Re: [vmeet] interest in a side-meeting to talk about remote hubs, local communities, etc?

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

--On Thursday, July 13, 2017 19:51 +0000 Nalini J Elkins
<[e-mail]> wrote:

> John,
> Remote viewing hubs are important for the developing world.  
> They are a way to do outreach and to incubate new
> participants.   It will take time for us and them to become
> effective.   However, let us not in any way diminish the
> efforts that have been put out by so many to do outreach. We
> have seen hubs in Latin America, India and Africa.   I hope
> to see them continue. 

Again, and I can't say this too many times, I think remote
viewing hubs and other sorts of gathering separate from IETF
meetings are a great idea and should be encouraged in any way
possible.  My sole concerns is about remote participation by a
group (hub or otherwise).   

Remote _participation_ arrangements can easily favor some types
of work over others and, however unintentially, discourage
participating in some IETF efforts.  If they are sponsored by a
company (or held on its premises) and primarily draw people
associated with that company of who are associated with the
company's main area of interest, they carry risks to IETF's
norms about participation as individuals and even could raise
questions about collaborations to influence standards
development work to favor particular organizations or sets of
organizations.  In addition, fairness in queue management for
questions and comments would require far more skill, training,
and attention fro WG Chairs than we have seen so far.

I've convinced that, if we are motivated enough and  in the long
term and with an adequate investment in training, procedural
reviews, lawyers, and possibly tools, we can get around those
problems and make remote participation hubs work in a
satisfactory way.  But I'm not certain the community cares
enough or is willing to make the needed investments (remembering
that they will almost certainly require more attention from and
put more pressure on the IESG and WG Chairs).  More important
and precisely because I think remove viewing / observation
arrangements are very important, I don't want to risk getting
distracted from that effort by trying to work in parallel on the
very hard problems of remote participation hubs.

best,
   john