--On Saturday, Feb 15, 2020, at 10:27 AM, Robert Raszuk <robert@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > If we only make it as a rule that questions from remote > participants can be submitted via notepad instead of live > conference chat window, the scaling properties could be more > than satisfactory even if 100s of folks join remotely. Based on a good deal of active remote participation experience, I don't know whether this is a good idea or not. If it were to be a good idea and a much higher than usual level of remote participation were anticipated, every WG session (and the plenary) should be required [1] to have at least two notepad scribes/readers dedicated to the remote queue and at least two separate mic lines with one of the latter dedicated to those scribes. For the latter, once someone got to the mic, he or she would exhaust every question or comment that had been logged while the other took notes, then they would switch off while people were taken from the in-room queues. That would still not be ideal in terms of queue management and fairness but I note that, in many WG sessions and plenaries in the past, remote participants have had trouble getting their questions and perspectives into the room even with low levels of active [2] remote participation. For really active remote participation, I suggest that, in the last couple of years, we have done responsibly well in some WGs but barely squeaked by in others and in the plenaries, with the key problems being human rather than technology ones. I think it is also relevant to note that one of the problems with remote participation in the recent past has been that those who are typing into jabber and having their questions read often find that, by the time they are through typing in a question or comment, the jabber scribe notices and heads for the mic line, then waits to get to the front of the queue, and then reads whatever was typed in, the topic may have moved on to the point that the comment is no longer relevant. I've even had mic lines cut off while I was typing and before the scribe can get to the mic. Assuming the WG Chairs are paying attention to the indication that there is someone waiting in the Meetecho queue, it is much better in that regard because, just like standing in a mic line, one can signal a desire to speak but adjust actual comments to reflect ensuing conversation. >From the standpoint of that real-time input experience (and, again, assuming Chair are paying attention and cooperating) the Meetecho speaking queue works better than Jabber input and I would predict Jabber input would work better than the Etherpad or equivalent. The latter might turn out to be lots better for logging a question or comment for the permanent record than for active discussion, but, at least IMO, the purpose of real-time WG sessions is active and real-time discussion, not logging comments in the hope that someone will look at them eventually. Noting that Ron asked an essentially technical question about capacity of the infrastructure and that he has yet to receive a response (at least on-list) from anyone who actually knows how the relevant systems work, I suggest that answers and plans about both his questions and the issues raised above are important to any decision that might significantly raise levels of remote participation. best, john (who would probably have been remote from Vancouver even without the virus) [1] "Required" as in "if the required level of support is not present in the room, the WG session is canceled in real time, everyone present goes out for coffee (or other beverages of choice), and any work expected to be done in that session either moves to the mailing list or is delayed for an all-virtual meeting or IETF 108". Our usual way of handling remote participants who don't get to participate is to [maybe] apologize. Because, in practice, we seem to be increasingly making decisions in f2f meetings with ratification on mailings lists --a process in which someone who was excluded from that discussion can raise objections on the list but often has no way to provide input into the discussion before the decision was made-- there are probably grounds for appeal if the ratification process assumes the validity of the f2f decision, but, AFAIK, that hasn't happened yet. Yet. [2] In practice, we have three kinds of remote participants. (1) Those who listen (whom Meetecho identifies as Observers), (2) Those who sign up as participants but whose presence and visibility in the actual meeting session might be limited to one remark or question, and (3) Those who, despite being remote, expect to actively participate in, and contribute to, discussions going on in the room. The distinction is particularly important if some of the remote participants are WG Co-chairs, presenters, authors of documents, originators or major contributors to proposals or specifications under discussion, and so on. At least in terms of IETF discussions and decision-making fairly representing all perspectives and points of view, we need to tune a remote participation system to that active participant group while not seriously discriminating against the other two.
