----- Original Message ----- From: "Brian E Carpenter" <brian.e.carpenter@xxxxxxxxx> To: "Melinda Shore" <melinda.shore@xxxxxxxxx> Cc: <ietf@xxxxxxxx> Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2012 8:11 AM > On 15/11/2012 03:43, Melinda Shore wrote: > ... > > Right, I understand that (better than you might think - I live in > > Alaska). But. I'm trying to understand the value in having people > > attend one meeting. I've asked about that several times. > > There are people who have attended one, or a very small number, > of meetings and who participate actively in IETF work. That's > certainly the case for a few people in Australia and New > Zealand, for example. I have a co-author on a current draft who > attended IETF 83 in Paris, because he happens to live there and > doesn't have business justification for the time and money for > longer trips. I think people in this class do get a lot out of > occasional participation - enough to encourage them to > participate remotely. I've gone through phases of attending one > meeting a year, and that's definitely enough to stay in touch. > > However, that is very different from meetings in unusual places > *attracting* new participants who stay with us. Would we get a > cohort of new active participants if we met in Anchorage? > > We'd reached 50 attendees from China at IETF 63 before we even > started seriously negotiating the Beijing meeting. It seems to > me that the causality is mainly in the opposite direction: > participation causes meetings, not meetings cause participation. I started, some years ago, with a meeting, because the culture that I was used to was that conferences, be they annual or triannual, were where things really happened and that e-mail filled in the gaps in between (and I think that this remains the case in other, related, fora). That attendance showed me that most of the IETF meeting was a waste of time, that it was e-mail that was the main vehicle for work, and I think that the IETF web site has it about right when it says "People interested in particular technical issues join the mailing list of a WG and occasionally attend one or more of the three IETF meetings held every year." and "After participating by email for a while, it may be time to attend your first meeting." which is not exactly sellling the idea of attending meetings:-) But as I say, I think that that is the nature of the IETF. Tom Petch > (IMHO, there is some value to the IETF in having one-off > attendees who don't subsequently participate: they learn what > the IETF is and hopefully tell others about it. This can't be a > bad thing, but it's definitely secondary.) > > Brian > >