Carsten Bormann (T2TRG Chair)
Jenny Bui (IETF Secretariat)
Ignacio Castro (RASPRG Chair)
Reese Enghardt (ICCRG Chair)
Stephen Farrell (UFMRG Chair)
Liz Flynn (IETF Secretariat)
Kurtis Heimerl (GAIA Chair)
Mirja Kühlewind (MAPRG Chair)
Allison Mankin (At-Large Member)
Dave Oran (ICNRG Chair)
Colin Perkins (IRTF Chair)
Brian Trammell (PANRG Chair)
Rodney Van Meter (QIRG Chair)
The minutes of the February 27, 2024 IRSG Teleconference were approved.
None
o Sofía Celi to draft text for guidance to IRTF document shepherds
Colin asks if anyone would be willing to draft a short template for IRTF document shepherds, and adds that it will be useful to have a little bit of guidance for people. Colin points out that Reese is going through this for the first time and might have some questions that might be a good starting point.
Mirja adds that we could just start a Google Doc and make a chat out of it. Mirja was also thinking of having a list of questions for the RSAB which could probably be the same starting point.
Colin agrees that they both will probably be light weight unlike the IESG one which is very detailed.
Mirja had about 5 questions for the RSAB.
Colin asks Mirja to share the document after adding the RSAB questions.
Mirja says that there are no promises that she'll do that anytime soon but it is on her to do list.
o Colin to follow-up with Sofía about drafting text for guidance to IRTF document shepherds.
o draft-irtf-hrpc-guidelines
o draft-irtf-qirg-quantum-internet-use-cases
o draft-irtf-cfrg-frost
NONE
NONE
NONE
o draft-irtf-cfrg-kangarootwelve
Colin starts by saying that the attendance was a bit low but the venue was pleasant.
Rodney asks about the status of the extra hotel charges.
Mirja adds that she knows at least one AD that had a problem with this but is working with their travel agent to see.
Jenny responds that Paige and Stephanie are working with the hotel on this.
Rodney thought Brisbane was a wonderful place.
Colin mentions that the research meetings that he was able to attend despite the conflicts went smoothly.
Mirja chimes in to say that MAPRG had a very high attendance and the room was too small which could be because there were less meetings in general and less to de-conflict. The session was also good.
Mirja also adds that there was a really good talk about censorship in India which was really well received.
Colin mentions there was a good talk during IABOPEN about how the Australian Online Safety Act and other laws could adversely affect encryption technologies and the security of the Internet that people might want to look at.
Mirja agrees and does recommend them.
Rodney asks Mirja for the links to the talks about India since he is teaching a class and it might be interesting to share with his students.
Mirja adds that the last IAB workshop had talks about India as well.
(links Mirja added in the chat:
Out in the Open: On the Implementation of Mobile App Filtering in India YouTube slides, Devashish Gosain, March 2024
Also look for the slides and paper on India here: https://datatracker.ietf.org/group/biasws/materials/)
Stephen suggested that if people think that an IAB talk or an ANRP talk will be good as a plenary talk then it'll be a good try because the IETF misses good technical plenary talks.
Mirja adds that for IAB open, she enjoys that it is in a smaller room which creates good discussions, and thinks the talks would be different if they were brought to the plenary.
Colin agrees as it puts pressure on the speaker if they're talking about 1200 people and people would be more cautious of what they say.
Stephen thinks that the IETF could benefit from some of these talks, for example if the IAB thinks that there would be a good ANRP talk for the plenary, they should go for it.
Mirja chimes in and adds that that would require planning well in advance for it to happen at the plenary. She thinks the talks do well at the IAB Open, and thinks that if you want more attendance for these talks then there needs to be more noise about it.
Stephen doesn't agree as there will always be a big pile of people who don't go to IAB Open and not just for conflict reasons, but they would go to the plenary. Rodney asks that the IAB to be a little more risk averse for some speakers and try it.
Colin mentions that the IAB swings between the two as there are people who think there should be more tech talks and there are those who think there are too many tech talks, but will let the IAB know about this suggestion.
Allison adds that it might be a good idea to have a stockpile of people to have as repeated invited speakers. Allison also agrees that it might be good to have a short technical talk during the plenary as it is the biggest interest of the people at the IETF is to get technical discussion. Since it's an optimal spot, you can probably call for speakers and papers for it.
Colin will feed this information back to the IAB that people like tech talks.
Colin starts by saying that there was a bunch of discussion right before Christmas about preemptively blocking posting rights and attendance for people who are problematic. Most of the update is to add some comments pointing to existing statements on restricting access and pointing to the membership policy and how to enforce the membership policy for the research groups. After much discussion, the conclusion is preemptively trying to restrict someone will need input from the lawyers. There's also some words about how the chair should enforce the membership policy for the groups. This version of the draft addresses all the issues that Colin had with the Code of Conduct so the main reason it's on the agenda is to give people a chance to take a look at it and give feedback.
Mirja thought it was really well written, but had a question about where it states any kind of appropriate measures can be taken including excluding people from IRTF activities. Mirja asks what does Colin mean by this and how can it be done as you cannot exclude someone from the tools since all the tools are owned by the IETF so you would need to work with the IETF on that, but also excluding people from the meeting since it is an IETF meeting.
Colin responds that by excluding people from tools, there is a policy on where that can be done after discussion with the IESG since it affects what happens on the IETF website, and the IESG did a statement about restricting access which Colin was a part of.
Mirja chimes in and says that part is fine.
Colin adds that we can certainly do that. In terms of excluding people from the physical meeting, given agreement with the lawyers, Colin thinks there is a policy that states we can exclude people from coming to the meeting. But this does involve legal advice as there is a risk.
Mirja clarifies her question as the draft states, exclude from IRTF activities. What does that mean? Or does that mean the tools or the meeting? Or is there something else.
Colin responds that there is the mailing list, Meetecho, and things like that. Colin wanted it to be a little vague since oftentimes there are organized workshops which makes it hard to numerate all of them.
Dave agrees with Colin about being somewhat vague for future proof against what the IRTF does in the future, since if you numerate things then the absence of something we decide to do seems like poor use of resources.
Mirja adds that it seems like an empty statement if there's not much we can actually do, but as long as we understand what it means.
Colin chimes in by saying if we tell someone they're not welcomed in the mailing list, then we can exclude them from Meetecho and potentially exclude them from attending an in-person meeting.
Mirja adds that the documents states that the moderator can exclude someone from the mailing list, and think that's important because that's the role of the moderator, you have to act quickly but Mirja thinks there's a difference between taking posting rights away and limit their posting for a limited time or taking their posting rights away permanently. For example, there's the PR action where someone has their posting rights taken away for a year then after a year they can request to get their posting rights back. Mirja thinks it should clearly differentiate taking postings rights permanently versus for a limited time.
Stephen responds and says he likes the text as is with lack of details but also agreeing to an extent with Mirja. One of the downsides of the IETF PR action is that you have to announce that such a person is being considered for the PR action is efficacious, so overall is OK with the text in the current draft.
Mirja says that in the current draft it says moderator, who is usually a research group chair, can take away posting rights permanently, and thinks that taking away posting rights should at least include IRTF Chair.
Stephen adds that makes sense, include taking away posting rights, must need IRTF Chair approval.
Colin also agrees.
Stephen brings up the differentiation in the IETF between posting rights and ability to subscribe and read the mail, but is not sure if it needs to be mentioned.
Colin responds by saying it is hard to ban someone from reading a list if they want to.
Stephen agrees.
Colin adds that they can just subscribe anonymously if they want to.
Stephen then adds that it was assumed that moderators who temporarily suspend posting rights would put someone in the mailman moderation state rather than unsubscribe them, but also adds that we don't need to state that here.
Rodney mentions that the document does include a chain of escalation there.
Stephen says that at this point it's very minor. If you don't temporarily block someone from posting to a list, then do we tend to do that by putting them in the moderator queue and not approving their messages going to the list or do we unsubscribe them? And thinks unsubscribing them would be worse.
Colin thinks it would be fair to add something to say, aside from closed research groups, the lists are all public and there's no way of blocking someone from reading the messages. The actions are to block someone from posting.
Dave chimes in and says you can subscribe without having a moderator approve your subscription.
Stephen thinks that it would be better practice by moderatoring then unsubscribing them.
Dave agrees, but isn't sure if it's something that the Code of Conduct needs to mention as it is very specific.
Stephen agrees that it doesn't either, but wants to minute this conversation and have everyone remember.
Colin thinks that we probably don't want to add specifics on how we do it but adding something that mailing lists are public so we won't block someone from reading it but can block someone from posting.
Rodney asks if we have the ability to delete messages from the archive?
Colin responds yes, because it's just an IMAP archive and the Tools team can do it but doesn't think there's a policy on how to do that or when we would do that. Technically it's possible.
Mirja adds that for the IETF it's hard because we want to keep a record, but for the IRTF it may be different.
Colin recalls a redaction from one of the videos in a recent meeting because someone exposed some sensitive information so we do need to say something here. But isn't sure if it needs to be in this document but having it written down somewhere would be useful. The executive director would be the one to do, but as the IRTF, we would ask the executive director when to do it.
Mirja agrees that it would be good to have something written.
Colin asks what was the question about the ombudsteam?
Stephen asks if the ombudsteam only responds to events at meetings or also on email?
(Allison responds in chat that the ombudsteam does deal with email)
(Webex session suddenly ended, and some discussion was not captured)
Colin asks can we publish or does IAB have to approve it? Not quite sure the process for approving IRTF docs. Previous ones were published on IAB stream but that was before creation of IRTF stream. I can ask the IAB for feedback.
Brian says it’d be preferable to ask for feedback from the IAB but still publish on IRTF stream for precedent.
Colin adds it would be useful if people could cascade it down to their RGs and make sure the IRTF community is happy with this. I’m okay with the IETF community not being happy but people who come to RGs should comment.
Stephen asks which version?
Colin says he’lll put tweaks in this week so let’s do the new version. The goal is to get this finished by the Vancouver meeting unless someone strongly objects.
(https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KN2-I23Ccc5uFGAwOdjdyNhEXBd1GswC0xAIQKUaPhk/edit?usp=sharing)
Jenny adds that there will be many other events happening in Vancouver during the IETF 120 meeting week, so it'll be a good idea to pick a restaurant and a back-up restaurant so we can get started with getting a reservation.
Colin asks the group to look through the list and pick a restaurant and let him and Jenny know.
Jenny says that there are currently 5 applications, and the deadline is next Friday.
Colin asks for the status of the funds.
Jenny replies that the accountants just wrapped up reimbursements from IETF 119 last week and Debbie just got the final numbers. We're hoping to hear back soon.