On 4/18/20 5:55 AM, Christian Hopps wrote:
I'd like to disagree here (regarding presentations at F2F meetings). Presenting work can be an important part of WG mechanics. LSR (IS-IS/OSPF) will have a smallish group of experts reading the drafts and their revisions. A much larger group of experts including ones with cross-wg/cross-area expertise will sit through a short presentation at a F2F meeting and sometimes provide valuable feedback. I appreciate those extra sets of eyes.
Yes, I've seen this happen. But did the presentation really have to take up F2F meeting time? It seems like there are other ways of getting such feedback, including old-fashioned email.
Though I will admit that the f2f meeting format in which people can fill up holes in their schedules between WG meetings that they need to attend, with WG meetings that they have less need to attend, does attract more eyeballs with broader perspectives. With virtual meetings (especially when each WG schedules its own virtual meetings) we have the challenge of attracting those eyeballs for cross-wg/cross-area review, and IMO that challenge should be addressed sooner rather than later.
Also, human nature being what it is, sometimes you have work that a WG doesn't like (or won't like), but the emails just don't seem to be getting that across. Having a mic line of actual human beings, having been seen to listen to the speaker, and then telling them directly, in person, why the proposal is not a good idea with the allowance of immediate interaction, can be the difference between ending a debate cleanly and protracted never ending email threads, upset authors, appeals, etc. This won't work near as well if you just have people walk up (no presentation) and tell the author they are wrong, as you miss out on the "these people listened to me" part then.
I've seen this happen too, but it's often been quite disappointing to see many people's very expensive f2f meeting time used to educate a very few people (sometimes only one person).
Keith
