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

[<[e-mail]>]

On 7/13/16 2:35 PM, Fred Baker (fred) wrote:
>
>> On Jul 13, 2016, at 1:16 PM, Melinda Shore
>> <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>
>> On 7/13/16 12:07 PM, Fred Baker (fred) wrote:
>>> So on drafts, I would similarly go for "simple": if you post a
>>> draft, you have participated.
>>
>> I have a few concerns about the draft, and one of the primary ones
>> is that I'm hopeful that "participation" is being defined in
>> service of the broader goal of figuring out who ought to be at
>> meetings, but I'm not sure it is.
>
>> I *think* the discussion has to do with where meetings should occur,
>> based on the rubric that meetings should happen in places where we
>> have participants - "so who is a participant". "Where meetings should
>> occur" is central to the charter, whether IETF participation is
>> directly so or not.

>I think so, as well, but I have a personal concern about meetings
>being effective, and being places where we do things that can't
>be done on mailing lists or by use of other mechanisms, and I'm
>not sure that what's under discussion captures that.  As chair
>of this particular working group I have concerns about whether or
>not we should be defining what a "participant" is, both as a matter
>of scope and as a matter of not heading into ratholes.  That said I do
>think metrics can be extremely useful, so I'm interested to
>see where this discussion goes.

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?"

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.)

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.

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.


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?


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.  


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


I do not believe we need to rathole.  I understand your concern.  Let's stay focused.

Thanks,
Nalini