Session Date/Time: 19 Mar 2026 23:45
Certainly! Here's the verbatim transcript of the audio:
Karen O'Donoghue: Excellent. Well, it is 7:45, so we're going to go ahead and get started. Um... I just lost my Meetecho window. There we go.
Karen O'Donoghue: Can I have slides control? All right, so this is the, uh, Friday morning EODIR session. Thank you for coming on a bright, early Friday morning... with generosity of spirit.
Karen O'Donoghue: Okay. Um... so, this is, uh, an official IETF meeting. And there we go. This is the IETF Note Well and all of you are familiar with it. You have agreed to abide by it when you registered for the meeting and when you joined any of our mailing lists. These are all the rules and process... the Note Well points to all of the rules and processes that we abide by as an organization. If you have any questions, feel free to ask any of the area directors or anyone in leadership. Um... there's our meeting tips. Uh, this is our agenda for today. Um, and with that, we will, uh, go ahead and get started. So, that- is there any agenda bashing? Uh... and notes, are you doing notes, Greg, or how are we-?
Greg Wood: I can do notes.
Karen O'Donoghue: You can do notes. Does somebody else want to help leap in with Greg? Okay, so, getting started, uh, the first thing we're going to talk about is our new participants. Michelle?
Michelle Cotton: That's very mean to make me go first. Um, just a quick overview. Um, for this meeting, the new participant, um, attendance was pretty amazing. Um, we had a total and in looking at, uh, that a- new participant meaning that this is their first meeting or it is their first through fourth meetings, total onsite we had 361 onsite that it was their first, um, or fourth meeting. And then, um, remote we had a total of 318. So, you know, pretty big numbers compared to previous meetings. Um, looking through the week, um, Sunday we had our new participant program which I think at the very height we had 137 people in the room, which was, uh, pretty great. Um, those sessions all went very well. I'd say most of the questions were asked in the standards development session, it's that third session that Barry gave this time. Um, yeah, and lots of just positive comments about how, uh, the all-day programs providing, um, plenty of information for people to, uh, be ready for the week. Um, Sunday, uh, early evening we had the quick connection session which was, um, not as well at- as attended as previous meetings. Uh, not quite sure why. Um, but we did have plenty of leadership there, which was great. Um, kudos to leadership, they've been very active with new participants this time around. Um, last night we had the new participant social event which is just meant to be kind of a wrap-up of the week. And we were almost at a one-on-one ratio between leadership and new participants which is not something I think we've ever had. So, uh, again, uh, it's really great, especially new leadership coming in. Um, maybe it's kind of set in their schedule that this is something that they'll be helping with going forward. Not sure why we didn't get as many new participants. It was- it was a lovely location and the food and beverage were great. I wish we had more but, um, uh, I'll have all the final numbers, um, and I'll send them to the list. Um, yeah, just in general during the week everything really went well. Um, I don't know is Wes on Meetecho? Um, because we did, um, have or Paul or Reese. I don't know, I'll- I'll get the guide's information later in the agenda. Um, but yeah, any questions? Um, we're going to be sending out a survey. Hopefully we'll get some great feedback.
Karen O'Donoghue: Let's try and use the Meetecho queue if possible, but J start.
J. S. (Dhruv Dhody): Sorry, it didn't occur to me. Um, I just want to add that after the new participant thing later in the day, we had a- a special session with, um, Chinese, um, students that had been brought as part of the, um, program that Huawei and Internet Society of China have been running. Uh, Michelle and I came along and, um, said a few words to them. A number of, um, uh, other people did, um, brought in by Huawei, and then we then left and they then did practice sessions on various things after that. Okay, I don't know if Georgios can update a bit more on that.
Georgios Karagiannis: Yeah, um, hello everyone. Um, my name is Georgios Karagiannis. So, yeah, we had, um, a session, so I think it was on- what, I think it was on Saturday or Sunday evening and, um, Sunday evening, yeah. So, um, we had, um, an exercise on how- how the students could actually participate in meetings. So, um, we showed, um, you know, how they could stand, um, and could ask for, um, talking to a microphone, so staying in a queue and- and we had also um a question-answer session, um, so then the- the students could ask questions and- and we were a number of people there and we could give answers to that. So it was quite, um, uh, nice to see, um, you know, their involvement and their stimulated to, um, they were happy that they got the opportunity to- to come to the IETF meeting and, um, uh, yeah, some of them mentioned that they would like to continue coming to IETF.
Dhruv Dhody: Please join the queue. Uh, so one comment by- on the new participants: we have really good numbers, I think we should also think about how to keep them engaged after the meeting. Uh, and especially since we have got them in, somehow keeping them involved, maybe talking to folks who run other programs, what are their ways they are thinking of keeping people engaged and nudging them that participate remotely if you are not able to travel to Vienna. Uh, mailing lists, keeping- not just the monitoring part, I think that we have discussed multiple times, but maybe how do we nudge little bit more from our side and at the end it's up to them whether they found value and they will continue to stay engaged but from our side it shouldn't be like "oh I- I didn't even know this was happening because I-" that's what I wanted to avoid. Yeah.
Michelle Cotton: I was just curious, um, Georgios, if, uh, there were any questions that were asked at the training session Sunday night, and you don't have to answer now, but if you could just, um, if there are any important ones that you can relate on to me, um, that came out of that session, can you email me and let me know?
Georgios Karagiannis: Yeah, I will do that. Thank you.
Dirk Kutscher: Yeah, I just wanted to add, so this was a really great initiative and, um, so we had seen, um, like the- the Chinese young talents program, we had seen a new initiative from Malaysia, much appreciated, and then also there was, um, this group from Brazil. So I think these things should be, um, encouraged more, but also we should probably study them a little bit, um, so what could be learned and maybe advocated, um, for other countries. So I- I try to help the- the Chinese community a little bit, um, so I could only give some- some advice when they started planning this. Um, in the future they will also need to find ways to sustain this, so they need money and- and fundraising and so on. Um, we are also I'm also planning, um, so a more structured training program, so I'm currently talking with, um, you know some other academics, um, how to set up a more, um, you know IETF research-oriented, um, training program. So that could be in the form of summer schools and then maybe also dedicated, um, sessions here. Um, I think it's- it's the right thing to do for us to- to get more young participants in.
Jean-Francois: Uh, yes, Michelle, what- how would you think would be the- the best way for those organizations who are organizing fellowships and so forth, um, to be, so piggybacking on what Dhruv was saying, for them to have continuity? So in those organizations who may be able to help those new participants in fellowships- and moving forward or with training as, uh, Dirk is also thinking, uh, what- what do you guys think would be the- the best way to do? Because when you do the new participants for that particular one is already done, um, and whatever next plans are going to be discussed on Friday on EODIR. And so this- I don't necessarily see what would be the- the smart way to have that flow of information so that information provided in new participants is accurate with what's going to happen in the new ones.
Michelle Cotton: I personally think, um, any type of interim sessions between now and then might be, you know, a good idea. We just have to decide what's appropriate, how many. Um, I know, um, in the past training sessions have been talked about in this, um, group. So, um, I- I think it's just a matter of figuring out exactly what we want to do and- and going ahead and implement it, whether that be through maybe an- a Meetecho session, um, it's- it's really up to what we want to do. We can do it.
Jean-Francois: Yeah, I- I'm only looking at the- at the freshness of the information, so as in- so if we discuss for instance today we're going to be, uh, mentioning what we're going to be doing in the next IETFs, what are our plans. That means you can only have that available in the next, um, uh, new participants program in Vienna. And if there is no prior, um, communication of that they may not know in advance or in- in enough time for them to- to submit. You know what I mean? I don't necessarily see how we can help with that.
Michelle Cotton: Are you- are you referring to having a new participant program in Vienna and communicating it early?
Jean-Francois: No, since Dhruv was- was, um, raising the concern of trying to maintain the new participants program. Right. Part of the information that could be useful for them is who in this room is running programs that could support them further. And what I'm thinking is when do we get to- to tell for you to have the information ready, um, because then whatever you say in- wherever you would have said for instance last Sunday would have only applied to Vienna moving forward. Mm-hmm. Um, but for that we need to know- a way to let you know that information early enough and that only gets typically communicated in EODIR the Friday after. So I'm- I'm just thinking what would be a reasonable timeline for everybody, that's all I'm thinking.
J. S. (Jay): So we- we're going to have to ask the IESG if we can tell them about other programs that aren't run by the IETF, okay? So we're going to have to go through a process about that.
Chengli: Yeah, Chengli from Huawei. So I'm responsible for the Chinese youth program, uh talent program inside Huawei. So if possible I can introduce a little bit of the project- the program. So in the beginning, why we start- why we initiate the program because we analyzed the data, we found out that, wow, why China is a huge country but we only have like 10 or 20 students who attend IETF regularly? It's crazy. It's less than USA for sure, it's less than Europe for sure, but it- it's even less than Japan and South Korea. It's crazy! Like, why? We are 10 times like popularity than Japan and Korea! It's in- you know- it's not that normal, it's abnormal, right? So we're trying to find out the reason why, why those people- those students they- they just did not attend IETF meeting. Definitely we found some, uh, like reasons that they are more interested in AI, they are more interested in open source, standard- that. That's okay. But for those people who are interested in IETF, why? Why they cannot attend IETF meeting? We did a survey. We knew- we got the, uh, reasons, something like, "oh it's too expensive to travel from China to other areas." It is true because, uh, we, uh, make a calculation like for- for student if he or she could like to attend an IETF meeting in- in- in like Europe, for example, it would cost him or her like, uh, 15,000 RMB, something like that. If no one fund him or her, it's impossible for this guy to attend an IETF meeting. It's the fact, it's the fact, right? No one is so rich in China, especially for the students. So we try to solve the problem, we- we came up with lots of partners, like, uh, Huawei, ZTE, and CCSA, and CNNIC, and the, uh, uh, the last one is, yeah, China Science, uh, like ca- sorry, Zhongkeyuan, yeah, it's really long name in English, sorry I forgot the name, and- and Tsinghua University together six- six, uh, partners together we initiate the program and we invest lots of, uh, money nearly like one million RMB. And in the beginning we, uh, expected that we would receive 50 application- uh, applications, but actually we received around 80, which is impressive to us because in the beginning it's around 20 applications only. We feel anxious- we felt anxious like, "wow, IETF is a big- big top-level, like international SDO, right? But it seems like nobody is interested in this direction." So we trying to, you know, uh, encourage the- the professor- professors in universities to- to like invite students to join this program and in the end we, uh, let so many, uh, university to know and we cover in the end we received a- around 80 applications, they came from 33 schools, uh, inside China and Malaysia together. And after some competition we, uh, allowed- we funded like 60 students to attend this IETF meeting and we are not really sure that if they will attend the next IETF or not, but I can feel that around 10 or 15 pe- uh students they are quite qualifying, they are interested in the- everything in IETF. And the program will not end today, we will try to like make the, uh, fund continue- uh, continue to fund students to attend more IETF meetings. So, uh, I will introduce in the last- uh, next, uh, slide. So basically we have two types of applications. One is normal, another one is new. The normal one is that I am quite confident that I can, uh, be a, you know, quite normal-
Dhruv Dhody: Cheng, you have slide control?
Chengli: I'm not really sure.
Dhruv Dhody: Yeah, I've given it to you, so you have slide control and a little faster, please. We have a bunch of other items.
Chengli: Okay, okay. Like two types, one is normal, one is new attendees. So different requirements for the reimbursement. So three phases. The first one phase is this meeting and the second one would be the Vienna, uh, meeting and the USA meeting maybe. And then we will review the- the project in 2028 to see if it provide a good result for all of us. Yep, this- this- this for the project. So some immature, like, idea or, uh, suggestion from myself. I'm not really sure that it's good or- it's correct or not. Like how to help the students after this meeting? We definitely have a WeChat group and I- and my colleagues we continue to work, uh, to help them. But what if we can have a mailing list for discussion to answer the question from them? I don't know, a dedicated mailing list, or how, how- I don't know. And the second one is that, uh, actually we were, uh, uh, encouraged- encouraged by Dhruv and Indian news of the, uh, like around 10- 10, yeah around 10 Indian students who attend the IETF meeting one or two years ago. Yeah, I saw them in the v6ops meeting. Uh, I feel that why- why they can have the alternative to attend the IETF meeting, but Chinese student they don't have? So we- we started to considering this program. So maybe we- we can post a news in IETF blog to encourage other countries to do something similar, it would be a- wor- worth- worthable things to do. And the third suggestion would be: is it possible to set up some new positions in area or regions like Asia one position, Europe one position, Africa one position to let them to work on how we can like promote IETF to universities, to let students know that and we might have new bloods very soon. Yep, that's my two cents. Thank you.
Karen O'Donoghue: Okay, thanks, Cheng. Jean.
Jean-Francois: Uh, yes, the- just wanted to confirm the university that was collaborating in- in Malaysia was the Xiamen University in Malaysia?
Chengli: No, it's Xiamen University in Malaysia.
Jean-Francois: Okay, yeah, Xiamen. Okay. Yeah, Xiamen. Thank you.
Dirk Kutscher: Yeah, thanks very much for- for doing this. Um, so from my point of view, um, I can understand the barriers, um, for the students is not only money, um, it's also time really. Um, so in many of these, um, let's say very competitive academic environments, it's hard to justify, um, you know coming to the IETF and then also investing all this work, um, over the years basically. Um, so what I'm trying to do is I try to raise the profile of the IRTF, the ANRW and so on in- in these academic communities. So like talking to CCF, so the ACM in- in China. And, um, but it's a- it's a long, long battle and, um, so the reason why, for example, why we I think overall have proportionally more students from let's say Germany is that- well it's a different academic system, so, um, they don't- they don't have this, you know, strict CCF A, CCF B kind of categorization of- of conferences. Of course we also are aware of that but it's not quite as metric-oriented let's say. And so that's a problem, so I mean a PhD student, um, in China as you know, right, so is under a lot of pressure and- and it's many- it's not only China, it's many countries, and I think that's what I am seeing as a barrier.
Chengli: Yeah, I- I think you- you make the point. Like we see the main challenge is that if even you join IETF meet- IETF meeting you have an RFC, lots of school they don't count when you need to graduate. So that's the problem. We try to help some, uh, university like Tsinghua University and BUPT they might consider RFC is a good input, output, right? So but not all the school right now. So might be we can do something together to help the university to understand the value of RFCs. Yep.
Karen O'Donoghue: Warren.
Warren Kumari: I'll keep it really short. Just want to say this is really impressive and I- this I think was a really good success story and hopefully we can duplicate it.
Karen O'Donoghue: Jay.
Jay: Um, the IESG has previously discussed, um, having, uh, region-specific email addresses or emailing lists and decided that would not be appropriate because it fragments the community. And so, um, that won't be happening, I think.
Dhruv Dhody: Just as- entry point, we then might be thinking about closing some of them that exist? I manage one IETF community, so we should be standard everywhere. Yeah.
Karen O'Donoghue: Yeah, I- I don't know that we need to talk about this now, but I'm really curious because, uh, it's something that we've discussed before, uh, a lot of the programs are focused on meeting as sort of a central point and we talk about continuity after the meeting, but I'm curious- uh, there seems to be, um, some reason why it doesn't quite work about, uh, sparking participation for example on email lists or through interim meetings that doesn't hinge on main IETF meetings. And so, um, yeah, we don't have to discuss now but I'd be interested to hear people who are organizing these things, their thoughts about that.
Karen O'Donoghue: All right, this is the last question, Georgios.
Georgios Karagiannis: Yeah, um, yeah thanks very much for- for the information and the, uh, nice comments that we received. Um, one point that, um, also Dirk mentioned that there is a difference between, um, you know how the students, PhD students and general students in Europe are evaluated, you know, based on the results that they are producing, I mean from scientific results. Um, for example, in the European Union there are European Commission funds several research projects and, um, in- in the proposals that they- they, you know, the proponents need to submit is also to mention whether they participate in standardization, um, you know on standardization in different SDOs. Um, so, um, maybe that could also be done in different parts, different other areas like China, but also other areas, so that's one point. And the other point is related to the fact that, um, RFCs, um, you know the high index, the scientific high index is also important as an evaluation metric. And one way to, um, to do that is to use different databases. One of the database, the Google- is the Google scholar Google, um, and that is used by- in Europe by several universities. And if you do that then you can include the RFCs also having an ISSN number. I think it is ISSN 2070-1721. So if the university know that and students include that, they'll also be part of the- of the scholar, of the Google Scholar, and then it would be included in the high index and this will actually increase the, you know, the stimulus for them to also participate in SDOs like IETF.
Karen O'Donoghue: All right, thank you. Jean-Francois, do you want to start?
Jean-Francois: Uh, two slides more please. Can I manage this way? Yeah, sure. Okay, unless you have it with me. Oh sorry. Okay, I'll- I'll do it now. Okay, I got the slide control. Uh, did I ever use this before? Okay, I can see the- the controls here. There you go. All right. So we run a fellowship for this IETF and we had, um, 39 submissions that spanned from Asia Pacific to Africa and we ended up having, um, two categories, one for in-person and another one for remote participation. The in-person were supposed to be three people and as I mentioned, uh, in the past, you know, other occasions we had two participants from India who got their visa approved two days late, basically, unfortunately. So they moved into remote and we ended up having 14 participants from Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Thailand, and Kenya. Um, all of them by the way were all-paid registrations, um, because we did had the- the funds. And the only thing Michelle, I don't know how you would want to treat this: we decided not to request the refund for those who ended up- the two Indian students because the difference is not big- a big deal, you know? But I don't know how that impacts your, um, accounting for who is supposed to be attending online versus, um, in-person, you know for the counts for participation in the meeting. So I'm- you will have these two up and down.
J. S. (Dhruv): We- we have variants like that all the time, we just have to- just let them go in the wash really.
Jean-Francois: Yeah, just letting you know that they- they even in the list they appear as onsite but they are not really because they couldn't make it.
J. S. (Jay): No, no, we have people regularly who do not turn up onsite and things so we- we don't worry about that.
Jean-Francois: Okay, perfect. All right. Um, so the timeline was the very quickly reviewing how the fellowship happened: so we had a selection process, we had a preparation, then we have a prepara- participation phase and an evaluation. Um, the preparation was- consisted on four preparation sessions on the month leading to the IETF, one weekly, in which, um, they reviewed a number of topics that had to do with the IETF and we made sure that it did not over- overlap with the new participants program because that was part of the mandatory sessions they needed to attend either in-person or, uh, remotely. So they had, um, three types of sessions they had to look for: mandatory, elective, and, um, also some personal ones. We also requested them to register to the mailing list early in advance once they had selected the working groups and research groups that they were interested in and to start preparing the, uh, their participation as per the, uh, the agenda as the sessions were getting cleared. Then during the participation, we of course we'd engage with- with the remote fellows as much as we could. Uh, we supported them across the sessions answering questions and whatnot. We had a- a Telegram group for- for that and we were throwing them some curveballs as well as they have to submit daily check-ins and a final report by the end of the- of the fellowship. Um, the evaluation, there's going to be the- the deadline for the 25th for them to support- to submit the final report. We will do a review call with all the fellows on the 28th, um, and then we'll do the issuing of the certificate. In terms of post, as Dhruv was mentioning: so our strategy has been to set up clubs. Uh, we have started with Indonesia, and, uh, what we do is we make them participate in group, um, and we have identified a number of people who are, uh, interested in pursuing more participation in- in the IETF and we're going to use that as a- um, as our method to ensure continuity. And specifically our approach is going to be towards career development, which is something that they are, uh, welcoming very well, and so we are structuring the way we do the- the training as well as the participation in that regard. Um, upcoming meetings, we definitely going to be doing Vienna only online, uh, for San Francisco we are working on some in-person as well in Asia it will very much depend on the location so we can figure out our funding for that. And we also want to actively collaborate with Dirk in, in, um, supporting the IETF expansion at the, uh, academic level since we are essentially also building, um, a consortium between a number of universities in that regard. Um, a few questions or requests that I would have. Uh, for finance, do you think it would be possible to have a consolidated invoicing, um, based on one single, um, email address? Because each of one of the, uh, fellows we request them to do the third-party- um, the third-party payment, but then we have to collect each of one of those payments separately and it's not always easy for- for us. And also the third-party payment option to be available to all the extras because I can't remember which one it was, I think it was the Huawei social event that the- they had to pay in advance, which is fine, we can refund, but then from a financial perspective the invoice is not under us and so the auditor, even if it's just ten dollars, they give us hell with that. So if we could have the third-party payment option with all the payments that come in the registration that will help a lot. Um, for the registration, we would like to see if there's a way to do a demo of, uh, the registration without affecting your stats as well. If you remember, Michelle, two IETFs ago we created a sandbox account just so that I could go through the procedure, but then it now it accounts as if someone has actual registered. And so it's not- it might actually bother you in that- that's our concern from a- from a statistics perspective because that account will never finalize the- the registration. I don't know how much that affects you. I was also wondering if we can, uh, if the- I don't know if it's possible to register to the, uh, meeting mailing list before being actually registered. And the reason is because there's a difference in the way you treat the in-person participants for- for the fellowship versus the online ones. So the in-person typically will require some visa, um, management or some logistics so you have them register as soon as possible, those are done. But the online ones, um, we actually experienced that some of them drop out. And so registering them one month in advance maybe that we spend the money for nothing and then they just don't show up. So as part of the requirements for them to follow with the fellowship they have to come to all the prep sessions. But then if they have to wait until the week before the meeting to get registered, they lose all the information that has been passed into new participants, the Meetecho test call, all- all that is leading up to the- to the event. And so I was wondering if there's any possibility for those fellows to register one month before without being actually registered, which I understand is- is a potential problem.
J. S. (Jay): Jean-Francois, can you email Michelle and I that list, please? Thank you.
Jean-Francois: Sure. Uh, and so for the participation as well, if there's any possibility or to know when the blue sheets are available and whether the recordings that are watched through the agenda can be logged somehow as well in the blue sheets? They would basically facilitate our- our follow-up on who's attending and not, even if it is asynchronously. I can pass this- this, uh, questions by- by email. No need to be answered now. Thank you so much.
Karen O'Donoghue: Yeah, that might be better. There we go. All right. We have time for like one quick question, but- because I see Dirk.
Dirk Kutscher: Just big thanks for this. It's- it's really useful and, um, I think also, um, what you described there's a lot to learn from this, um, for other groups so I'm happy to- to work with you more on this.
Karen O'Donoghue: Okay. Uh, so we're going to move on to the next agenda item. Uh, Dhruv, outreach.
Dhruv Dhody: Yeah, thanks everyone. Uh, what you are seeing on the screen is our outreach wiki and just wanted to send a reminder that this is where we maintain all the, uh, outreach related activities that our community folks do, including some of the leadership. It sets the context that we have multiple types of outreach out there based on the target audience and then we have a list of various events, uh, between the last IETF and now it- it's- it's been a pretty active, uh, time. Uh, from the leadership, we had ICANN 85, APRICOT, and, uh, other from the community members as well, we have Rob at UK DSIT and Lars as well go to the legislators in EU and gave a very good presentation and the video is linked for those who are interested in how to, uh, like you know talk to legislators especially when they talk of importance of internet standards and the work that the IETF does. So again the outreach only works when we have, uh, like you know targeted messaging based on the audience and our aim with maintaining that in the wiki is, uh, whatever is happening we can give a- maintain it and when we need it we can refer what works, exchange information, and that's why we have the EODIR list as well. So just a reminder and thanks for continuing to do all the work that people do in this area. Any questions?
Karen O'Donoghue: Um, okay. So next on the agenda is the working group chairs forum. We had our forum on Wednesday. Uh, I think it went really well. Uh, we had, uh, a antitrust training and an update from the RFC Production Center. Um, I think the- the minutes will be online. I don't- there weren't any really specific actions beyond I think the training was very well received. I got a number of positive comments about it. Um, and if anybody has any, uh, suggested topics going forward, uh, feel free to reach out. Um, the next- so if there's no questions on that, the next item on the agenda is the GitHub content development, uh, table or work that we did at the Hackathon. Do you want-?
Dhruv Dhody: Well, I can start but I think Karen's spent more time there, uh, than anybody. Uh, we had a couple of folks stop by for interest- so just to back up, the idea about this was that we would leverage the Hackathon to, uh, where people presumably are using GitHub to help address the gap, uh, that we've, uh, identified in, um, documentation for using GitHub for, uh, folks like authors and for chairs and so forth, uh, and how they would use it in a working group. Uh, so we set up a table at, um, the- the Hackathon and invited people, uh, to come by and either contribute ideas about what kind of documentation would be useful or actually contribute documentation. Uh, Karen made an announcement at the beginning of the session so everybody in the room knew about it. Uh, I would say we had a few folks stop by with ideas and helpful comments and we took those down about what we could be doing, um, but, uh, I would say we probably didn't do a lot of the actual documentation creation, uh, but had a lot of good conversations and- and did, uh, sort of start generating awareness. I don't know, Karen, if you have anything else to say.
Karen O'Donoghue: Uh, there's just, uh, two things that I would add to that. One is that, um, I did have one, uh, gentleman stop by who, uh, mentioned that he had a colleague who was a lawyer. Um, and so I've- he's- we've been in contact over email. I think he's- uh, would be a good person to talk to regarding non-technical people that need to contribute to the IETF that find GitHub to be a big barrier. So, uh, we'll do that. And then the second thing I wanted to mention was, um... Meetecho... uh, stopped by, um, and the, uh, there is a- a thought about doing, um, some sorts of training in Vienna and, uh, we'll work to develop that a little bit further but smaller sessions, possibly sign up in advance, um, specific tasking, so more of a hands-on type, uh, activity. Um, and we're hoping to do that, uh, maybe one or two or three sessions in Vienna as we figure that out going forward. Um, so, uh, keep tuned for that. Um, and there is, I don't know if- I didn't actually check, is this the link to the wiki, to the notes page I mean? Uh, there is a really rough notes page that summarizes some of what happened and it's linked right here. The only thing that's not in that notes page is, uh, the list of- of Meetecho's topics is there but not the plan to, uh, do something in Vienna. So I need to add a couple paragraphs I just remembered I haven't done that.
Dhruv Dhody: Let me correct that. That links to the- to the Hackathon wiki where there's a description, not to the notes. We can put that there.
Karen O'Donoghue: Okay, never mind. So in the- we'll insert in the minutes a, uh, link to the, uh, summary of the activity on, um, Saturday.
Mirja Kuehlewind: Yeah, um, to add two or three words: so the idea is to, um, focus on three different users basically, either people who kind of want to review a drafts and provide comments and we maybe even a PR or something, um, then authors explaining the authoring process and then the third one we would eventually do some point is more directed at- at chairs. Um, in all cases the idea is to have like not too large groups, max 20 people, so maybe having some kind of sign-up in advanced and then really be more interactive. So I will try to pre- prepare a few slides for- for that but it mainly is really kind of going through it live and asking- uh answering questions. Um, yes, so let- and then the idea is to learn from that and keep developing it, do it again at the- in a frequent way. Yep.
Karen O'Donoghue: I think what we had specifically asked for on Saturday was, you know, what are your pain points and what are the gaps in the information that we have available? And I think we still have some work to do to identify what are the pain points for people that are trying to participate in the IETFs, IETF, and find GitHub to be a barrier. So... yeah, but I- I also feel like people who already know GitHub, they just need to know the details of how to, uh, run this in our process. But people who don't know GitHub I think they need more hands-on support and they need this on a- not the same people hopefully, but like there's new people coming in every time so we need to do it on a- on a continuous basis. Uh, the question is: can we have a room for that, um, at the next meeting? Yeah. The last thing my- popped into my head as Mirja was talking: the other thing is that I think for the people that are familiar with GitHub, I think there's also a question about what is, you know, recommended or required IETF process around, you know, procedures or way of working around GitHub versus suggestions, so people can do things this way or we're recommending that they do things another way. Um, so that guidance, uh, I think sometimes people stumble over that. But... anyway, I- I think it was- it was somewhat productive and I think we had some good conversations and- and did, uh, sort of start generating awareness.
Dhruv Dhody: As a quick side note, I had just by chance a couple of conversations about GitHub in general and our dependency on this and whatever, and- but the one thing interesting thing that came across is I met somebody at the newcomers social yesterday, uh, who set up their- a similar process for a different plat- for an open source platform instead of GitHub. Um, and found it very interesting so I- I recommended or like I asked him to like provide some guidance about this as well so we can put it somewhere as well.
Karen O'Donoghue: Right, so, Karen I just wanted to bring your attention to also the fact that, um, there is a new experimental draft out there to move all the YANG development work out of the RFC into GitHub and that process is something I'm also trying to learn and understand but also at the same time educate people about it. So maybe the scope of whatever we are trying to do on the Saturday meeting might have to be expanded to also explain that portion of the work.
Karen O'Donoghue: Yeah, that- that's a- a good data point. I- I'd missed that. Um, just as sort of an amusing side note, I did one of the documents that was adopted as a working group document in my- one of my working groups this week, I just last night got an email from the author saying, "how do I move this to the repository and what's the process for doing that?" And he said he did not find it in the authors page. Now I need to go back and take a look at that, but that's a sort of a side data point that I found amusing. Um... all right. Um... so the next activity is the Sisters. We- Flow and Carleen are not here this week, so I am standing in on their stead. Uh, we did have a Sisters networking session on Monday morning at 7:45, so it's not the only 7:45 AM session EODIR does this week. There have been many. Just- just pointing that out for me. Um... so, uh, we had about 15, 16 people. It was primarily new participants, um, and, uh, I think it- it went fairly well. I think the- the attendance was a bit lower than we might have expected given the number of new participants here, but it was at 7:45. Um, and then we had the lunch, uh, on yesterday, that was just yesterday. Um, and we had about 25 people there. I think that also given the number of- of new participants and women here, I- I still think that number is a bit low, um, but I thought it was a very good lunch. Benoît came and talked a little bit about NomCom. One of the challenges that we've had in the past is we get a new NomCom chair and- and they- they come to talk to Sisters about participating in NomCom and- and improving the diversity of the leadership pool, but they usually do that at the July meeting which is a little bit too late. So Benoît came as the outgoing chair, um, and, you know, because the new- the new NomCom chair has obviously not been appointed yet. Um, and I think that was very well received. Um, the other thing that Sisters continues to, uh, be challenged by is people understanding that there is a mailing list and they need to sign up for that mailing list. I think that's just a- you know- an ongoing issue. So, I know the information is there, but that's, um, what it is. Michelle?
Michelle Cotton: I was just going to add the Sisters scheduling challenging is difficult because of that being a Monday morning networking and then, um, yesterday the event goes up against the global host, um, presentation. So that- that's a regular challenge. The global host challenge. Yep.
Dhruv Dhody: Well, so, it might be a good idea to ask Benoît to add come to this thing as something in the NomCom wiki because I believe that there is some wiki info that gets handed over and if this was useful it's a good thing for the outgoing person to just- otherwise they forget.
Karen O'Donoghue: Yeah, what, um, Benoît had- had ad- he sent originally an email asking to meet like, um, Flow and Carleen this week and since they weren't here, uh, the plan is for him, for he- he'll organize a call with, uh, Flow and Carleen and the incoming NomCom chair as soon as they're appointed so that we can start talking about those kinds of topics in advance. So I think that's great. Um... other than that, the- the folks that did show up were very engaged. We had some very engaged newcomers, new participants this time and, um, that's, uh, about it. Final agenda item is the, uh, guides update. Um, I'm just making sure Wes, Paul, or Reese are still not in Meetecho. I don't want to talk on their behalf. No? Okay. Um, so we had, um, either 12 or 13 matches this time, um, from my last check-in. We did have, um, many that wanted Mandarin speakers, um, and we were fortunate that we had a few Mandarin speakers for the guides program. So that was very helpful. Um, still not utilized I think to the potential we could have. But, um, yeah, I- I'll check in with Wes, um, post-meeting to see if there were any unusual, uh, circumstances with the guides this time around. But, um, yeah, made some matches and, um, I did see some people meeting and it's continuing to work as it is. We- we still want to look into how that can be expanded between meetings and not have it be meeting-centric. But, um, I think that coincides with the other work maybe that we're looking to do between meetings.
Chengli: Uh, I got matched but was never able to connect after multiple, uh, tries. So I think we should also figure out what- what's the reason, at least in some cases, uh, is it email? Is it like- not used to emails? What's happening? Why we never- I- I searched them on LinkedIn, I sent a message there as well, somehow nothing.
Michelle Cotton: I do send individualized emails to everybody afterwards asking about- um, from the guide's perspective and the new participant's perspective how it went, and I tend to get information if like, "oh we never, um, connected because I didn't go," you know, so I'll hopefully find out.
Karen O'Donoghue: Yeah, I've had that happen in the past. So, I did connect with my guide-ee this time. So, um... all right, so that brings us to any other business. Does anybody, um, have any other business? Um, sometimes we talk about having a- an interim between, um, meetings. Uh, at this stage we have them when we have a- an agenda topic that's mature enough to merit having a- an interim meeting, um, and so we currently don't have that. If there are things that we think, uh, would benefit from having an interim meeting, um, which would solve the 7:45 AM problem on Friday- please feel free to- to send that information to the mailing list. Um, anything else? Georgios. Oh, I'm sorry Georgios, I looked away for a moment.
Georgios Karagiannis: Yeah, um, thanks very much, it was very useful information for me to- to hear, um, the wonderful things that are happening. Um, just an- a comment or, uh, question to Jean-Francois maybe, uh, we can discuss and particularly Cheng to discuss with you to find out whether it could be an alignment on, um, what Cheng did and maybe for the, you know, for the next preparatory activities for- for the next IETF meetings to- to help.
Jean-Francois: Definitely, happy to help.
Chengli: Thanks. Chengli from Huawei. Uh, two comments: one is thank you, and the- the second one is that, uh, some student told me that when they apply for the IETF guide, it shows up like 500 error code. So I don't alre- yeah.
Michelle Cotton: So there was, um, a- a tooling issue there that, um, they looked at. Actually, the requests ended up going through though, so we ended up seeing their name and trying to make the match. But, um, there was a- it had something to do with Chinese characters in the- in the system. So, yeah, the- the- yeah, the- the tooling team was aware of it and I followed up asking if, um, they successfully were able to, um, get their request through and then I saw later that they had matches. So, um, yeah.
Chengli: Okay, perfect. Uh, and by the way one- one more comment: like if you need some guides from China like Mandarin speakers, you can reach out to me, I can help on this. Yep.
Michelle Cotton: Thank you. No problem.
J. S. (Jay): Uh, one ask which I have for like John and Chengli and Georgios also is think or be keep- if we go to a new region, what advice would you give to other people who want to organize this thing. So maybe speak and start collecting some lesson learned from these kind of events in our EODIR wiki or whichever way that's all community driven anyway but what are the good practices, what seems to work, these are the pitfalls, avoid that, we always end up in those troubles so that we continue to learn from each other and that's why we were sharing all this information here. So I would encourage you to think about it and let's work on adding it to our wiki.
Karen O'Donoghue: Uh, actually just one quick comment going back to the Hackathon that I thought of: I think one of the other things about that made this Hackathon different was, um, there was a lot of- there was not as big a contingent of, uh, more experienced IETFers in the Hackathon, and so I think the people that might have actually contributed to the conversation were not necessarily present in the room for the Hackathon on Saturday. So I think that did impact, um, the amount of feedback that we got. Um... last call, any other comments? All right, thank you very much and thank you for joining us on Friday morning.
J. S. (Jay): Thank you Karen.