Subject: Re: [Tools-team] tool suggestion for MPLS IETF

From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 06 Feb 2005 02:49:05 +0100

Thomas,

    Returning to your suggestion (below) and trying to get a handle on
the requirements for this, it seems to me that the task is split into
two parts:  Presentation part, and update part.

For the presentation part, it could be done by one page which simply
listed the workgroup names as a long list of links to individual pages,
or it could be a bit more fancy, basically using the IETF-62 agenda
as a starting point, and linking off that; pretty much matching the
format of the agenda-page in html-format which the secretariat provides,
but adding the html links to drafts, RFCs and other URLs.

Is either of these options what you had in mind?

One sample of the latter is available at
http://ietf.levkowetz.com/schedule/?url=http://www.ietf.org/meetings/agenda_61.html
but has the drawback that it has kept the secretariat-provided links
to the charters -- if you want to be able to get this by an rsync or
similar to have it available off line, I guess you'd prefer not to
have those link in there.

Is it important that the whole set of agendas be available by rsync,
or would wget also be acceptable?

For the update part, it could be done pretty easily by using a wiki
page per workgroup (as already suggested). which would require that
agendas always be entered in the wiki (and updated there) as well as
sent in to the secretariat.  Or it could be a bit more fancy, providing
fallback to the wg-agendas from the secretariat if no newer one had been
entered through the wiki; which would be easier on the chairs, but require
a bit more work to put together.  

Does these options match what you had in mind, or is there some non-
obvious drawback to using a wiki?  (The obvious one being no access
control - anybody could update any agenda...)

One alternative I'm considering is to extract the email addresses
of the chairs of each workgroup from the charter pages, and arrange
for agenda updates by email, where the sender email would have to match
the workgroup for an update to go through.  This would probably be a
bit more custom programming than going with the wiki, though.

Comments?

	Henrik

On 2005-01-25 8:12 pm Thomas Narten said the following:
> Recalling a discussion from the last IETF, it sure would be nice if
> there was a single web page that listed all WG agendas, and the
> agendas were actually up-to-date.
> 
> Problem statement:
> 
> WG agendas should be collected on a single page, and be updatable in
> essentially real-time, even during the WG meetings; can't we just have
> a tool that does this?
>     
> requirements (?)
>     - viewable via browser of course, should be html to support links
>       (e.g., to IDs, etc.).  But .txt file works too.
>     - single rsync/wget to get a snapshot of entire set of agendas
>       (e.g., before getting onto plane)
>     - chairs can update as often as they like (in real time),
>       including moments before their WG meeting.
>     - simple format/interface is fine -- each chair gets to update
>       one file (i.e, their agenda). so, need the equivalent of
>       allowing a restricted "scp" to update a page
>     - run without secretariate help, so CNRI doesn't have be involved
>       (they have enough to do around meeting times anyway,  it
>       seems. Plus, we want this to be done completely through software.)
>     - might be useful to have a secondary tool that sends reminders to
>       chairs  of wgs that don't have  agendas listed, at least to get
>       at least an initial agenda posted... But that is detail...
> 
> (might be more requirements...)
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> What about running a prototype/experiment that attempts the above and
> then evaluate how it works? We do it ourselves, on our own (non-CNRI)
> web site, and ask WG-chairs to participate.
> 
> Thomas

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---

From: Thomas Narten <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2005 07:45:22 -0500

Hi Henrik.

> Is either of these options what you had in mind?

Yep. The secretariat agendas are not yet online, so I can't go look at
them to remind me of the format.

> have those link in there.

yes, this looks nice. As I'm looking at though, one more useful
feature would be to show the date of the agenda, so one knows  how
recent it is.

> or would wget also be acceptable?

wget is sufficient.  Main thing is that there is a straightforward way
to get the entire contents.

> a bit more work to put together.

One issue that will come up is divergence of the updated agendas from
the "official" one. Indeed, we already have that problem. For
instance, just what is the _final_ agenda (i.e., the one that appears
in the proceedings), given that updates happen at the very last
moment? This isn't a new problem, just one that will become even more
apparent.

> control - anybody could update any agenda...)

I think a wiki would be fine. Access control is the only concern I
have. Maybe we shouldn't worry unless it becomes a problem, at least
for this round. But going forward (e.g., if it does become part of the
"official" process), we'll need an answer.

> bit more custom programming than going with the wiki, though.

And is easy to forge. I.e., if folk abuse the wiki access controls,
not clear why email would be a deterrent.

> Comments?

Nice job!

Thomas