Re: Knowing what BOFs are being thought about [was: Re: IETF 65 BOF Announcement: Digital Identity Exchange (DIX)]

Elwyn Davies wrote:
> Finding out what BOFs are being plotted is not very easy AFAIK.  In the 
> case below there doesn't appear to have been any widespread public 
> announcement of the start of the mailing list and I suspect that is the 
> case for many others.
> 
> Obviously an announcement of intent to the IETF list or the Announce 
> list is one way for people to tell the world. 

Indeed.

The current model for BOFs tends to view the first one as a free shot.  No 
history required.

Given how poorly such first meetings tend to go, I am at a loss to understand 
why this model persists. Remember that a BOF is for gauging community interest 
in the working group.  That simply is not possible when the topic has no 
meaningful IETF online history.

I am in the camp that believes that IETF meeting time is extremely valuable and 
that the IETF is still predicated on email list discussion as its primary venue(s).

As such -- particularly a BOF targeting working group formation -- we should 
require that a pre-wg BOF be required to have:

    a) formed an online discussion, some months ahead of any possible BOF

    b) its formation announced on ietf-announce

    b) put forward a sample charter on that discussion list

    c) conducted discussion of that charter, prior to the BOF.

That way, there is a basis for recruiting informed participation, as well as 
gauging a degree of community interest.

d/

ps. I suggest that the DIX BOF is a particularly good candidate for going 
poorly. Online identity has a history for which a description of "problematic" 
would be a vast understatement.  Even better, the IETF's track record in the 
arena of digitizing human constructs is, well, limited.

-- 

Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
<http://bbiw.net>

_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
Ietf@ietf.org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf