John
A few observations.
> On 24 Jan 2023, at 05:32, John Klensin via Datatracker <noreply@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
> Borrowing a bit from recent discussions in several WGs about
> IANA registrations, the IETF should recognize (and probably
> indicate explicitly in the document) that a goal of zero
> barriers to participation is probably unattainable. For some,
> registration may be a barrier especially if it requires the
> disclosure of personal identifying information. It would, IMO,
> be entirely reasonable for the IETF to decide that such
> disclosures (whether through a registration system or
> otherwise) strike a reasonable balance with participation and a
> process that is seen by others as open and transparent, but how
> far it is reasonable to go in that direction should probably be
> seen as a matter of principle like the rest of this document
> and not a simple administrative procedure the LLC should be
> making without IETF community guidance.
For info - the PII collected for the fee waiver application is a subset of that collected during registration. So long as the principle of "don’t ask for a reason" remains in place, there should be no reason to ask for anything that is not asked for at registration,
> **Section 3, Pargraph 2**
>
> "without any barriers other than the application for the free
> registration itself"
>
> Along the same lines as the comments above, we should recognize
> that, for some potential participants, "applying" for a fee
> waiver may constitute a barrier and that, in particular,
> acknowledging lack of ability or willingness to pay fees may
> feel burdensome even if the application does not require any
> justification for the request. At a very minimum, the IETF
> should consider very strongly advising the LLC to take, and
> publicize, meaningful measures to keep the identities of those
> who have have applied for fee waivers and any information that
> may be disclosed by those applications confidential. I gather
> that is current practice, but it should probably be noted as a
> principle.
During the consultation on fee waivers there was significant discussion about this and we were a long way from consensus on it. Some believed that it was important to share the list of those that received a fee waiver in order for the community to self-police it and thereby avoid both any abuse of the system and any need for the LLC to police. As this was an LLC consultation, rather than a consensus call, the decision was made to preserve the privacy of fee waiver applicants as transparency may put people off applying.
If this were to now become a strong advisory in an RFC then I would suggest that the subject needs to be opened up for further discussion. While it is highly unlikely there would be consensus around a switch to transparency, there may well be an intermediate mechanism that can be agreed, such as a designated community member being asked to scan the list to verify the process is not being abused.
>
> The comments above are largely independent of the very helpful
> analysis in Section 4 and addressing them should not require
> changes to that analysis.
>
>
> ***An Elephant Looking Into The Room ***
> (not quite in the room)
> (and a privacy issue, so maybe an invisible
> elephant)
>
> Section 1 of the document carefully distinguishes between a
> "participant" (which the rest of the document is about) and an
> "observer". The latter is neither defined nor discussed
> further. In the interest of keeping the document closely
> focused on fee structures, that is probably reasonable and
> appropriate. However, the open process principle defined in
> RFC3935 can reasonably be extrapolated to argue that there
> should be a mechanism for people to observe the IETF and its
> working without "participating" in any meaningful way. Such
> observers would presumably have no rights to intervene in a
> meeting in any way (including asking to speak, making entries
> in chat rooms or meeting notes, and so on) and, presumably,
> would not want such rights For many years prior to the changes
> that started around (or somewhat before) 2000, the IETF did not
> make a strong distinction between observers and participants in
> terms of ability to remotely access meetings and meeting
> materials. However, other than the ability to make very crude
> estimates from, e.g., connection statistics, we didn't know how
> many of the former there were, much less who they were.
>
> Although they do not constitute one of the observer categories
> for which I am most concerned, if someone is considering
> participation in the IETF but wants to try to understand how
> things work before making a decision, observing all or part of
> a meeting without making whatever commitment they might think
> is implied by registering, identifying themselves, and asking
> for a fee waiver might be an attractive option and ultimately
> gain us more, and more diverse, participation.
>
> It has been said that we don't need to consider observers any
> more because, e.g., they can always watch the meetings on
> YouTube. Maybe that is true, at least unless we have observers
> who have legitimate needs to see meetings and streams in real
> time or close to it; people for whom the usual delay of a day
> or more (occasionally a week or more) in getting materials that
> participants could see or be involved with posted. Proving the
> non-existence of such (potential) observers would be no easier
> than any other proof of a universal negative.
>
> Perhaps it is reasonable for the IETF to abandon the idea (and
> principles) of real-time observers. But, if so, that decision
> should, as a matter of principles about how we make decisions,
> be a matter of IETF discussion, rough consensus, and explicit,
> documented, guidance to the LLC as appropriate, not one made as
> an administrative action based, e.g., on the LLC or IESG being
> confident they know what potential observers might be like or
> require.
The currently open IETF Community Survey 2022 [1] specifically aims to identify people who watch mailing lists but do not post to them, though it goes a step further and asks about "readers" and "monitors" not "observers" as shown below:
Q1 How would you best describe your participation in IETF mailing lists? (this question cannot be skipped)
( ) I regularly post ("regular")
( ) I occasionally post ("occasional")
( ) I regularly read messages but never post ("reader")
( ) I monitor message subjects and occasionally read but never post ("monitor")
( ) I have recently subscribed and I am still deciding how I fit in ("new participant")
( ) I no longer read or post but I used to ("ex-participant")
( ) I have never read or posted to any IETF mailing list ("non-participant")
For the analysis I will treat mailing list posting as a proxy for participation in general, for two reasons:
1. Someone who observes in real-time seems by definition to be more invested than an observer, except in the very edge case of a professional observer such as a journalist
2. identifying and asking about all the other avenues of participation is too complex for a survey.
cheers
Jay
>
> thanks.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Manycouches mailing list
> Manycouches@xxxxxxxx
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/manycouches
--
Jay Daley
IETF Executive Director
exec-director@xxxxxxxx
--
last-call mailing list
last-call@xxxxxxxx
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/last-call
