On 7/15/23 23:50, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
Because it limits effective participation to (a) those who can show up that often, and (b) those who live in the timezone that the meetings are held in. IETF WG discussions need to be informed by a wide set of interests and experiences, not just by people who are paid to work on that WG's activity, or who have plenty of time to spare and a keen interest in that particular group.Why is attending biweekly con calls exclusionary?
The reason that IETF has been insisting forever that decisions are made on mailing lists, is that this is the least exclusionary way of participating in discussions. It's largely timezone agnostic, and decisions on mailing lists tend to be made on timescales that give even occasional participants plenty of time to catch up with unread messages and respond to them.
I find attending three in person meetings a year to be highly exclusionary.
I won't disagree with that. Again, it's important to make decisions on the mailing lists rather than at in-person meetings. In-person meetings are however very useful for letting participants "calibrate" others, i.e. get to know them well enough so that they have some context for that person's remarks.
Keith
