Re: Registration for remote participation

[Alissa Cooper <alissa@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks again for all of the feedback on this proposal. We have implemented it for IETF 99. The changes to the remote registration form are live at https://www.ietf.org/registration/ietf99/remotereg.py. The ‘Join without registration ID option’ that was previously available on the remote participation login page will be removed, and we will instead include a link to the audio stream for those who do not want to register. 

We received some excellent suggestions for new questions designed to help us learn about remote participants; however those questions seem better suited to a post-meeting survey than a registration form, particularly if we are attempting to keep the form simple and avoid imposing any requirements on remote participants that are notably different from those included on the in-person registration form. The secretariat will be incorporating the feedback into questions for the post-meeting survey. 

Many other suggestions centered around allowing people to use their datatracker logins to register for a meeting. This feature is already a part of the requirements document that is being developed by the secretariat for the new meeting registration system currently in development.

Alissa

On May 9, 2017, at 3:01 PM, IETF Chair <chair@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

For remote participants at IETF meetings, registration is currently optional. Remote participants may join a session at an IETF meeting by entering any name or pseudonym of their choice into the current form used for logging in to MeetEcho.

The IESG is soliciting community feedback on a proposal to require registration for remote participants at IETF meetings. The objective of requiring registration for real-time remote participation is to provide better data to the IETF community and leadership about the size and make-up of the remote participant base. As remote participation grows, having more reliable remote participation data will allow the service to be better tailored to those using it and the community as a whole, and will help us understand the potential impact of remote participation on in-person participation. We understand that even with required registration the data collected will not be perfect, complete, or unspoofable, but we believe it would provide a more credible basis for analysis than the data available today.

The proposal is as follows:

Remote participants would be required to register (for free) by providing the information below (* denotes required fields). Registration would be mandatory to access MeetEcho sessions in real time and to join the remote mic queue during a session.

Title

First / Given Name*

Last / Family Name*

Company / Organization

ISO 3166 Country of Residence*

Email*

Gender

Have you attended an IETF meeting in person before?

Have you attended an IETF meeting remotely before?

Upon registering, participants would be issued a registration ID, just as they are today.

To join a session, participants would be asked to input the registration ID. The same email-based facility that is currently available to retrieve a forgotten registration ID would continue to be available. The cookie-based “Remember me” option would also still be available. The only difference from how login works today is that the option to "Join without registration ID" would be removed. Other options for authentication (leveraging a user-chosen password or datatracker credentials) might be explored further in the future.

Remote participation registration data would be stored and secured by AMS and MeetEcho just as it is currently today. As is the case now, no registration or login would be required to access MeetEcho recordings, audio recordings, YouTube videos, or jabber rooms. And no changes are being proposed as to the handling of virtual blue sheets.

We'd like to hear from the community about this proposal. Please send comments to ietf@xxxxxxxx, or exceptionally to iesg@xxxxxxxx, preferably by May 30, 2017.

Thanks,

The IESG