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+Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)                         L. Eggert
+Request for Comments: 6771                                        NetApp
+Category: Informational                                     G. Camarillo
+ISSN: 2070-1721                                                 Ericsson
+                                                            October 2012
+
+
+     Considerations for Having a Successful "Bar BOF" Side Meeting
+
+Abstract
+
+   New work is typically brought to the IETF by a group of interested
+   individuals.  IETF meetings are a convenient place for such groups to
+   hold informal get-togethers to discuss and develop their ideas.  Such
+   side meetings, which are not reflected in the IETF meeting agenda and
+   have no official status, are often half-jokingly referred to as "bar
+   BOF" sessions to acknowledge that some of them may eventually lead to
+   a proposal for an official IETF BOF ("birds of a feather" session) on
+   a given topic.
+
+   During recent IETF meetings, many such "bar BOF" get-togethers have
+   been organized and moderated in ways that made them increasingly
+   indistinguishable from official IETF BOFs or sometimes even IETF
+   working group meetings.
+
+   This document argues that this recent trend is not helpful in
+   reaching the ultimate goal of many of these get-togethers, i.e., to
+   efficiently discuss and develop ideas for new IETF work.  It
+   encourages the organizers to consider the benefits of holding them in
+   much less formal settings and to also consider alternative means to
+   develop their ideas.  This document also recommends that the
+   community abandon the term "bar BOF" and instead use other terms such
+   as "side meeting", in order to stress the unofficial nature of these
+   get-togethers.
+
+Status of This Memo
+
+   This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
+   published for informational purposes.
+
+   This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
+   (IETF).  It represents the consensus of the IETF community.  It has
+   received public review and has been approved for publication by the
+   Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).  Not all documents
+   approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet
+   Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 5741.
+
+
+
+
+
+Eggert & Camarillo            Informational                     [Page 1]
+
+RFC 6771            Successful Bar BOF Side Meetings        October 2012
+
+
+   Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
+   and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
+   http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6771.
+
+Copyright Notice
+
+   Copyright (c) 2012 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
+   document authors.  All rights reserved.
+
+   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
+   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
+   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
+   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
+   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
+   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
+   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
+   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
+   described in the Simplified BSD License.
+
+1.  Introduction
+
+   A typical IETF meeting is full of sessions of different kinds.  In
+   addition to official IETF and IRTF sessions listed in the meeting
+   agenda (such as working and research group meetings, area meetings,
+   or plenaries), many other unofficial meetings take place.  These
+   include meetings between IETF participants from one organization or
+   company, design team meetings, Internet-Draft editing sessions,
+   interoperability testing, directorate lunches, and many others.
+
+   Some of these unofficial get-togethers are organized by individual
+   participants with a common interest in initiating new IETF work of
+   some kind.  New IETF work often fits into an existing working group
+   and does not require an official "birds of a feather" (BOF) session
+   [RFC5434] to determine community consensus.  Nevertheless, the phrase
+   "bar BOF" has commonly been used in the community when talking about
+   such informal get-togethers that are held to discuss potential new
+   work.  [RFC4677] (which has been obsoleted by [RFC6722])
+   characterizes a "bar BOF" as
+
+      an unofficial get-together, usually in the late evening, during
+      which a lot of work gets done over drinks.  Bar BOFs spring up in
+      many different places around an IETF meeting, such as restaurants,
+      coffee shops, and (if we are so lucky) pools.
+
+   During recent IETF meetings, "bar BOFs" have become increasingly
+   indistinguishable from official IETF BOFs or sometimes even IETF
+   working group meetings.  The symptoms of this trend are unofficial
+   "bar BOFs" that are held in regular IETF meeting rooms with
+
+
+
+Eggert & Camarillo            Informational                     [Page 2]
+
+RFC 6771            Successful Bar BOF Side Meetings        October 2012
+
+
+   classroom-style seating, agendas with lengthy slide presentations,
+   use of microphone lines, and even formal consensus calls.  And,
+   perhaps most importantly, such meetings have a distinct lack of
+   drinks.
+
+   This document argues that this trend is not helpful in reaching the
+   ultimate goal of many of these get-togethers, i.e., to brainstorm
+   about a technical topic that may eventually lead to new IETF work.
+   It encourages the organizers of these unofficial get-togethers to
+   consider the benefits of holding them in much less formal settings.
+
+   This document also recommends that the community abandon the term
+   "bar BOF".  The distinction between a BOF, i.e., an official IETF
+   activity, and a "bar BOF", i.e., an unofficial get-together, is lost
+   on many IETF participants, especially newcomers.  The similarity in
+   terms has even caused confusion to the point where some participants
+   believe that a "bar BOF" is a required step in the IETF process in
+   order to apply for an official BOF, which is obviously false.  For
+   these reasons, the remainder of this document will use the term "side
+   meeting" instead and recommends that the community do the same, in
+   order to stress the unofficial nature of these get-togethers.
+
+   Before going into more detailed advice on how to hold side meetings,
+   it is important to remember that many participants are extremely busy
+   during an IETF meeting.  Although having a side meeting to discuss an
+   idea in an informal face-to-face setting is attractive, the
+   scheduling of such meetings is very difficult and needs to happen
+   weeks, if not months, prior to the meeting itself.  Conference calls,
+   email discussions, wikis, jabber group chats, and other ways for
+   interacting are also effective at developing ideas and easier to
+   schedule.
+
+2.  How to Invite
+
+   A good rule of thumb is that a side meeting to discuss and develop a
+   proposal for new IETF work should include the necessary participants
+   to achieve that purpose and no more.  Smaller meetings are usually
+   more successful than larger meetings.
+
+   Hence, it is often useful to limit attendance carefully.  Publicly
+   broadcasting an announcement for a side meeting on a particular
+   topic, e.g., on an IETF mailing list, is therefore not usually a good
+   method of inviting the desired set of participants.
+
+   One reason is that if the announcement happens to attract a large
+   response, the logistics of organizing a side meeting for a larger
+   group quickly becomes very difficult.  Small groups fit comfortably
+   around a table at a bar or a restaurant or can find a quiet corner in
+
+
+
+Eggert & Camarillo            Informational                     [Page 3]
+
+RFC 6771            Successful Bar BOF Side Meetings        October 2012
+
+
+   an IETF hallway for a discussion.  Larger groups require dedicated
+   meeting facilities, which are limited during IETF meetings, and they
+   generally require much more careful planning in order to get work
+   done.
+
+   When publicly announcing a side meeting, it is often not even
+   possible for the organizers to determine how large the resulting get-
+   together will be, forcing them to over-provision for the "best case"
+   of a substantial attendance, even in cases where this turns out to be
+   not necessary.  And even when a large group comes together, it often
+   mostly consists of "tourists".  Tourists usually do not actively
+   participate in the get-together at all, or they participate with an
+   intent to learn about a topic, which can derail a planned discussion
+   of specific issues and turn it into a tutorial.  The attendance of
+   tourists requires finding a larger room and makes the interactions
+   between the active participants more cumbersome, e.g., because
+   microphones need to be used in larger rooms.  There are times to
+   expose new ideas to a broader community, but think carefully before
+   publicly announcing a side meeting.
+
+   So while publicly announcing a side meeting can be useful in order to
+   gather interested people for a discussion, it often makes sense to
+   still limit attendance.  For example, an announcement could say, "We
+   have a table reserved at restaurant X for Y people.  If you are
+   interested in attending, please briefly explain how you will
+   contribute to the discussion we are planning to have".  If more than
+   Y people respond, the organizers make a selection.
+
+   Selecting or specifically inviting IESG or IAB members is not
+   necessary and may not even be advisable in many cases.  Some ideas
+   need time to form before they result in anything cohesive, and a side
+   meeting is a good time to develop new ideas.  It is usually most
+   useful to approach Area Directors (ADs) and IAB members for comments
+   after an idea has solidified enough so that an elevator pitch can be
+   given.  Also, it should be clear that if an AD or IAB member attends
+   a side meeting, it is not necessarily a show of support.  They may
+   simply be interested or often may be concerned or troubled with some
+   aspect of the potential work and relation to existing work.  On the
+   other hand, when an AD or IAB member declines to attend a side
+   meeting, that is usually not a sign of disinterest or disapproval --
+   these people have busy schedules, especially during an IETF week.
+
+   In the initial stages of developing a proposal for new IETF work, the
+   ability for interested and experienced participants to brainstorm is
+   tremendously important.  Brainstorming is facilitated by direct,
+   interactive, and high-bandwidth discussions.  This is clearly much
+   more easily achieved in a smaller setting, where half-baked ideas can
+   be dissected and developed.  This is often not possible in a larger
+
+
+
+Eggert & Camarillo            Informational                     [Page 4]
+
+RFC 6771            Successful Bar BOF Side Meetings        October 2012
+
+
+   group.  Even worse, a badly run large meeting can sometimes "poison
+   the waters" for a proposed idea by convincing the broader community
+   that the proposal is confused, not ready, or otherwise uninteresting.
+
+   Another reason to discuss new work proposals in smaller groups is
+   scope creep, i.e., the tendency of an initially rather tightly scoped
+   area of new work to expand, because people will argue that whatever
+   the initial topic was, it should be expanded to include their
+   particular item of interest.  This is harder to control in larger
+   groups.  Keeping the scope of new work items narrow is important,
+   because eventual chartering decisions are often much more difficult
+   for larger items of new work than for smaller ones.
+
+   It is important to understand that in the IETF, proposals for new
+   work are judged based on their technical merits and on whether there
+   is enough energy and interest in the community to complete the work
+   in a timely manner.  This happens in the relevant working group, if
+   one exists, or else during an official BOF session.  How many warm
+   bodies fill a room during an unofficial side meeting has no influence
+   on this decision and is not a good metric for reporting interest in a
+   topic to the community or to employers.  Discussions about new work
+   are often controversial, and people will show up just to watch the
+   fireworks, learn about a new topic, or make sure the new work does
+   not interfere with work they are already pursuing, without being
+   interested contributing in some way to the actual proposal itself.
+
+   Some side meetings are organized to discuss a topic that is also
+   being discussed in an existing working group, either before or after
+   the working group itself meets.  Some working groups call these side
+   meetings "ad hoc sessions".  The fact that a side meeting is
+   organized by a chair or key participant of a working group in order
+   to discuss topics related to the working group does not make it any
+   more official than other side meetings.  An "ad hoc session" is not
+   an official working group session, and no decisions relevant to a
+   working group can be made.  Working group consensus can only be
+   established during official sessions or on the mailing list
+   [RFC2418].
+
+3.  Where to Meet
+
+   As the colloquial name "bar BOF" implied, such side meetings are
+   traditionally held in bars or restaurants.  Recently, there has been
+   a distinct shift towards holding such get-togethers in regular IETF
+   meeting rooms.  One reason for this trend has been discussed in
+   Section 2, namely, that an uncontrolled broadcast announcement
+   requires over-provisioning of facilities.
+
+
+
+
+
+Eggert & Camarillo            Informational                     [Page 5]
+
+RFC 6771            Successful Bar BOF Side Meetings        October 2012
+
+
+   A second reason for this trend is that some participants, e.g., non-
+   native English speakers or participants with hearing difficulties,
+   find it difficult to interact or follow a discussion in noisy
+   environments, such as restaurants and especially bars.  The
+   organizers of side meetings are encouraged to take this factor into
+   consideration when finding a meeting place.  Quiet restaurants are
+   not hard to find, and many offer private dining rooms at no extra
+   charge for larger parties.
+
+   A likely third reason why side meetings are increasingly held in IETF
+   rooms is that the booking of such a room currently requires approval
+   by an Area Director.  The reason for this practice is simply to make
+   sure that IETF-paid rooms are used for meetings that are in the
+   widest sense IETF-related.  However, the approval of a room request
+   for a side meeting has been known to sometimes be reported as Area
+   Director "support" for the topic of the meeting to the community or
+   to employers.  No such support is expressed or implied when Area
+   Directors approve room requests!  Many routinely say "yes" to every
+   incoming request as long as there are meeting rooms available (and
+   there are typically lots of meeting rooms available outside of normal
+   working group meeting slots).
+
+   Holding side meetings in IETF meeting rooms does not make them any
+   more official or valid than get-togethers that happen in other
+   places.  Participants have recently begun to list the times and
+   locations of some side meetings on a wiki page, but that does not
+   make them part of the official IETF agenda or otherwise change their
+   unofficial status.
+
+   IETF meeting rooms clearly do not provide the most supportive
+   environment for side meetings that require brainstorming on a new
+   technical proposal.  One reason is that the classroom-style seating
+   often present in IETF meeting rooms tends to spread people out in
+   rows, all facing towards a front presenter, which is good for
+   presentations but bad for discussion.  Because IETF meeting rooms
+   tend to be large and people have a natural tendency to spread out,
+   holding a meeting in one often requires microphone use, which is
+   cumbersome, slows a discussion down, and leads to "question-answer"
+   dialogs between two people, which is much less effective than a group
+   discussion around a restaurant table.
+
+   Another reason is more pragmatic.  Because the organizers of
+   unofficial get-togethers can only use IETF meeting rooms during times
+   when they are not otherwise in use, such side meetings often happen
+   during breakfast, lunch, dinner, or later in the evening.  This
+   prolongs the time during which IETF participants are stuck in the
+   same rooms they're stuck in for the rest of the day, and it prevents
+   them from having a regular and at least somewhat relaxed meal.
+
+
+
+Eggert & Camarillo            Informational                     [Page 6]
+
+RFC 6771            Successful Bar BOF Side Meetings        October 2012
+
+
+   Anecdotal evidence exists that at least one Area Director has not
+   been able to set foot outside the IETF hotel for a stretch of several
+   days during IETF 77.  (IETF 77 was held in Anaheim, CA, and the food
+   options in and near the hotel were, let's say, of severely limited
+   quality.)  It is unlikely that participants in the consequential
+   mental and bodily state will make productive contributions to a side
+   meeting or, in the case of Area Directors, will be extremely
+   receptive towards new work proposals.
+
+   Food, drink, and a relaxed atmosphere in which to have a discussion
+   are an essential part of a successful side meeting, because they
+   often need to happen during meal times.  IETF meeting rooms offer
+   neither.
+
+4.  How to Meet
+
+   Several of the recent side meetings that were held in IETF meeting
+   rooms emulated official IETF meetings to a degree that made them
+   indistinguishable from a regular working group meeting for the
+   average IETF attendee.  This included detailed agendas, lengthy
+   presentations, organizers who refer to themselves as "bar BOF
+   chairs", emulating blue sheets (see Section 4.5 of [RFC4677]), and
+   even hums and other consensus calls (see Section 5.2 of [RFC4677]).
+
+   It is not clear as to why this has been happening.  One attempt at an
+   explanation may be that holding a get-together in an IETF room and
+   having the organizers behave like chairs behave during regular IETF
+   sessions is causing a Pavlovian stimulus in the attendees.  Another
+   explanation attempt is that an IETF meeting room simply does not
+   allow many other forms of discussion.  Finally, some organizers may
+   find the process to apply for an official BOF too complex or
+   troublesome (and probably rightfully so) and so decide to simply
+   mimic one, or they had applied for an official BOF, got turned down,
+   and then decided to hold the same meeting as a side meeting.
+
+   Whatever the reason for this development, it is reasonably obvious
+   that running a side meeting with a focus on making quick progress on
+   a technical proposal in a way that emulates running a working group
+   session is not very productive.  Working group sessions follow
+   certain procedures due to larger audiences, the need to establish
+   formal consensus, etc., that a side meeting can do without.
+
+   Having side meetings mimic working group meetings is also confusing
+   to attendees.  In at least one case, some side meeting participants
+   believed that they were attending an actual working group meeting,
+   and incorrect press announcements were generated.  When side meetings
+   take place at restaurants or elsewhere away from IETF meeting rooms,
+   the chance for confusion is much lower.
+
+
+
+Eggert & Camarillo            Informational                     [Page 7]
+
+RFC 6771            Successful Bar BOF Side Meetings        October 2012
+
+
+   Because the reasons for organizing such a get-together are diverse,
+   this section is not making more specific suggestions, other than to
+   note that meeting outside of an IETF meeting room is likely going to
+   shift the dynamics sufficiently so that better interactions and
+   results become possible.
+
+5.  When to Meet
+
+   Side meetings are often scheduled following IETF evening plenaries,
+   which sometimes end before the time indicated on the meeting agenda
+   but have in the past also ended much later.  It is therefore useful
+   to avoid scheduling side meetings that follow IETF plenaries at a
+   fixed time.  Instead, it is recommended to schedule them relative to
+   the end of the plenary, i.e., "X minutes after the end of the
+   plenary".  That way, attendees do not need to wait around if a
+   plenary finishes early and do not need to leave a plenary should it
+   run late.
+
+   Section 3 of [RFC5434] raises the issue that it is essential to
+   understand all angles of a given problem for which IETF work is
+   proposed.  This means that input from the community that can be found
+   at IETF meetings is not all that should be considered.  It can be
+   argued that input from other communities -- operator, research,
+   regulatory, etc. -- is at least as important.  Hence, organizers
+   should consider the value of holding side meetings at venues where
+   such input can be more easily gathered, such as operator fora (RIPE,
+   NANOG, etc.), research conferences, or other events.
+
+6.  Conclusions
+
+   Side meeting organizers are encouraged to rekindle the original
+   spirit behind them and organize them outside IETF meeting rooms, at
+   venues with food and drink, for smaller groups, and in a way that
+   does not needlessly mimic the way official IETF sessions are
+   conducted.
+
+   It can often be useful to discuss proposals for new IETF work face-
+   to-face in an informal setting, but conference calls, email
+   discussions, wikis, and other means for interactions are also
+   effective at developing ideas, especially given the scheduling
+   difficulties when busy individuals are involved during an IETF
+   meeting.
+
+   Finally, it is important to remember that all side meetings during an
+   IETF week are purely informal and have no official status whatsoever.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Eggert & Camarillo            Informational                     [Page 8]
+
+RFC 6771            Successful Bar BOF Side Meetings        October 2012
+
+
+7.  Security Considerations
+
+   A security AD pointed out that people have been known to forget their
+   laptops after side meetings held in real bars.  The organizers of
+   side meetings should therefore remind any attending security ADs (and
+   possibly others) to take their belongings with them after the side
+   meeting ends or the bar closes, whichever happens first.
+
+8.  Acknowledgments
+
+   The name and title of this document have been chosen to resemble
+   those used by Thomas Narten for his guidelines document on holding a
+   successful BOF [RFC5434], as a sign of appreciation for a document
+   that has proven to be invaluable many times over.
+
+   Several folks provided feedback and input on this document, including
+   Jari Arkko, Fred Baker, Scott Bradner, Ben Campbell, Jorge Contreras,
+   Spencer Dawkins, Ralph Droms, Wesley Eddy, Frank Ellermann, Adrian
+   Farrel, Stephen Farrell, David Harrington, Russ Housley, Cullen
+   Jennings, John Klensin, Al Morton, Robert Sparks, and Dan Wing.
+
+   Lars Eggert was partly funded by [TRILOGY], a research project
+   supported by the European Commission under its Seventh Framework
+   Program.
+
+9.  Informative References
+
+   [RFC2418]  Bradner, S., "IETF Working Group Guidelines and
+              Procedures", BCP 25, RFC 2418, September 1998.
+
+   [RFC4677]  Hoffman, P. and S. Harris, "The Tao of IETF - A Novice's
+              Guide to the Internet Engineering Task Force", RFC 4677,
+              September 2006.
+
+   [RFC5434]  Narten, T., "Considerations for Having a Successful Birds-
+              of-a-Feather (BOF) Session", RFC 5434, February 2009.
+
+   [RFC6722]  Hoffman, P., "Publishing the "Tao of the IETF" as a Web
+              Page", RFC 6722, August 2012.
+
+   [TRILOGY]  "Trilogy Project", <http://www.trilogy-project.org/>.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Eggert & Camarillo            Informational                     [Page 9]
+
+RFC 6771            Successful Bar BOF Side Meetings        October 2012
+
+
+Authors' Addresses
+
+   Lars Eggert
+   NetApp
+   Sonnenallee 1
+   Kirchheim  85551
+   Germany
+
+   Phone: +49 151 12055791
+   EMail: lars@netapp.com
+   URI:   http://eggert.org/
+
+
+   Gonzalo Camarillo
+   Ericsson
+   Hirsalantie 11
+   Jorvas  02420
+   Finland
+
+   EMail: Gonzalo.Camarillo@ericsson.com
+
+
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+Eggert & Camarillo            Informational                    [Page 10]
+