ineffective use of meeting time

[Ted Lemon]

> we have precious little face-to-face meeting time.  despite this, we 
> spend the vast majority of our meetings in presentations of material 
> that could (in most cases) easily be published as internet-drafts and 
> read by participants at other times.

I'm not sure whether to agree wholeheartedly or disagree feebly.   One 
of the brilliant strengths of IETF meetings is that people get together 
and discuss things, and you're completely right that this doesn't 
happen in the WG meetings.   What usually winds up happening is that 
the interested parties run into each other at the WG meetings and then 
spin off into private meetings to talk about details.

I think this is actually a feature - the meetings provide a catalyst 
for people getting together, and the private meetings provide a 
high-bandwidth synchronization mechanism.   I'm not sure what we would 
change that would have the result you're hoping for.   For example, I 
had a wonderful discussion on Monday afternoon with a couple of fellow 
IETFers about a protocol in which we have a mutual interest, but the 
discussion lasted five hours.   I don't see how it would be possible to 
have that discussion in a two-hour WG meeting, unfortunately.

Also, WG meetings are usually populated by dozens or even hundreds of 
people, so the tight communication you get with five people in a room 
together just can't happen in that context.   I think that WG meetings 
serve to provide some rough synchronization, but I don't see how they 
could be modified to provide anything more than that.

Do you think the real problem is with WG meetings, or is it more that 
these tighter meetings don't always happen, or don't always include 
everybody who ought to be there?