Re: [Mtgvenue] Exploration of a "posting" metric - draft-elkins-mtgvenue-participation-metrics

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On 7/20/2016 11:37 AM, Fred Baker (fred) wrote:
>> In your draft and in your talk, you mention the possibility of measuring a person's participation or contribution in terms of email postings. >>You also mention a number of other possible models, such as whether their name winds up be "acknowledged" or listed as a "contributor" >>in a draft or RFC.
>>
>> I took a crack at extracting information about email postings from the mail archive.
...
>> The point of that was to identify low-hanging fruit.

Fred, sorry too much going on.  I have not had a chance to look at the metrics yet.  

>The problem is that quite a lot of that fruit is underdeveloped, or rotten.

>The S/N ration for postings is sufficiently poor as to render measuring 
>posting possibly only slightly better than the 'just showing up' metric 
>of registering for a meeting.  Simply put, just counting whether a 
>person posts to the lists tells us nothing about whether they've 
>actually "contributed" to the substance of the work.

Dave, respectfully, I could not disagree more.  I think that email lists and the way we participate on them works.  By and large, if someone contributes and continues to contribute regularly on email lists (esp. the WG lists) and generates discussion, then that is definitely contribution.  
IMHO, people need to start by reviewing drafts - that is what I tell newcomers in the mentoring program, and reviews by other people posted on the email lists for everyone to see are one of the things that actually make the IETF drafts much better.   An insightful comment leads to discussion, etc.
We may need to have some nuance in how we measure contribution on email lists.  But, I stand by my opinion that participation on email lists is a metric that is a valuable measure of contribution because it is in fact, a valuable contribution.

>"Contribution" needs to be measured meaningfully, as well as 
>objectively, even if the measurement is coarse and doesn't count everyone.

>This is why I've suggested reaching no deeper than the Acknowledgements 
>and Contributors sections of I-D's and RFCs (as well as author lists, of 
>course.)  If a name shows up there, the person made it through a basic 
>filter for having been seen to actually contribute.

Definitely agree that Acknowledgements and Contributors ALSO be counted.
Nalini