Session Date/Time: 21 Jul 2024 19:30

Tutorial: New Participants' Overview

Summary

This session provides an overview of the IETF for new participants, covering its structure, processes, and how to get involved. The session also highlighted various resources and activities available to newcomers during the IETF meeting.

Key Discussion Points

IETF Note Well: All participation in the IETF is governed by a set of processes, rules, and expectations.
Meetecho: The tool used for meeting participation, both in-person and remotely. Attendees were encouraged to register themselves using the QR code. A dedicated Meetecho presentation would follow.
Lanyards and Pins: Explained the meaning of different colored lanyards (photography permissions) and pins (personal contact preferences).
IETF Mission: To make the internet better by developing high-quality, relevant technical documents. Adoption and deployment of standards determine success.
IETF Funding Model: Funding comes from registration fees, donations, corporate contributions, and the Internet Society.
IETF Structure: Overview of the IESG, IRTF, IAB, and LLC, emphasizing the role of area directors and working groups.
IETF Consensus: Decisions are made by rough consensus, not voting. The session chair determines consensus based on various methods (Meetecho polls, hand-raising, humming) and input from the mailing list. RFC 7282 describes rough consensus.
Joining a Working Group: The Datatracker is the key repository for all working materials. Newcomers should review working group pages, documents, and contact the chairs.
Contributing to the IETF: Contributions should focus on providing solutions to well-defined problems within the IETF's scope. Participants should document their ideas in an Internet Draft and socialize it with others.
IETF Meeting Week: Overview of working group sessions, Birds of a Feather (BOF) sessions, IRTF meetings, hackathon, social events, tutorials, and side meetings. Most of the work occurs on the mailing lists, with face-to-face meetings confirming decisions.
Working Group Sessions: Discuss changes to drafts since the last meeting and address open issues. Participants are expected to have read the documents beforehand.
IRTF: The Internet Research Task Force conducts research projects.
Networking Opportunities: Encourage interaction and discussion with other participants, emphasizing the value of technical contributions.
Available Resources: The new participants program, the secretariat, the RFC editor, IANA, and the Ombuds team are available resources for assistance.
New Participant Activities: Mentioned quick connections for new participants, the new participant dinner, and a social hour with IETF leadership.
Additional Resources: Highlighted the IETF blog post, area director office hours, the new participants meetup spot, and the Zulip chat.

Decisions and Action Items

Action Item: Fix the issue with the PDF symbol not being available for this session so that the slides can be easily accessed.

Next Steps

Attend the Meetecho test session immediately following this tutorial.
Sign up for the quick connection event if space is available.
Consider attending the new participant dinner on Monday night.
Explore the IETF agenda and identify working groups of interest.
Visit the new participants meetup spot to connect with other newcomers.