Re: meeting materials MUST be online well BEFORE thesession

Hi David,

It is not only the remote participants who are affected by not having
the agendas in place before the meeting. It is also those participants
who want to prepare for the meeting, to download print (or not) and read
the Internet-Drafts in advance (many of them use the long
inter-continental flights for this). Carrots are not only for the
editors. Mehmet rightly pointed to the fact that a WG chair needs to see
the documents a day in advance in order to fine tune them in the context
of the meeting that he/she needs to run. 

I see that you took the punitive side too seriously, and I apologize
because maybe it is me who made the proposal sound too harsh (or was it
Bert who started? It is always good to blame the previous AD :-)).
Cancelling a meeting or a presentation should indeed be an extreme
action. What we want to change is to make of posting agendas and
presentations in advance to allow proper preparation of the meetings and
remote participation efficient the rule to be followed by all. Let us
find the ways to do it with as much carrot and as little stick as
possible. 

Dan


> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Harrington [mailto:[email protected]] 
> Sent: Monday, August 04, 2008 4:50 PM
> To: Romascanu, Dan (Dan); 'Pekka Savola'; 'Bert Wijnen (IETF)'
> Cc: 'ops-area (IETF)'
> Subject: RE: [OPS-AREA] meeting materials MUST be online well 
> BEFORE thesession
> 
> Hi Dan,
> 
> IETF volunteers are here to produce standards. That is not 
> always a fun thing to do, and the sloeness of IETF work is 
> extrememly frustrating, but moist of our main volunteer 
> contributors do this work because they believe in the 
> benefits of an open and fair volunteer process of standards 
> development. Some even get paid to do it; many do not. 
> Helping to develop a better Internet by working on standards
> **is** the carrot. 
> 
> The discussion "hey, folks, it is hard for remote 
> contributors to participate effectively if the agendas and/or 
> the presentations are posted too late" focuses on the carrot; 
> when agendas and presentations are not posted early enough, 
> if skews the process and makes the WG less effective - it 
> affects the carrot.
> 
> When the discussion removed the smiley and started talking 
> about punative actions - cancelling sessions and removing 
> presentations from the sessions, then you turned the 
> discussion into a "stick" discussion rather than a carrot discussion.
> 
> dbh
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Romascanu, Dan (Dan) [mailto:[email protected]]
> > Sent: Monday, August 04, 2008 9:34 AM
> > To: David Harrington; Pekka Savola; Bert Wijnen (IETF)
> > Cc: ops-area (IETF)
> > Subject: RE: [OPS-AREA] meeting materials MUST be online 
> well BEFORE 
> > thesession
> > 
> > Hi David,
> > 
> > Wow, I think that I pushed a red-hot button :-)
> > 
> > Let me try to address the issues that you are raising. We all want
> to
> > make the standards process work better and faster, get more people 
> > involved and motivated and issue better standards at the end of the 
> > process. The intent of such rules would not be to punish and to 
> > exclude but to make agendas and materials available in advance for 
> > people to be more efficient at the meeting. I believe that at the 
> > meeting last
> week
> > some people could not prepare well because agendas (not only from
> your
> > WG) came too late, and the remote participation lacked efficiency 
> > because many presentations were not available even by the time the 
> > meetings started.
> > 
> > My experience is that if rules are in place and known in advance 
> > responsible people do their best in order to respect them. In the
> case
> > of your WG if the one week agenda rule was in advance I am 
> sure that 
> > you and David would have done the best to submit a 
> preliminary agenda 
> > by the deadline, or would have announced the WG and the AD before 
> > traveling 'look, we are traveling this period for such and such 
> > reasons, preliminary agenda will not be available on the Monday 
> > deadline but only Wednesday before the meeting'. Being 
> predictive is 
> > what we seek
> here,
> > being able for all participants in the process to plan and 
> allow the 
> > best possible fairness and preparation time is what we seek.
> > 
> > There are always exceptions and life situations that make some 
> > deadlines impossible to match. For these purposes all the 
> IETF systems 
> > or the majority of them accept human override with proper approval 
> > level.
> In
> > the case such rules will be adopted in the future, ADs will 
> have the 
> > capability of accepting agendas after the deadline and WG 
> chairs will 
> > be able to accept presentations or updates even in the last 
> 24 hours 
> > before the meeting. However, this would be an exception, the rule 
> > would be that agendas and presentations need to be 
> submitted in time, 
> > and I am
> sure
> > that the majority of the volunteers who are all on both 
> provider and 
> > receiver roles will make the rules work in most cases.
> > 
> > Regards,
> > 
> > Dan
> > 
> > BTW - you criticized my use of some kind of stick menace, but you
> did
> > not suggest any carrot. I would love a carrot-only based system if 
> > somebody can come with one.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: David Harrington [mailto:[email protected]]
> > > Sent: Monday, August 04, 2008 3:20 PM
> > > To: Romascanu, Dan (Dan); 'Pekka Savola'; 'Bert Wijnen (IETF)'
> > > Cc: 'ops-area (IETF)'
> > > Subject: RE: [OPS-AREA] meeting materials MUST be online 
> well BEFORE 
> > > thesession
> > > 
> > > Hi,
> > > 
> > > I think we should focus more on carrots than sticks. This is a 
> > > volunteer organization.
> > > My name is Dave and I am a sinner.
> > > 
> > > Sometimes the chairs get tied up with day-job work and have 
> > > difficulty finding time to focus on writing up an agenda.
> > > Sometimes the chairs need to wait until they get input from 
> > > volunteers about presentations that will will be done 
> before setting 
> > > up an agenda. Do you recommend posting empty agendas so that the 
> > > deadline is met, and then editing it later when we have content?
> > > 
> > > Have you thought about the unintended consequences of a rule that 
> > > prevents a WG from meeting or discussing a particular 
> topic if the 
> > > agenda and materials are not posted in advance?
> > > What will be the consequences if volunteers spend money 
> to travel to 
> > > an IETF meeting, only to find that their only session has been 
> > > cancelled because a chair was tied down with day-job 
> work, or they 
> > > could not work on resolving the issues because the presentation 
> > > didn't get posted? Will they continue to travel to IETF meetings? 
> > > Will they request new chairs? Where will we get new 
> chairs that are 
> > > not burdened by day-job demands? Will the WG accomplish better 
> > > standards, or get them done faster, as a result of such rules?
> > > 
> > > My WG didn't get an early agenda posted because one chair was 
> > > travelling internationally for day-job work for the month 
> prior to 
> > > Dublin (justifying funding of a team to work on IETF 
> standards), and 
> > > the other was on a 3.5 week vacation with his family. 
> Which of those 
> > > should we have given up to ensure that the agenda was posted more 
> > > than a week in advance? Should we resign as chairs 
> because we cannot 
> > > guarantee timely delivery of the agenda? Should the whole 
> WG suffer 
> > > by having its sessions cancelled because the chairs faced 
> competing 
> > > real world priorities?
> > > 
> > > We were also guilty of not posting the presentations well
> > in advance.
> > > We had to wait for the presentations to be written, which usually 
> > > happened within 24 hours of when the presentation would be 
> > > delivered.
> > > The content of those presentations was sometimes impacted 
> by the f2f 
> > > discussions that occurred during the IETF week, including during 
> > > evening bar time when compromises were worked out between major 
> > > contributors on open issues.
> > > 
> > > Some chairs had problems with connectivity. I know my 
> co-chair could 
> > > not access the web during our first session, so he could not even 
> > > access the meeting materials himself. I had spotty 
> connectivity; I 
> > > frequently did not get emails from my co-chair or the 
> contributors 
> > > for hours after they were sent to me, so I did not have access to 
> > > the presentations or to the meeting materials page on a timely 
> > > basis.
> > > Should the WG session be cancelled or the topic be banned because 
> > > the network connectivity was not always perfect enough to ensure 
> > > postings at least 24 hours in advance?
> > > 
> > > I would be very careful about trying to legislate too much and to 
> > > penalize whole WGs because the chairs failed to post meeting 
> > > materials on time. I think the cure would be worse than 
> the problem.
> > > 
> > > I know I failed to post on a timely basis this time, and 
> I will try 
> > > to do better in the future, although some are real-world 
> obstacles 
> > > beyond my control. If you start punishing the whole WG for late 
> > > postings by the chairs, I will probably just ask you to 
> find a new 
> > > chair.
> > > 
> > > David Harrington
> > > [email protected]
> > > [email protected]
> > > [email protected]
> > > 
> > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > From: [email protected]
> > > > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
> > Romascanu, Dan (Dan)
> > > > Sent: Monday, August 04, 2008 11:02 AM
> > > > To: Pekka Savola; Bert Wijnen (IETF)
> > > > Cc: ops-area (IETF)
> > > > Subject: Re: [OPS-AREA] meeting materials MUST be online
> > > well BEFORE
> > > > thesession
> > > > 
> > > >  
> > > > 
> > > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > > From: [email protected]
> > > > > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Pekka Savola
> > > > > Sent: Monday, August 04, 2008 8:37 AM
> > > > > To: Bert Wijnen (IETF)
> > > > > Cc: ops-area (IETF)
> > > > > Subject: Re: [OPS-AREA] meeting materials MUST be online
> > > well BEFORE
> > > > > the session
> > > > > 
> > > > > On Sat, 2 Aug 2008, Bert Wijnen (IETF) wrote:
> > > > > > Let me suggest that if a presenter does not provide his/her 
> > > > > > presentation at the latest 24 hours before the session
> > > > start, then
> > > > > > cancel his/her presentation.
> > > > > 
> > > > > If we go along this path -- and if the agenda is not
> > > uploaded to the
> > > > > web a week before the meeting, cancel the meeting :-)
> > > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > I would actually drop the smiley and entertain such an
> > idea. I find
> > > > practically impossible for someone to prepare for a
> > meeting if the
> > > > agenda is not posted less than a week before the meeting. 
> > > Of course,
> > > > changes should be allowed until the last day, but the
> > main items on
> > > > the agenda, and the preliminary reading materials list
> > can be made
> > > > available one week in advance.
> > > > 
> > > > Please allow to Ron and me to compile these proposals and
> > get back
> > > > with a proposal submitted for community consensus.
> > > > 
> > > > Dan
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > OPS-AREA mailing list
> > > > [email protected]
> > > > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ops-area
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > 
> 
>