Elwyn Davies wrote:
Finding out what BOFs are being plotted is not very easy AFAIK. In the
case below there doesn't appear to have been any widespread public
announcement of the start of the mailing list and I suspect that is the
case for many others.
Obviously an announcement of intent to the IETF list or the Announce
list is one way for people to tell the world.
Indeed.
The current model for BOFs tends to view the first one as a free shot. No
history required.
Given how poorly such first meetings tend to go, I am at a loss to understand
why this model persists. Remember that a BOF is for gauging community interest
in the working group. That simply is not possible when the topic has no
meaningful IETF online history.
I am in the camp that believes that IETF meeting time is extremely valuable and
that the IETF is still predicated on email list discussion as its primary venue(s).
As such -- particularly a BOF targeting working group formation -- we should
require that a pre-wg BOF be required to have:
a) formed an online discussion, some months ahead of any possible BOF
b) its formation announced on ietf-announce
b) put forward a sample charter on that discussion list
c) conducted discussion of that charter, prior to the BOF.
That way, there is a basis for recruiting informed participation, as well as
gauging a degree of community interest.
d/
ps. I suggest that the DIX BOF is a particularly good candidate for going
poorly. Online identity has a history for which a description of "problematic"
would be a vast understatement. Even better, the IETF's track record in the
arena of digitizing human constructs is, well, limited.
--
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
<http://bbiw.net>
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