    lunch, side meetings, etc.  The day was shorter and was much faster paced.

    What word would you like to use here?

I see. In that regard, each day was a sprint, and the meeting was a series of sprints. Compared to a typical agenda for the in-person meetings, "compressed" is the word that comes to mind for me. 

        ce> Section 2.1, "Heavily conflicted (physical) meeting schedules have been a growing issue ..."

        ce> This depends on the type of attendee as well. If focused on a few WGs
        ce> only, a more comressed agenda is better. For people who like to dive
        ce> into everything, as is thankfully common with many long time IETFs,
        ce> the packed agenda results in conflicts and difficulty checking out
        ce> new things.

    This wording, "people who like to dive into everything", feels rather
    flippant to me.  You write it as if it's a personal choice.  A whim.
    I wonder if the ADs feel this way too.

Sorry, I did not intend for it to come across that way. Perhaps describing as "people who are involved in many different areas, including ADs but also including anyone tracking or actively contributing to work items that span many groups within IETF" would have been better.

    The IESG likes to make lots of little WGs, which are highly focused.
    That means that to do certain things, one has to go to many more WGs than
    might previously have been the case.
    The charters say that we are supposed to coordinate with other WGs.

I understand and agree. When I wrote, "as is thankfully common with many long time IETFs", I was referring to how critical this type of coordination and the people who make it happen are. Though this group may not be the majority, and believe you correctly point out that designing the schedule with them in mind is important.

        ce> Section 2.2.2, "This document suggests that the IETF virtual meeting week be focused on:

        ce> I would add the hackathon and put it somewhere in the middle. One
        ce> concern is that if many WGs are not meeting, fewer people will want
        ce> to attend the in-person meeting and others will have a harder time to
        ce> justify it. This would also hurt the Hackathon as the Hackathon alone
        ce> may not be enough to justify a trip.

    This confuses me rather a lot.  Above, you suggest that many people are
    focused on a few WGs.  I guess that means three or four maximum, right?
    How do these people justify the trip now?

If I have one draft in one working group, it may be hard to justify traveling to the meeting for that alone. If I can show that I am involved in multiple different places and all of these efforts would benefit from me traveling to participate in person, it is easier to justify. The Hackathon is one more area of potential participation. If I already have a strong case for traveling for the IETF meeting, arriving early enough to participate in the Hackathon is easy to justify and strengthens the overall case. But if I had little or no case for traveling to the meeting because none or few of my working groups were meeting during the in-person meeting, it would be harder to justify traveling for the Hackathon.

    I am very happy to include significant text about how the Hackathon fits in.
    In many ways, I think that the (in-person) Hackathon activity are rather MORE
    important than the WG meetings.  I think that Stephen Farrel has said
    something similiar.

        ce> Section 2.2.2, "Rather than attempt to compress the schedule ..."
        ce> For me, the agenda for IETF 106 worked very well. The side
        ce> meeting/free timeslot that was added plus breakfast, lunch, and
        ce> dinner/post dinner were great and sufficient for this, including side
        ce> meetings/BAR-BOFs, Hackdemo, etc. some of those evenings. Improved
        ce> stay-for-lunch options would save a great deal of time and help
        ce> facilitate as well.

    IETF106 was still too congested for me.  I would also like to free up more
    in-person time for side meetings, BAR-BOFs, etc.

Got it.

Cheers,
Charles

    --
    Michael Richardson <[e-mail]>   . o O ( IPv6 IøT consulting )
               Sandelman Software Works Inc, Ottawa and Worldwide