--On Saturday, August 03, 2013 08:55 +0200 "Olle E. Johansson" <oej@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >... >>> Just a note for the future. I think we should allow >>> anonymous listeners, but should they really be allowed to >>> participate? >> >> We don't allow anonymous comments at the microphone in >> face-to-face meetings, requiring all people to clearly state >> their names and have those names recorded in the meeting >> minutes and in the Jabber log. I don't see why we would >> change this for remote participants. >... > (moving to ietf mailing list) > > Absolutely. > > Now, should we add an automatic message when someone joins the > chat rooms, or a message when meetings begin that all comments > made in the chat room is also participation under the note > well? Ole, First, probably to the "when meetings begin" part, but noting that someone who gets onto the audio a few minutes late is in exactly the same situation as someone who walks into the meeting room a few minutes late -- announcements at the beginning of the session are ineffective. But, more generally... I've said some of this in other contexts but, as a periodic remote attendee, including being remote for IETF 87, I'd support a more radical proposal, for example: We regularize remote participation [1] a bit by doing the following. At some level, if remote participants expect to be treated as serious members of the community, they (we) can reasonably be expected to behave that way. * A mechanism for remote participants should be set up and remote participants should be to register. The registration procedure should include the Note Well and any other announcement the IETF Trust, IAOC, or IESG consider necessary (just like the registration procedure for f2f attendance). * In the hope of increased equity, lowered overall registration fees, and consequently more access to IETF participation by a broader and more diverse community, the IAOC should establish a target/ recommended registration fee for remote participants. That fee should reflect the portion of the registration fee that is not specifically associated with meeting expenses (i.e., I don't believe that remote participants should be supporting anyone's cookies other than their own). * In the interest of maximum participation and inclusion of people are aren't attending f2f for economic reasons, I think we should treat the registration fee as voluntary, with people contributing all or part of it as they consider possible. No questions asked and no special waiver procedures. On the other hand, participation without registration should be considered as being in extremely bad taste or worse, on a par with violations of the IPR disclosure rules. * I don't see a practical and non-obtrusive way to enforce registration, i.e., preventing anyone unregistered from speaking, modulo the "bad taste" comment above. But we rarely inspect badges before letting people stand in a microphone line either. In return, the IETF generally (and particularly people in the room) needs to commit to a level of seriousness about remote participation that has not consistently been in evidence. In particular: * Remote participants should have as much access to mic lines and the ability to participate in discussions as those who are present in the room. That includes recognizing that, if there is an audio lag and it takes a few moments to type in a question or comment, some flexibility about "the comment queue is closed" may have to be in order. For some sessions, it might require doing what ICANN has started doing (at least sometimes), which is treating the remote participants as a separate mic queue rather than expecting the Jabber scribe (or remote participant messenger/ channeler) to get at the end of whatever line is most convenient. * It is really, really, important that those speaking, even if they happen to be sitting at the chair's table, clearly and carefully identify themselves. Last week, there were a few rooms in which the audio was, to put it very politely, a little marginal. That happens. But, when it combines with people mumbling their names or saying them very quickly, the result is as little speaker identification as would have been the case if the name hadn't been used as all. In addition, some of us suffer from the disability of not being able to keep track of unfamiliar voices while juggling a few decks of slides, a jabber session, audio, and so on. "I identified myself 10 minutes ago" is not generally adequate. * On several occasions this week, slides were uploaded on a just-in-time basis (or an hour or so after that). The problem was aggravated by the meeting materials and tools agenda pages apparently either lacking "Expires" headers or having them set rather long as compared to in-meeting changes. It seems to me that, if the IETF is serious about remote participation, pages that reflect very volatile material should have "expires" headers set to appropriately short intervals sometimes Sunday and be left that way until the end of the last session on Friday _and_ that it be clearly explained to people whose comments depend on visual materials that failure to get those materials uploaded before the meeting (except in the most unusual of situations) are badly hurting the IETF's ability to be open and inclusive. The only alternative I can think of to getting really serious about having material uploaded early is to have a high-reliability and decent resolution video feed of the slides or the screen on which they are being projected. And that might still be inadequate for some remote participants. Or we can decide that real participation in the IETF requires that people be in the room, that remote participants are involved on a "what you get is what you get" basis, and we stop pretending otherwise. For many reasons, I'm not enthused about that idea, but the things that I, and others, are suggesting and asking for will cost money and require some changes in the ordinary way of doing things and it is only fair to mention the alternative and suggest that it be explicitly considered. best, john [1] I do mean "participants" here. I really don't care what the lurkers do, or how anonymous they are as long as they remain lurkers. I object to anonymous participation in any standards process, including the IETF one, for reasons that have been discussed repeatedly on this list.