[Chapter-delegates] Proposal for IETF Registration fee support for Chapters

[Christian de Larrinaga]

I think to be fair to John he is not casting aspersions on chapter
participants' technical savvy. He is simply stating a fact. That to
engage with IETF working groups you need to be up to speed (as far as
possible) and that means you are actively engaged in the relevant lists
and discussions of that working group.

This would generally mean people turning up should have read and at
least broadly understand the drafts of the work being undertaken. People
attending working groups have a hum role in establishing consensus. For
that reason alone it is important to be in focus.

I have participated in a number of working groups and attended some IETF
meetings physically and online. I've done so for topics that are
relevant to work I am responsible for elsewhere.

For people who are technically aware but not engaged in IETF topics I
have put on a number of "fringe" events at IETF events. The first was in
London 2000 when I held briefings with the mobile sector on current work
in the IETF and during the IETF week with Jon Crowcroft held what I
grandly called the Internet Engineering master lectures. These lectures
took a fairly deep but summary dive each lunchtime by a known subject
matter expert of a key topic of concern floating to the surface in the
IETF.  The subjects were chosen to be relevant and at a presentation
level suitable for policy wonks, operators, developers, researchers,
students and so on. i.e., for engaging people in an ISOC chapter.

For the last IETF in London, after an informal "sounding" I came to
conclusion that my time would be better spent honing links between IETF
and politicians over the Pervasive monitoring problem. For that the
local chapter held a debate in Parliament (portcullis house) one evening
during the week that brought IETF, ISOC, W3C/Web Sciences, and senior
politicians together.

I think the point is that a chapter should encourage people to engage in
IETF who have real work to contribute. But a chapter can also offer
opportunities to bring this work into focus for the local community in
ways that are more digestible and helpful also in facilitating
structured feedback from "outside the box" for those engaged at IETF.

best



Christian



> Jose R. de la Cruz III <mailto:jrdelacruz at acm.org>
> 13 March 2017 at 22:30
> John:
>
> I've never been to an IETF meeting, so my comments reflect my views
> from "the outside".
>
> You stated: "/It occurs to me that there is a more basic reason why
> I'm sceptical of
> this proposal: sending one-time tourists to IETF meetings is likely to
> be counterproductive. There's one rather rudimentary intro session on
> Sunday, and the rest of the week consists of nothing but highly
> specialized working group sessions that are boring and
> incomprehensible unless you are familiar with the technical topic and
> have read the drafts they're working on.  Even for us regulars,
> sessions in areas far from our technical competence are hard to follow./"
>
> I do not agree with your statement. First, you assume that people that
> would participate in an IETF meeting under the proposed program would
> do so as "tourists". Why? Second, you also assume that very few people
> have the "/technical competence/" to follow a meeting. Really? So only
> those currently involved in a working group are "technically competent"?
>
> I do think that allowing more people, specially from ISOC Chapters, to
> participate in an IETF will encourage more involvement in working
> groups. Even for someone who does not posses the "/technical
> competence/" to follow a working group meeting, attendance might spark
> his/her interest in the subject and promote an effective contribution
> to the subject. Furthermore, attendance will most likely result in
> sharing the experience with other local chapter members and encourage
> participation.
>
> In my opinion, just because someone has never been to an IETF meeting
> does not mean they are not capable of joining a working and contribute.
>
> Just my 2 cents,
>
> José R. de la Cruz
> Puerto Rico Chapter
>
>
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-- 
Christian de Larrinaga  FBCS, CITP,
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@ FirstHand
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