Subject: [lisp] [Fwd: request for help in developing a tool that may be helpful to WG chairs]

From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:20:27 -0500

For your information, and potential assistance...  Joel

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: request for help in developing a tool that may be helpful to WG 
chairs
Date: Wed,  3 Mar 2010 10:36:19 -0500 (EST)
From: [email-masked] (Scott O. Bradner)
To: [email-masked]

IETF working group chairs;

We are developing an open-source tool for monitoring the status and
progress of conflicts in on-line working groups (WG).  The tool works by
analyzing the WG mailing list.  When developed, this tool should be
helpful to WG chairs trying to understand the status of WG discussions
(how close to consensus is the WG, what is the distribution of
participation, etc).

As part of the development process we have been using a prototype tool
to analyze IETF WG mailing list archives to determine the amount of
conflict and how effective this conflict is being (has been) resolved.
As the first step, we need to understand the relationship between the
conflicts in a working group and the structure of the communication
network in that group. While having conflicts is not necessarily a bad
thing for a working group effort, some conflicts can escalate into
disasters. We are interested in finding the communication patterns
related to the evolution of group conflicts. Results from this study
will provide the base for the development of the tool that helps working
group chairs to decide when to intervene with an internal conflict
before it becomes irreversibly negative as well as being a tool that may
help determine where there is consensus on a particular topic.

We would like your help in understanding the level of conflicts within
your working groups and how the conflicts affect productivity and group
membersâ perception on the working group. It will be greatly appreciated
if you could ask your WG members to anonymously fill a short survey at

https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dExTbEU5QmRncnhFbjhQUVR4bzBGMEE6MA

Thank you!

Best Regards,

Bin Zhu, Mark Gaynor, Scott Bradner, and Jialun Qin