Re: [Mtgvenue] New Draft: draft-elkins-mtgvenue-participation-metrics

[S Moonesamy <[e-mail]>]

Hi Nalini,

It may seem like I am opposing you as I replied to several of your 
emails.  That is not my intent.

At 00:05 14-07-2016, [e-mail] wrote:
>The reasons I wanted to start this discussion is:
>
>1.  As Fred said (and as the other drafts in this WG say), where an 
>IETF meeting is physically held depends on where the participants 
>are.  So that really begs the question: "What do you mean by participant?"

That is a good question.

>As far as I know, historically, a participant has been someone who 
>attended physically and / or was in a leadership position.  I 
>believe there was also some consideration given to RFCs 
>written.  (All, please correct me if I am wrong on this.)

I don't recall it being documented except in a IPR context or for Nomcom.

>To my mind, that is not fair to some regions of the world which are 
>emerging economies and cannot participate physically in person as 
>readily as others.  So, if such regions want to grow their IETF 
>participation, they can most readily grow via electronic means - 
>email, remote hubs, etc.

Agreed.

>As many have said, much of the IETF work is done via email 
>lists.  So, if we have good strong contributors participating via 
>email, then why should that NOT be counted?  So, I want to get 
>consensus that we should count such things and then consensus on how 
>to count, weigh, etc.

In order to argue for that I would have to attend several IETF 
meetings to have discussions with a significant number of 
attendees.  Another alternative is to ask the question (remotely) at 
the plenary.  Based on my experience of the IETF I'd say that it is 
unlikely that I would get any support from the floor.  I suggest that 
you have a conversation with Margaret and as she did say something 
which is factual during a plenary meeting.

For what it is worth, there was a person in my ex-Working Group which 
I consider as a strong contributor.  The person and I are neither 
from the same company nor from the same region.

>2.  There is also much discussion of the type "We held a meeting in 
>such and such a place & how do we know if we have additional contributors?"
>
>My personal feeling is that there ARE additional contributors.  But, 
>that is only my feeling and I am only one data point.  So, let's 
>find out if there really are additional contributors.  Why have a 
>fact-free discussion?

As an anecdote I met someone new to the IETF.  I doubt that the 
person would not be described as not contributing to the IETF as the 
person has been used as an example by an IETF Chair.

There are people who are interested in contributing and they have the 
potential to do it.  It is unfortunate that those persons are not 
counted; at some point it may viewed that it is better to go away.

I looked at the numbers for [e-mail].  There was only one person 
from China who commented during the last month.  If I go back to the 
beginning of the year, the number would be around three.  The number 
looks insignificant in comparison with comments from persons residing 
in the United States.  The numbers for IETF Last Calls used to be 
insignificant in comparison with other discussions on 
[e-mail].  Although the numbers have improved, probably due to 
the willingness of the IESG to make some changes, participation for 
an IETF Last Call is mainly from less than a handful of countries.

>3.  There is quite a bit of outreach being done by various parts of 
>the world - India, Africa, Asia-Pacific, Russia and of course Latin 
>America.  And, that is only what I personally know about.  I am sure 
>that there is much more that I do not know about.
>
>I think it is good for these regions to know what are the specific 
>metrics of IETF contribution so that they can gauge their own 
>progress and also show others of the progress in their region.

I have done outreach in my region.  If I encourage people to 
participate in the IETF and mention that there is low participation, 
I would be asked about what the IETF considers as "participation".  I 
would have to provide some facts to explain why I said "low 
participation".  Should I use the statistics for recent RFCs?  Should 
I use the attendance statistics which are presented by the IETF 
Chair?  I used to follow all the working groups in an IETF Area.  I 
knew how many persons from my region participated on the working 
group mailing lists.

https://www.iab.org/documents/minutes/minutes-2016/iab-minutes-2016-05-11/ 
states that there were people from 11 countries, including Brazil, 
Costa Rica, Bolivia, Venezuela, Argentina, India, Pakistan, Morocco, 
Ethiopia, and Benin.  According to the minutes, presenting a draft is 
a working group activity.  If several persons from South America put 
some effort to join a working group mailing list discussion to 
understand a protocol better so that they can make useful comments, 
is that a contribution from that region?  Would it be positive for 
the region and for the IETF?

>4. We need consensus.  We should have metrics that we all agree on 
>are "good enough".  We will never have perfect metrics.

Agreed.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy