2.8.3 Web Evangelism of Internet-Related Developments (weird) Bof

Current Meeting Report

Minutes of the Web Evangelism of Internet-Related Developments BOF
IETF - Minneapolis, MN - March, 1999

recorded by Chris Burke / Piet Barber

The Web Evangelism of Internet-Related Developments (WEIRD) BOF met to gauge the level of interest in forming an IETF working group to develop web-based content, including a combination of less-technical language, formatted text, and graphics, to better inform people of IETF activities and the relationships among various IETF activities.

User Services A-D April Marine described background discussions over the past year that led up to the BOF, and BOF chair Chris Burke presented a draft charter. Chris then opened the floor to charter bashing and scope discussion.

Discussion gravitated toward two issues: selection of a target audience, and identification of kinds of info useful to that audience that the IETF could produce responsibly and without undue speculation.

The strawman target audience was internet users, but consensus developed around a target audience of internet generalists such as ISPs, book authors, and people new to the IETF.

A structured discussion on roughly 15 distinct content types followed, with the group classifying each type either in scope or out of scope. Content types specifically in scope include: current IETF WG and BOF activities, BOF historical information, IAB / IESG / Secretariat issues and topics of interest and their impact. Content types specifically out of scope include: information interpreting trends in internet engineering and standards; IETF-related information that is editorial in nature.

There was rough consensus that it was worth forming a working group to develop an IETF web site to address this audience and serve this content. Many open issues remain, not the least of which are defining specific milestones and that the WG does not produce a "document" in the traditional IETF sense.

Charter and milestone discussion will continue on the WEIRD discussion list (mailto:ietf-weird@imc.org, mailto:ietf-weird-request@imc.org to subscribe) , with the objective of revising the proposed charter by end of April, 1999.

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Agenda