On Tue, Apr 19, 2016 at 3:08 PM, Stephen Farrell <stephen.farrell@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > So, I'd be really interested in hearing from people who've > been participating a bit for a while and who'd consider themselves > as "newer participants" (define that yourself however you want)... > > If you've been to a f2f meeting what difference did that make > to how you participate via mailing lists and remote tools? > > or > > If you've not been to a f2f meeting, what's your experience of > participation via mailing lists and (especially) remote tools? My new participant response: 1. It's made a big big difference being able to attend f2f meetings. 2. Remote participation works very well for consumers. While CDT has been participating at IETF (with some gaps) for many years, I definitely consider myself personally to be a newer participant, with my first IETF being 89 in London but having missed 90 (Vancouver) and 95 (BA). We've gone so far as sought funding from grantmaking philanthropic organizations (as have others like Article 19 and the ACLU) to support our IETF work, and a very important part of that support is being able to ensure we can attend IETF in person. Not only do you get to know peoples' voices and such, but the "hallway track" is in essence "many fine lunches and dinners" (although for IESG, etc. that must be brutal!) that inevitably involves a lot of technical discussion (and policy discussion, oh my!). I found the remote participation at IETF 95 to be amazing (sure, there were hiccups, but we troubleshoot and make it better)... but it is definitely focused (rightly so) on good transmission of WG meeting goings-on and remote presentations (e.g., participating in a non-meetecho meeting is rough). I can imagine remote participation is different for a "consumer" like me (tend to comment on documents more than author or implement, heh) than very active roles like IESG member, WG chair or editor. best, Joe -- Joseph Lorenzo Hall Chief Technologist, Center for Democracy & Technology [https://www.cdt.org] 1401 K ST NW STE 200, Washington DC 20005-3497 e: joe@xxxxxxx, p: 202.407.8825, pgp: https://josephhall.org/gpg-key Fingerprint: 3CA2 8D7B 9F6D DBD3 4B10 1607 5F86 6987 40A9 A871