--On Thursday, November 16, 2017 20:53 -0800 S Moonesamy
<sm+ietf@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi John,
> At 07:02 PM 16-11-2017, Meetecho IETF support wrote:
>> It hasn't. Meetecho "Observer" mode still has audio + video +
>> slides + jabber + etherpad. The only thing that is missing
>> is the possibility to raise your hand to make comments
>> through the virtual queue.
>
> The change where registration is required for Observer mode
> occurred as from IETF99. Prior to that, registration was
> optional.
That is a different issue (see Mark Andrew's note).
That change was made for the reasons Brian and I described in
earlier notes plus, IIR< a desire to get a little better handle
on who was using Meetecho and for what. In particular, it may
make some difference -- in planning in prioritization of some
possible features -- what the proportions are between people who
are using it and actually remote and people using it while
sitting in a different WG meeting, an on-site hotel room, even
in the meeting room to get a better view of the slides, or the
NOC or some conference area. The granularity by which those
distinctions can be made by distinguishing between people with
onsite registration IDs and those whose registration numbers are
offsite only are very poor; I assume we will sooner or later ask
at least the latter to check a "where are you" box.
Personally, because I'm very concerned about the issues of not
being able to identify those who are influencing decisions, if I
could choose to require that anyone making comments over an
official jabber channel (e.g., a jabber room that is accessible
via the agenda, kept archivally as part of IETF activities,
and/or tracked by a jabber scribe) should be required to be
registered. That is probably infeasible technically or more
trouble than it is worth, but that does not affect the
preference. YNMD, especially if you see the risks differently.
best,
john