> This is a great idea! I think I've attended about fifteen IETF's now > and at each one I've been to many multicast sessions but I've never, > NEVER heard a live question from a multicast viewer.
I have, though not very often. I've also heard multicast viewers try to ask questions and be ignored. I have mixed feelings about multicast at IETF meetings. On one hand I find the microphone discipline that is necessary for multicast extremely disruptive to having an effective discussion - at least for small to medium sized groups - say less than 100 people. (I don't know of any way to have an effective discussion for a larger group anyway). And my strong impression is that the multicast setup that we've been using for many years is a very expensive tool for serving a very small number of people. On the other hand I think our meetings are getting more and more expensive (both in meeting fees and travel expenses) and we are thereby excluding more and more people who should be participating. So I think we need to continue to work on remote participation, but we need to try something different than what we've been using. Unicast video transmission, and real-time comment submission using instant messaging or email, seem like worthwhile things to try. Provided of course that we use standard protocols and data formats with tools that are readily available on all platforms. Keith
