The DISPATCH WG is chartered to bring on new work in the ART area and provide a conduit for new drafts, ideas and potential WGs. We're like a matchmaker between keen engineers and IETF processes/groups/procedures. DISPATCH is a catalyst to make recommendations to ADs or Chairs, based on the wisdom of the group – we don't make the decisions ourselves.
Please get in touch with the chairs if you have questions: Shuping and Jim, dispatch-chairs@ietf.org
It's tough navigating the IETF and we're here to help.
Bring up your intentions on the DISPATCH list (i.e., please send an email with your idea or draft to dispatch@ietf.org) and if you want agenda time, email the chairs (see "How to get on the agenda" below): dispatch-chairs@ietf.org
It's easier to dispatch work when it's been discussed on the mailing list; it gives the group a good idea of what the work will involve. Even if there's not much interest or chatter, it lets participants see what is coming up at the meeting and can help discussion in the meeting.
It's also usually helpful to bring a "charter" for your work – a simple page that sets out the problem statement, the scope, goals and non-goals, and deliverables. Even if you don't need or want a WG, it helps set out the scope of what you want to do.
DISPATCH is not the only path to getting work started in the ART area, but it can helpful to expedite many cases. New work items are dispatched in various ways depending upon the scope and applicability of the work. Possible recommendations as a result of a DISPATCH meeting are:
Email the dispatch chairs and the dispatch list. Meeting slots are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis, and it is suggested that you email at least 4 weeks before the meeting to ask for a slot. But get in touch anyway if you missed this soft deadline and we'll see what we can do.
The chairs will aim to announce topics that have been dispatched for a particular IETF meeting 4 weeks before the meeting starts and update as necessary. Please cut us slack whilst there's a global pandemic and plenty of cyber attacks going on.
A complete list of deadlines for IETF meetings is available here: https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/important-dates/
The goal of the dispatch session is to see whether the IETF community is interested in your work. That interest will depend on the problem space you are describing, not on the solution you are proposing. Therefore, please focus on describing the problem you propose to solve and its use cases and motivation. It's worth briefly describing the overall shape of your proposed solution, but dispatch isn't the right place to go into detail on packet formats. Please also reserve enough time (at least 5 minutes) for discussion.
For more information, please have a look at this webpage.
https://wiki.ietf.org/en/group/dispatch/presenter-training
In order to optimize f2f meeting time and to expedite work items, the DISPATCH WG sets deadlines for topics prior to each IETF meeting to ensure sufficient ML discussion. The exact deadlines for the upcoming meeting are summarized at the bottom of this wiki as soon as they are announced on the WG Mailing list. The approximate deadlines are as follows:
Please note that the exact disposition for a topic may (per the usual process) require follow-up and confirmation by the ADs and/or IESG or with another WG to ensure agreement with the DISPATCH WG consensus for a topic.