Re: Outlawing PowerPoint (Was: a suggestion....)

[Pete Resnick <presnick at qualcomm.com>]

On 12/14/98 at 11:18 AM -0600, Chet Uber wrote:

> ...I feel a great deal of elitism being espoused in this and the 
> other threads relate to it; such as Per's make the tourists suffer 
> thread.
> In my case, I am the Chief Technical Officer for my company; and a 
> great deal of our future depends on what is being designed, 
> specified and ratified today. I guess I would be a lurker in your 
> terminology, but that is only because I had not found a specific WG 
> or ID where I could make significant contributions not already 
> espoused. Would it help for me to send an "I agree" e-mail to the 
> list?? I did at the Orlando meeting, finally find a WG that is 
> something I feel I can make a strong contribution to -- namely 
> Common Intruder Detection standards.
> I cannot help telling "you" the wizards, gurus, long-time protocol 
> developers that people need to start somewhere!

I just got done sending private e-mail to someone about this. Yes, 
newbies need to start somewhere, but the IETF *face-to-face meeting* 
is not the place to do it.  Remember, the official activities of the 
working group, and all decisions made, take place on the mailing 
list. The face-to-face meetings are for high bandwidth interactions 
between working group participants on issues that are a pain to work 
out in e-mail. Face-to-face meetings are most emphatically not the 
place to learn what the working group does or what the topic is 
about; if you need to do that, you need to read the mailing list 
archive and the Internet Drafts for the working group.

Lurking on a mailing list decreases bandwidth by zero. Even sending 
private e-mail to experts on the mailing list to find out non-obvious 
information is pretty low in its effects on bandwidth. And lurking at 
IETF meetings in and of itself doesn't decrease bandwidth so long as 
everyone can get in the room. But having long presentations on a 
topic being discussed for the benefit of people who need review is a 
huge waste of bandwidth. I'd love to go back to the time where WG 
chairs asked "How many people have read this document?" and if the 
number of hands is less than 3, discussion of that item is taken off 
of the agenda.

This is not about elitism; it's about using the face-to-face meetings 
for their designed purposes. Teaching is not one of them.

pr
--
Pete Resnick <mailto:presnick at qualcomm.com>
QUALCOMM Incorporated
Work: (217)337-6377 or (619)651-4478
Fax: (217)337-1980 or (619)651-1102