IETF92

Two weeks ago, I attended a day of sessions at IETF92 in Dallas. At the newcomer’s orientation, the IETF’s practice of measuring rough consensus with humming rather than a show of hands was covered. Scott Bradner explained that this accommodates the contigency of an employee of a company wanting to comfortably express preference for a view inconsistent with the view of the employee’s boss (an example of where anonymity is important). This assumes that there is enough people in the room to stay anonymous. However, I noticed that for trivial or non-controversial issues, a show of hands was used.

The remote participation tools for IETF are impressive and it was cool to see this in action. The media archives of past events is also a great resource. Here is the media for the OAuth session I attended.