On Tue, 19 Dec 2000, Matt Holdrege wrote:
> At 08:07 AM 12/19/2000, Frank Kastenholz wrote:
> >At 09:28 AM 12/19/00 -0500, RJ Atkinson wrote:
> > >We can also end the de facto practice of
> > >using the sessions as tutorials and discontinue fancy prepared
> > >presentations of the material already in the I-Ds. While
> > >tutorials are a fine thing, they are appropriate for USENIX
> > >or Interop, not IETF WG sessions, IMHO.
> >
> >I tried doing this in my area when I was on the IESG.
> >It didn't work. The chairs and attendees want this stuff.
>
> Nothing personal Frank, but in a general sense I'd say you weren't doing
> your job well enough. Chairs serve at the discretion of the AD's. The AD's
> need to choose their chairs wisely and if the chairs feel that they need to
> have tutorials, then the chairs need better guidance or need replacement.
> And one of the points to this thread is that we shouldn't care what the
> attendees want as the IETF is not a tutorial conference. It's a working
> conference and only the people who are working on the drafts should be
> catered to. Others can certainly hang around and learn, but they shouldn't
> be catered to.
Two comments:
(1)
If people want tutorials, then I think we should have them but not during
the WG meetings. At most other conferences and meetings, there are
tutorial sessions on the days just before or after the main meeting, for
people who are (probably) experts on one of the topics of the main
meeting and are interested to learn something about a related are.
This is something that can be done at the IETF as well: reserve a few
meeting rooms the weekend before/after the IETF and assign them to WG's
that want to do a tutorial about their work.
In the announcements, make it clear that the WG's session are for people
who want to contribute to further development of the topic of the WG,
while tutorials are for people who want to learn about its present status.
Give people a choice which of the two they want to attend, but don't cater
for the other group in a WG or tutorial.
There are a lot of practical details to be worked out here, but I think we
should take advantage of the fact a lot of potential speakers for
tutorials as well as an interested audience is already in one place.
(2)
There seems to be a general consensus on this list on what is appropriate
for a presentation in a WG meeting. OTOH, most speakers don't seem to be
aware of that. (With presentation defined as a speaker briefly
introducing the topic, followed by a discussion amongst the audience).
Isn't it time to write a short introduction for speakers at the WG
meetings, telling them what is (not) appropriate for a presentation at a
WG meeting?
At every IETF that I've attended so-far, I've listened to people who I'd
never seen at an IETF before. Without some guidelines that they can use
when preparing, it is hard to expect that their presentations are
appropriate for the IETF. A short list of do's and don't's attached to
every agenda, will tell (or remind) people of what is expected from them
and hopefully result in better presentations. It is also much easier to
interrupt a speaker if his presentation is not appropriate for a WG
meeting.
Henk
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