On 27 May 2013 16:13, Yoav Nir <ynir@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
LCD?
Anyway, What I found most useful when I was starting out 9 years ago, was to look over the list of areas and working groups ( http://tools.ietf.org/area/ ) and find out which of them are working on something that is of interest to me. In my case it was mostly the security area, and the IPsec working group, since that is what I was working on in my day job. I subscribed to that list and some others that were also related to what I was working on (TLS, PKIX).
So the best thing is to subscribe to the mailing lists, both those that interest you personally and those that are of interest to your employer (if there are such groups).
Step 2 is to lurk for a couple of weeks at least, and just read what others are posting. If they're talking about a particular draft, it's easy to find on one of the IETF sites and read it. So you read the drafts, and read what people are saying about the drafts. This teaches you both about what the group is working on, and the (for lack of a better term) "political" part - who are the participants and what are they like. You might also want to read the Tao document, although different groups have varying dynamics.
After a while, you've read the drafts, you've read what some people are saying, and you may have formed an opinion, either about the draft itself, or about one of the comments. That's a good time to speak up by sending a message to the list. Maybe the draft got something wrong. Maybe the comment is only correct in certain contexts, but doesn't describe some situation you're familiar with. Maybe in reading the draft you find it hard to figure out what an implementation should do in a certain case, and you present the case, and ask that it be clarified. Maybe the proposed protocol would require clients, servers, or middleboxes to allocate more memory than implementations that you know can afford. Such comments, and even better, proposed fixes are how you build a reputation in the IETF for knowing your stuff. You can also volunteer to review a whole document, or volunteer to write a missing section. That is how you build a reputation for being useful. Both are necessary for success in the IETF.
Step 4 is when you have an idea of your own, or you read someone else's idea and you want to participate. In that case you either write your own draft or join someone else in writing one. It's often not enough to just write it. You also have to get people to read it, post about it to the correct lists, and in general "sell" it and gather support. It is at about that time that you start to feel the need to attend meetings, but you can get some things done even without it.
Hope this helps
Yoav
On May 27, 2013, at 3:33 PM, Nthabiseng Pule <npule@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
> as,
>
> I am new to the IETF. I would like to contribute any way I can, but the learning curve seems steep indeed. I am from an LCD country. I have the necessary resources but I just don't know where to start.
>
> Some guidance would be welcome. I am reading on stuff and hope that one day I will be able to make some meaningful contribution.
>
>
> Nthabiseng Pule
>
>
>
> On 27 May 2013, at 1:52 PM, Arturo Servin <aservin@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> John,
>>
>> Good summary.
>>
>> I would add a "steep learning-curve" to start participating. It takes time to get conformable in participating in mailing list and reviewing drafts for I think two reasons. One is to get know how the IETF works, and another to catch-up in knowing the topic in relation with other WG participants.
>>
>> About the remote hub I think it would be good to give it a try.
>>
>> Regards,
>> as
>>
>> On 27 May 2013, at 02:52, John Levine wrote:
>>
>>> I think this is a summary of the issues people have mentioned that
>>> discourage participation from LDCs, in rough order of importance.
>>>
>>> * People aren't aware the IETF exists, or what it does, or that it has
>>> an open participation model
>>>
>>> * People don't read and write English well enough to be comfortable
>>> participating
>>>
>>> * People are unaccustomed to and perhaps uncomfortable expressing
>>> overt disagreement
>>>
>>> * People don't think they have anything to contribute to an organization
>>> that is mostly people from rich countries
>>>
>>> * People don't have adequate Internet access for mail, or to use the
>>> remote participation tools
>>>
>>> I have to say that I don't see one or two meetings in South America
>>> addressing any of these. Given that the incremental cost to the
>>> participants, compared to meeting in North America, would likely be on
>>> the order of a million dollars, it seems to me very likely that there
>>> are better ways to spend the money.
>>>
>>> For example, if language and net access is a problem, it might be
>>> interesting to set up a remote participation center in B.A. during one
>>> of the North American meetings (it's one time zone off from Toronto)
>>> with screens and cameras, paid interpreters, and a few volunteers to
>>> help explain what's going on.
>>>
>>> R's,
>>> John
>>