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

[Vinayak Hegde <[e-mail]>]

Replies inline.

On Thu, Jul 14, 2016 at 5:57 PM, S Moonesamy <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> 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?

One good metric to look for "hard/substantial" (please suggest a
better word) is to look at the list of contributors by countries.
http://www.arkko.com/tools/stats/countrydistr.html

> 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.

Again the link above might be useful.

>> 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.

Since you mentioned India, I checked and was pleasantly surprised to
find India at No. 6 for eg.
http://www.arkko.com/tools/allstats/india.html

But This is only one data point. We will need a melange of metrics.
This can be aggregated at region level as well.

> 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.

WG participation and in-person attendance could be other metrics.
Maybe we can start collecting data bout remote participation as well.

> 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.

I believe the consensus would be "rough". But if it is directional
enough even if not completely representative.

Thanks
Vinayak