I've written RFCs without attending meetings; easy to do if the work is a aligned with a workgroup.
That's fine if you're happy to be a technical resource with skills to be drawn upon for problems set by others. However, if you're sufficiently technical that you can set new technical directions that are outside the scope of existing wgs -- well, the political enters the technical, and you need to fake being a goer to build interest and support for the direction, eg by holding a bof. Many existing "managers" have run wgs, but have they even attempted to establish new technical directions? If not, they're just bureaucrats. Safe pairs of hands. And probably not that technical. Lloyd Wood http://sat-net.com/L.Wood/ ________________________________________ From: Yoav Nir [y...@checkpoint.com] Sent: 18 April 2013 10:02 To: Wood L Dr (Electronic Eng) Cc: <wor...@ariadne.com>; <ietf@ietf.org> Subject: Re: The Purpose of WG participants Review (was Re: Purpose of IESG Review) Not entirely true. It is true that getting "management positions" (chairs, AD, NomCom) requires meeting attendance. But a non-attender can get recognition for quality technical points, and can even progress technical work. RFC 4478 was published long before I attended my first meeting. My own working group (WebSec) has document authors who never attend meetings. In other areas there are frequent and prolific contributors, who either never attended a meeting or have quit attending them years ago. Even the directorates have such people. So no, you probably can't get a dot for your badge without actually having one, but you can become "prominent" in the sense that people might say "this document hasn't had enough review. Let's ask so-and-so to read it", or "I'm putting together a design team for foo. Let's see if we can get so-and-so to join" Yoav On Apr 18, 2013, at 11:31 AM, l.w...@surrey.ac.uk wrote: > > Not sure about the recognition for technical work. > > To progress technical work, you have to go to meetings. To progress in the > IETF (chair, AD, IESG) you have to go to meetings. > > Keep turning up and don't be too obviously completely abysmal technically, > and you can get a status dot on your badge. > > The IETF is run by goers, and goers like goers. > > Lloyd Wood > http://sat-net.com/L.Wood/ > > > ________________________________________ > From: ietf-boun...@ietf.org [ietf-boun...@ietf.org] On Behalf Of Dale R. > Worley [wor...@ariadne.com] > Sent: 17 April 2013 21:38 > To: ietf@ietf.org > Subject: Re: The Purpose of WG participants Review (was Re: Purpose of IESG > Review) > >> From: Ted Lemon <ted.le...@nominum.com> >> >> On Apr 16, 2013, at 11:51 AM, Dale R. Worley <wor...@ariadne.com> wrote: >>> I've advocated the equivalent of the following opinion before >>> (http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg77479.html), but >>> in the current context it bears repeating: Here in the IETF we accept >>> that low-status people may argue regarding technical matters, but >>> reserve for high-status people having opinions about our procedures. >> >> I thought your original message (the one you cite above) was very >> good, but I'm not sure I like the terms "low-status" and >> "high-status," simply because tey could be easily taken to mean >> something other than what I think you intend them to mean. > > We do have a status system within the IETF and generally one gains > status within that system by recognized technical work. And on > certain sorts of issues, particularly changes in processes, we don't > listen well to people who don't have high status within that system. > In that regard, the IETF is far from egalitarian. > > In regard to diversity issues, it is important to ask whether position > in the status system is directly affected by factors other than just > technical contribution. > > Probably more important for diversity issues is that factors in a > person's life other than their outright technical ability can strongly > affect their ability to contribute to our technical work, and thus > achieve the status needed to be influential. > > A more subtle problem is whether technical contribution correlates > well the skills needed for leadership positions -- does being a > quality technical contributor demonstrate the skills needed to be an > effective IAB member? Although given the discussion around "IESG > review", it seems that the reward for gaining the leadership position > of IESG membership is becoming an extremely busy technical reviewer of > standards... > > Dale > > Email secured by Check Point
