This isn't a case of choosing between 'during IETF week' vs 'an interim' but rather meeting vs. only meeting once as a working group And not using the mailing list either https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/wpack/1Bmq3SQNdBSHxn_otyPCzzdlXas/
"It's my fault that much more discussion has happened on
https://github.com/WICG/webpackage/ PRs and issues, and even private discussions, than this mailing list. Sorry about that. I don't think you've missed anything significant since IETF 106, as I was mostly waiting for the WG to finish spinning up. Hopefully having actual chairs will help us do better here in the future."
So... apparently not. Although it seems a bit ironic to cite lack of mailing list discussion as the reason for not meeting.
To be clear, it's fine they're not meeting; to misquote Sandburg, "what if they held a meeting and nobody came?"
What I was hoping for was a way of having a discussion of why they aren' also pursuing a solution to two other IETF problems which seem within reach. Not the kind of discussion suitable for a Pull Request on GitHub.
To make a concrete suggestion rather than just whining:
Perhaps when the IETF is SHMOOing there could be longer all-area review meetings where each active working group gets 10-15 minutes (with chairs, document authors, AD's present) to review their status and schedule and answer questions. Or, if not as part of IETF week, some other kind of tour for tourists, well enough in advance to schedule a follow up if needed.
On Sun, Oct 11, 2020 at 11:57 PM Carsten Bormann <cabo@xxxxxxx> wrote:
On 2020-10-12, at 06:08, Larry Masinter <LMM@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> now perhaps you'll say these concerns are "out of scope" but perhaps there are other groups also deciding "attending" an IETF meeting is optional.
The choice between a meeting slot during IETF week and an interim isn’t always a very obvious choice.
Some meetings are preferentially held during IETF week, such as BOFs.
More generally, in IETF week, there maybe is more of an expectation of generalists (“tourists”) coming in, so this is where new, formational work should be discussed (as opposed to dotting the i's and crossing the t’s, which might as well be done in an interim).
Interims can be scheduled more dynamically, and can be very focused on a single subject — with luck, IETF week meetings happen exactly at the right time for that, too, but that is less likely. There is less pressure to squeeze out good use of the last minute in the slot in an interim; ending an interim after 30 minutes can be OK if all the goals for the meeting were met. Conversely, the sparseness (and scarcity) of an IETF week meeting means there is more incentive to have all your ducks in a row and actually end the meeting with some (rough) consensus established.
Right now, IETF week also has the advantage of getting to use meetecho as opposed to Webex or some random other Web conferencing scheme selected by the chairs (which sometimes means I can’t attend).
Grüße, Carsten
