Subject: [Tools-discuss] Important dates in upcoming.ics

From: Robert Sparks <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2021 09:36:03 -0600

All, and particularly Michael, who IIRC made the original request:

The upcoming meetings ics calendar currently includes meeting important 
dates (but the page does not show them). Lars points out that this is 
both inconsistent, and redundant with the separate important dates ics 
calendar we have.

Would it be reasonable to remove the important dates from the 
upcoming.ics calendar?

(Also note that the way these important dates are currently being 
represented in both of the above .ics files is not right - it fails to 
display in calendar.app, and causes other calendaring systems to assert 
that the whole day is "Busy" - see 
https://trac.tools.ietf.org/tools/ietfdb/ticket/3161).

RjS

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From: "Salz, Rich" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2021 15:57:56 +0000

upcoming.ics calendar?

Sounds good to me.

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From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 03 Feb 2021 12:07:40 -0500

> both inconsistent, and redundant with the separate important dates ics

I'm okay with important dates being elsewhere.
What feed is that page?  https://www.ietf.org/how/meetings/ does not mention
it.  I get to https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/important-dates/
only by going into a specific meeting.

I think that ultimately my original complaint was that the upcoming included
the *meeting* things, which was redundant with having the meeting calendar loaded.
I think that this has been fixed now.

The primary utility I have with upcoming.ics is that it tells me (in various
roles), when there are other (virtual) interim meetings.

I would like it if the upcoming.ics included the IESG Telechats and other
related things (LLC board, RTG area meetings, etc.).  Again, the goal is
either de-conflicting, or at least, consciously knowing about double bookings.

    > Would it be reasonable to remove the important dates from the

YES.

    > https://trac.tools.ietf.org/tools/ietfdb/ticket/3161).

Oh.  That's really bad.
I guess that's because they are not associated with a specific time.
Maybe for some things, like Draft Deadline, a 5 minute event at 23:55:00
would work.  That would also establish the deadline into the right time zone.

--
Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>   . o O ( IPv6 IøT consulting )
           Sandelman Software Works Inc, Ottawa and Worldwide

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From: Lars Eggert <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2021 19:21:54 +0200

> only by going into a specific meeting.

It's on https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/important-dates/

Lars

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From: Lars Eggert <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2021 19:24:58 +0200

Hi,

> either de-conflicting, or at least, consciously knowing about double bookings.

there are separate iCals for different meeting series already (IESG, IAB, LLC, etc.) I'd really like to focus upcoming.ics on WG and RG meetings and not lump everything into one iCal file.

Or if that's what is wanted, create a new all.ics file that has all the stuff.

Thanks,
Lars

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From: Robert Sparks <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2021 11:28:08 -0600

> only by going into a specific meeting.

You found where the link is homed: 
https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/important-dates/

https://datatracker/meeting will always have a link to that page.

Greg - consider adding a link to 
https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/important-dates/ at 
https://www.ietf.org/how/meetings/

> I think that this has been fixed now.
Yes
> related things (LLC board, RTG area meetings, etc.).

We could add these other things, but I think we would then need to add 
filters so people could select the information that they really want.

I understand the general deconflicting use case.

It will likely be a stretch to get LLC board meetings and the like into 
the datatracker - those are maintained in other systems.

Area meetings on the other hand should just be interims - are they not 
being organized that way?

>   Again, the goal is

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From: Bob Hinden <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2021 09:37:55 -0800

Lars,

> On Feb 3, 2021, at 9:21 AM, Lars Eggert <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Signed PGP part

Thanks, I had not noticed that before.   I subscribed, but am not seeing anything on my calendar :-(

Bob

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From: Lars Eggert <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2021 19:40:26 +0200

On 2021-2-3, at 19:28, Robert Sparks <[email-masked]> wrote:
> It will likely be a stretch to get LLC board meetings and the like into the datatracker - those are maintained in other systems.

FYI:

The LLC meetings are linked from https://www.ietf.org/about/groups/llc-board/meeting-info/ as https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/ietf.org_vmffrv4hq14aqpedenuv5v42hs%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

The IESG meetings are linked from https://www.ietf.org/about/groups/iesg/ as https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/ietf.org_egdabaf39ch5v8a13dt39mvee4%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

The IAB meetings are linked from https://www.iab.org/wiki/index.php/Agenda as https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/ietf.org_k88jdeojmvn249q37ain3ojepc%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

Thanks,
Lars

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From: Lars Eggert <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2021 19:42:42 +0200

Hi,

On 2021-2-3, at 19:37, Bob Hinden <[email-masked]> wrote:
> I subscribed, but am not seeing anything on my calendar :-(

same here. I wonder if the iCal file is corrupt? (It's not empty at least.)

Thanks,
Lars

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From: Robert Sparks <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2021 11:58:24 -0600

It has the same problem as discussed at 
https://trac.tools.ietf.org/tools/ietfdb/ticket/3161#comment:3

I'm looking into it.

What's currently there looks like this:

BEGIN:VEVENT
UID:ietf-110-cutoffresched-2021-02-10
SUMMARY:IETF 110: Cut-off Reschedule Requests
CLASS:PUBLIC
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20210210
DTSTAMP:20210110T230331Z
DESCRIPTION:Cut-off date for requests to reschedule Working Group or BOF 
meetings UTC 23:59
END:VEVENT

But that's clearly not making Calendar.app happy.

If someone with good ical skills has time to look and suggest what the 
form of the event _should_ be, please do so.

RjS

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From: Robert Sparks <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2021 16:16:52 -0600

So, the offending bit is this:

BEGIN:VEVENT^M
UID:ietf-110-opensched-2020-12-07
SUMMARY:IETF 110: Scheduling Opens
CLASS:PUBLIC
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20201207
DTSTAMP:20210202T191034Z
DESCRIPTION:Working Group and BOF scheduling begins
To request a Working Group session, use the IETF Meeting Session Request 
Tool:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/secr/sreq/
If you are working on a BoF request, it is highly recommended to tell 
the IESG
now by sending an email to [email-masked] to get advance help with the 
request.
END:VEVENT

The folding of DESCRIPTION doesn't match what the RFC allows, and 
Calendar.app does not forgive it. (But doesn't error...)

It's interesting that https://icalendar.org/validator.html doesn't 
complain about it - I suspect there is something really subtle that 
breaks what implementations would otherwise try to be really forgiving 
about.

We have other places where we're violating the RFC currently that 
Calendar.app does forgive.

In any case, the fix will be to get the folding right.

I've also spotted how to make these events transparent to busy searches, 
and will add that.

RjS

On 2/3/21 11:58 AM, Robert Sparks wrote:
> DESCRIPTION:Cut-off date for requests to reschedule Working Group or 
> BOF meetings UTC 23:59
> END:VEVENT
>
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---

From: Robert Sparks <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2021 16:20:28 -0600

Just to stave off speculation - that ^M on the first line is bogus - all 
of the lines in the file end with CRLF. I was cutting from an editor 
that showed the CR as ^M, and manually cleaned them up for this message. 
I missed one.

On 2/3/21 4:16 PM, Robert Sparks wrote:
> To request a Working Group session, use the IETF Meeting Session 
> Request Tool:

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 03 Feb 2021 21:16:23 -0500

Bob Hinden <[email-masked]> wrote:
    >> Signed PGP part On 2021-2-3, at 19:07, Michael Richardson
    >> <[email-masked]> wrote:
    >>> What feed is that page?  https://www.ietf.org/how/meetings/ does not
    >>> mention it.  I get to
    >>> https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/important-dates/ only by going
    >>> into a specific meeting.
    >>

    > anything on my calendar :-(

I see stuff via Google Calendar (of which I'm less and less fond of)

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 03 Feb 2021 21:17:44 -0500

Lars Eggert <[email-masked]> wrote:
    >> I would like it if the upcoming.ics included the IESG Telechats and
    >> other related things (LLC board, RTG area meetings, etc.).  Again, the
    >> goal is either de-conflicting, or at least, consciously knowing about
    >> double bookings.

    > there are separate iCals for different meeting series already (IESG,
    > IAB, LLC, etc.) I'd really like to focus upcoming.ics on WG and RG
    > meetings and not lump everything into one iCal file.

    > Or if that's what is wanted, create a new all.ics file that has all the

I'm okay with "all.ics": the purpose is to avoid conflicts.

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 03 Feb 2021 21:19:22 -0500

Robert Sparks <[email-masked]> wrote:
    >> other related things (LLC board, RTG area meetings, etc.).

    > being organized that way?

No, because not all area meetings are WGs.
IoTDIR, RtgDIR.

I also got push back about asking RtgArea "Chats" being in a calendar.
The result was conflicts.

--
]               Never tell me the odds!                 | ipv6 mesh networks [
]   Michael Richardson, Sandelman Software Works        |    IoT architect   [
]     [email-masked]  http://www.sandelman.ca/        |   ruby on rails    [

---

From: Robert Sparks <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2021 13:37:37 -0600

> No, because not all area meetings are WGs.

These things (review teams) are already configured to support meeting. 
They can schedule interims just like WG/RG can. So can area groups already.

If you find a group type that should be able manage meetings in the 
datatracker, but can't yet, let me know.

RjS

> * Report datatracker and mailarchive bugs to: [email-masked]
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---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 09 Feb 2021 16:22:46 -0500

> These things (review teams) are already configured to support meeting. They
    > can schedule interims just like WG/RG can. So can area groups already.

I thought that the last conversation we had between you, I and Ines, that
IoTDIR was not configured in the right way to do this. Did that change?
Maybe we just need to remind them again.

---

From: Cindy Morgan <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2021 13:28:19 -0800

> On Feb 9, 2021, at 1:22 PM, Michael Richardson <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> 
> Robert Sparks <[email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:

This actually came up today with IOTDIR. The chairs can’t schedule a meeting themselves—it looks like they can, but then it doesn’t actually work for them. However, from playing in the sandbox, the Secretariat can schedule interim meetings for Directorates.

That said, when we got the request from Ines, we (Secretariat) checked with the IESG, and the IESG would prefer to not have Directorate meetings listed in the public calendar (and have the invite go to IETF-Announce), since those meetings aren’t open to everyone.

Thanks,
Cindy

> Michael Richardson <[email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>>   . o O ( IPv6 IøT consulting )

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 09 Feb 2021 16:51:34 -0500

> This actually came up today with IOTDIR. The chairs can’t schedule a
    > meeting themselves—it looks like they can, but then it doesn’t actually
    > work for them. However, from playing in the sandbox, the Secretariat
    > can schedule interim meetings for Directorates.

Ah.

    > That said, when we got the request from Ines, we (Secretariat) checked
    > with the IESG, and the IESG would prefer to not have Directorate
    > meetings listed in the public calendar (and have the invite go to
    > IETF-Announce), since those meetings aren’t open to everyone.

I see.
IOTDIR is now open. (IOT-Directorate wasn't. Or have I the names swapped)

But, the point of having meetings in a calendar is so that people don't get
double booked.  It seems that maybe we need to be able to mark the meeting as
more private, so no meeting info is put in the calendar.

---

From: Robert Sparks <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2021 15:55:23 -0600

> Maybe we just need to remind them again.
Yes, it did - we had a round of discussion with all the review team 
chairs which was positive for making the change, and it was made in 
November. Ines engaged in the thread and acknowledged the change at the 
time.

---

From: Robert Sparks <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2021 16:09:25 -0600

>      > can schedule interim meetings for Directorates.
That's a bug - it is intended that they be able to request them themselves.
> more private, so no meeting info is put in the calendar.
Indeed - We can change the code so that the announcements for teams like 
this don't go to ietf-announce. We could even talk about requirements 
about when they show on the upcoming page, and whether coordinates 
appear there (but keep Michael's point about conflicts in mind), but it 
would be _very_ useful for these teams to be able to use the materials 
management capabilities that they asked for.

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 09 Feb 2021 19:00:52 -0500

> Indeed - We can change the code so that the announcements for teams like this
    > don't go to ietf-announce. We could even talk about requirements about when
    > they show on the upcoming page, and whether coordinates appear there (but
    > keep Michael's point about conflicts in mind), but it would be _very_ useful
    > for these teams to be able to use the materials management capabilities that
    > they asked for.

Cool, I think that we are on the same page here.
Some WGs use virtual interim meetings almost like Design Team meetings, and
other WGs let design teams fend completely for themselves, and don't even
talk to the WG until they post a draft.

My model (which RATS Architecture and ANIMA BRSKI-extensions has used) is
that we have open Design Team meetings, and the ML is notified, but we don't
take many notes beyond attendance.   People show up who are involved.

They don't show up on calendars today.
I don't know if they should/could in the future.

Some reason I'd like to make this activity more visible is because:
  1) it can be hard for newcomers to find this activity. Physical meetings tend to
     gravitate to an actual bar, and you have to be in the "in-group" to know
     to even ask.

  2) I think that the open design team model (particularly with github support)
     is a good model to emulate, but some groups of people do not include
     a person who can actually organize the required shared screen + audio.
     Okay, after 2020, you'd think everyone would have some accounts, but yet
     it is still often not the case.

In case you want to know my definition: for me, it's design team activity if
words in an ID get moved around in real time during the meeting.  Whether
that's with a shared screen view of someone's emacs editor, or via github
"Suggestion" buttons.

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From: Robert Sparks <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2021 09:33:02 -0600

As noted at https://trac.tools.ietf.org/tools/ietfdb/ticket/3161, the 
issue with events not appearing was an error in line folding in the ics 
generator.

That's been fixed, and I just applied the fix to production as a patch.

RjS