Christian, On 24/05/2016 09:32, Christian Huitema wrote: > On Monday, May 23, 2016 9:23 AM, Paul Wouters wrote: >> ... >> According to https://www.ietf.org/blog/2016/04/ietf-95-summary/ we had >> 14% participation from the region at IETF-96. Those are people that were > new >> or possibly rarely attend. I can tell you that I would have never become > an >> active participant in IETF if during my first meeting I hadn't had so many > great >> face to face talks with people who took the time to help me with my ideas > and >> my (lack of) knowledge and procedures. That is quite unlike the mailing > lists, >> where things tend to get heated, buried and somewhat unpleasant. > > Paul is onto something there. Most of the time, when I read messages on an > IETF mailing list, I can picture in my head the face of the writers and even > imagine the sense of their voice. I can often remember their priorities, > their personal point of view, and maybe discount some oratory effects. (Not > always, man is fallible :-). This helps a lot with assessing trust, getting > the subtext in the messages, etc. But I cannot do that with messages from > most newcomers, and the newcomers probably cannot do that with most > participants. Yes, when I read messages from Christian I definitely hear his very characteristic voice ;-) > Our "remote meeting" efforts address the participation in discussions, but > they are still a bit dry. We do have mentoring efforts, but they seem to > only happen during meetings. If we do believe that personal communications > are important, maybe we should take that as an explicit target. Maybe some > form of electronic mentoring. Maybe some simple steps like making the > pictures of participants available somewhere. Maybe have people record video > greeting messages. Yes, you get some of the effect in meetings. But > technology has progressed somewhat since the 80's, and we ought to be able > to build personal contacts outside of meetings as well. A great idea. Maybe somebody can set up a quick way to test this sort of idea - those of us who've been around for a while could surely each create a one-minute video. If you're worried about public access, require an IETF tools login to view the videos. Brian