It can indeed be challenging, but in some circumstances, the active participants of the working group don't quite span the globe. I've also found that audio conferences seem most effective if they only last an hour or maybe 90 minutes, but are held more regularly, rather than marathon on-line interim meetings. With a 10 am ET conference slot, this probably allows 90% of the IETF attendees to participate between 7 am and 11 pm. It seems to work for many international organizations - after all, organizations with offices on the west coast of the US and in India or China are not exactly uncommon. This also seems to be a common work model for other SDOs. If done well, this model has the advantage of avoiding the spikes in activity every three-four months. It requires an active moderator and good tools to manage hand raising and queuing, but these tools are becoming readily available even for plain audio conferences. (I like TOHRU as simple and effective.) Rather than looking for one magic mechanism, maybe we should try to optimize the ensemble, such as: - bug/issue trackers for the document issues late in the development cycle - email lists for general discussion and raising issues from participants who are more peripherally engaged with a WG or document - in-person meetings for early small-group work and establishing personal relationships - webinar-style mechanism for plenaries and WG status updates - regular augmented audio conferences for document-level discussions Henning On Oct 23, 2011, at 8:44 PM, Andrew Allen wrote: > > Randy > > I think that also assumes that the earth's rotation will also stop at some time during the next decade forcing us all to migrate to the sunny side of the planet. > > Failing that happening then with 18 hours at least (Tokyo to US West coast) of time zones (and that doesnt take into account places like Hawaii and NZ) haveing any regular or long time real time sessions is in my view impractical as someone has to do it in the middle of the night then. > > Andrew > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Randy Bush [mailto:randy@xxxxxxx] > Sent: Sunday, October 23, 2011 12:47 PM > To: Cullen Jennings <fluffy@xxxxxxxxx> > Cc: IETF Disgust <ietf@xxxxxxxx> > Subject: Re: Requirement to go to meetings > > perhaps we could model using the assumption that, a decade or so hence, > there will be no physical meetings, [almost] all will be net-based. > > randy > _______________________________________________ > Ietf mailing list > Ietf@xxxxxxxx > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > This transmission (including any attachments) may contain confidential information, privileged material (including material protected by the solicitor-client or other applicable privileges), or constitute non-public information. Any use of this information by anyone other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you have received this transmission in error, please immediately reply to the sender and delete this information from your system. Use, dissemination, distribution, or reproduction of this transmission by unintended recipients is not authorized and may be unlawful. > _______________________________________________ > Ietf mailing list > Ietf@xxxxxxxx > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf > _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf