Subject: Re: WG Review: Stay Home Meet Only Online (shmoo)

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2020 05:30:51 -0700

Dear Internet Engineering Steering Group,
At 09:20 AM 26-06-2020, The IESG wrote:
>A new IETF WG has been proposed in the General Area. The IESG has not made
>any determination yet. The following draft charter was submitted, and is
>provided for informational purposes only. Please send your comments to the

I would like to thank Mr Kaduk for taking the time to respond to my 
comment [1] about the proposed charter.

I read an extract of a book about "shmoo" after seeing a comment [2] 
about it.  The cultural reference to class issues is quite 
interesting for an organization which advertizes itself as a "large 
open international community".  The proposed charter was discussed on 
a mailing list which is described as: "a design team list to identify 
issues that would arise should an IETF meeting ever be held with 
O(1000) 'remote' participants".     Was there any public report from 
the design team?

It is unfortunate that the "design team" has decided not to consider 
the potential impact of maintaining two classes of 
"participants".  The disregard for the topic is a good indicator of 
whether words such as "inclusiveness" can be taken seriously.

One of reasons for not to tackling a topic is if there isn't any 
expertise in the IETF to work on that.  It is the responsibility of 
the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) to provide advice on that and 
it is up to the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) to give 
its approval for the work to proceed.  The latest IAB minutes, which 
are dated May 27, does not show any review of the proposed 
charter.  Will the IAB review the proposed charter before it is 
approved by the IESG?

The proposed charter has "TBD" under "milestones".  That is not 
compliant with the contract which the proposed working group is seeking.

Will the "high-level principles" be about hopes or ambitions to 
achieve something?

The "experience of handling meeting planning" is something internal 
to the IESG.  Is that documented anywhere?  Is that even relevant 
given that the proposed group was not involved in meeting planning?

Why is the proposed group proposing to work on "functional 
requirements"?  Isn't that the work of the IETF Administration LLC?

Some parts of the proposed charter such as "cadence of meeting 
scheduling ..." sounds like MTGVENUE-bis as that (concluded) group 
previously worked on that.  The group was closed in March.  Does that 
mean that the previous work caused some issues which was only noticed 
three months after the MTGVENUE working group was closed?

Does the cadence of meeting scheduling affect NomCom 
eligibility?  Did meeting planning have an impact on NomCom eligibility?

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

1. 
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/manycouches/-KT9e9MkDgDpHS57La9f5IxMSNI/
2. 
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/manycouches/uQdAjhubeYVoIOP_CWd4O_xSYkQ/