Subject: Re: IETF 63 On-line Survey

From: Spencer Dawkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2005 08:12:52 -0500

IETF Chair wrote:

>To assist the planning of future meetings, we ask you kindly to spend a
>minute or two responding to the on-line survey at
>    http://geneva.isoc.org/surveys/index.php?sid=4
>Even if you did not attend IETF 63 in Paris, we would value your responses.
>All responses will be treated anonymously, and a summary will be available
>on-line.
>
>Please respond by August 26 at the latest.
>
>Thanks
>
>    Brian Carpenter, IETF Chair
>    Ray Pelletier, IETF Administrative Director 
>

Dear Brian and Ray - thank you for doing this survey - one question, though.

I have NO idea what

Would you prefer longer meetings or shorter meetings?
Shorter meetings with more overlaps
No change
Longer meetings with fewer overlaps

means! I'm answering it, assuming that it refers to the one-hour 
sessions that sometimes get doubled-up into two-hour sessions, but if 
you mean something else, please let us know.

Thanks,

Spencer

_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf

---

From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2005 16:26:07 +0300

> you mean something else, please let us know.

I interpreted it as having a short IETF meeting (e.g. mon-thu) but with lots
of parallel WG meetings vs. longer IETF meeting (e.g. sun-fri) but with less
parallel WG meetings.

So I guess that just shows how people have a different understanding
of what was being asked.

--Jari

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2005 16:24:23 -0400

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

>>>>> "IETF" == IETF Chair <[email-masked]> writes:
    IETF> http://geneva.isoc.org/surveys/index.php?sid=4 Even if you did
    IETF> not attend IETF 63 in Paris, we would value your responses.
    IETF> All responses will be treated anonymously, and a summary will
    IETF> be available on-line.
 
A question asks how likely I am to attend meetings in:
  North America
  Asia
  Europe

I find it hard to answer this question.

I am less likely to attend meetings in the US than I am to attend them
in Canada.  If I can get sufficient advance warning as to the *continent*
on which a meeting is, then I would say that I am more likely to attend
a meeting in Asia or Europe than in the US.

Right now, to attend a meeting in Europe next summer (fares to Europe in
the summer are always high, and planning family is most difficult during
the summer) I would need to know by September of this year. 

To attend a meeting outside of north america in 2006, I'd need to know
the Fall 2006 meeting location by October of 2005 to make sure that i'd
have budget.

I.e. given warning, my preference for meeting locations are;

     Canada
     Europe
     South America
     1st-world Pacific Rim: Japan/Australia/etc.
     US
     other-harder-to-get-places

- -- 
] Michael Richardson          Xelerance Corporation, Ottawa, ON |  firewalls  [
] mcr @ xelerance.com           Now doing IPsec training, see   |net architect[
] http://www.sandelman.ca/mcr/    www.xelerance.com/training/   |device driver[
]                    I'm a dad: http://www.sandelman.ca/lrmr/                 [

---

From: Lars Eggert <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 09:22:56 +0200

Hi,

> the Fall 2006 meeting location by October of 2005 to make sure that  

it was a great step to fix the meeting dates far in advance; it  
allows us to block the time in our calendars. I agree with Michael  
that for early travel planning, fixing the location long before the  
meeting would also be very good. Not only continent, but also city.

As I understand it - and please correct me if this is wrong - it's  
because hosts don't really like to commit to hosting meetings far off  
in the future. Given that we've had successful meetings in the past  
with no hosts - do we really depend on hosts still? How much would  
the registration increase if there were no hosts? The additional cost  
might easily be offset by lower airfare and cheaper hotel rates.

Lars
--
Lars Eggert                                     NEC Network Laboratories

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 10:06:44 +0200

(bundled responses)

Spencer Dawkins wrote:
...
 > you mean something else, please let us know.

It was meant to refer to the Friday morning controversy-
should we have more parallel sessions and end Thursday night,
or fewer parallel sessions and end Friday night,or do what we do
now. We didn't identify the ambiguity until too late.

Sorry about that - it's very hard to get a questionnaire 100%
unambiguous, so we may have to revisit this question another time.

Rob Evans wrote:
 >>My problem is what "herring bone" seating layout is. I don't understand
 >>why the question is asked either. Why is it important whether people
 >>attended those sessions?
 >
 >
 > If you say "yes," it pops up another question asking if you preferred
 > it to the usual classroom style of seating.
 >
 > Herringbone seating is where the rows either side of the aisle are at
 > an angle of about 120 degrees instead of 180 degrees.

I think people who noticed the difference would have no trouble with
that question - the idea was to see whether it improved interaction
during the sessions.

Michael Richardson wrote:
...
 > in Canada...

Yes, well that's why we added a free text box to the questionnaire.
It's hard to design multiple choice questions that can capture subtlety.

    Brian

---

From: Jeffrey Altman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 06:25:23 -0400

> that question - the idea was to see whether it improved interaction

Brian:

In my working group I would say that a bigger factor related to the
improved ability to hold a technical discussion were the four floating
microphones.  Participants are more than capable of turning their heads
but when holding a technical discussion those extra mics make a
significant difference.

Jeffrey Altman

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 12:53:42 +0200

Lars Eggert wrote:
> it was a great step to fix the meeting dates far in advance; it  allows 
> us to block the time in our calendars. I agree with Michael  that for 
> early travel planning, fixing the location long before the  meeting 
> would also be very good. Not only continent, but also city.
> 
> with no hosts - do we really depend on hosts still? How much would  the 
> registration increase if there were no hosts? The additional cost  might 
> easily be offset by lower airfare and cheaper hotel rates.

This is in the IAD's job description now, and as he said in Paris, our
goal is to get 18 months or more ahead in the planning - which means
that now, Ray is thinking about IETF 65 through 68... but it will take
some time to get there.

On costs, my guess is that if we went permanently to no-host meetings,
we would need to raise the fee by around $250 (hand-waving estimate).
But that's not the only argument - a local host is essential when going to
a new country, and extremely valuable even in familiar countries, for
local arrangements.

     Brian

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 13:40:47 +0200

> a new country, and extremely valuable even in familiar countries, for

I haven't seen the details for the hostless meetings , but my 20.000-foot 
impression was that the surplus from those meetings wasn't that far off the 
hosted ones.

The hostless meetings were:

62 - Minneapolis, spring 2005
60 - San Diego, summer 2004
58 - Minneapolis, fall 2003 (1233 attendees)
56 - San Francisco, spring 2003 (1679 attendees)

In 2003, when 2 out of 3 meetings were hostless, we ran a deficit of USD 
141.204 according to <http://www.ietf.org/u/ietfchair/financials-2003.html> 
- that translates to roughly 7% of gross IETF revenue, or 48 dollars per 
attendee at the two hostless meetings.

"Hostless" doesn't mean "sponsorless", of course - at both those 2 
meetings, the cost of networking stuff was HEAVILY contributed to by 
volunteers and by companies who lent equipment.

No argument on the need for local contacts for out-of-country meetings, but 
it's possible that "local guidance" can be had from organizations like 
RIPE, who might be hesitant to accept the full responsibilities of a 
traditional "hosting".

Just trying to help think out-of-the-box :-)

                    Harald

---

From: Joel Jaeggli <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 07:38:25 -0700 (PDT)

On Thu, 18 Aug 2005, Lars Eggert wrote:

> it was a great step to fix the meeting dates far in advance; it allows us to 
> block the time in our calendars. I agree with Michael that for early travel 
> planning, fixing the location long before the meeting would also be very 
> good. Not only continent, but also city.
>
> As I understand it - and please correct me if this is wrong - it's because 
> hosts don't really like to commit to hosting meetings far off in the future. 
> Given that we've had successful meetings in the past with no hosts - do we 
> really depend on hosts still? How much would the registration increase if 
> there were no hosts? The additional cost might easily be offset by lower 
> airfare and cheaper hotel rates.

Predicting how many people are going to show up far in advance (say a 
year) is a different kind of finacial risk, than the current current set. 
Knowing with certantity what cities (and by extension hotels) the meetings 
are going to be in in a year means having potentially costly contracts in 
place that you may or may not be in a postion to fund (consider the 
attendee flucuations over the time frame 2000-2002 for example).

-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joel Jaeggli  	       Unix Consulting 	       [email-masked]
GPG Key Fingerprint:     5C6E 0104 BAF0 40B0 5BD3 C38B F000 35AB B67F 56B2

---

From: Lars Eggert <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 17:16:46 +0200

On Aug 18, 2005, at 16:38, Joel Jaeggli wrote:
> Predicting how many people are going to show up far in advance (say  
> a year) is a different kind of finacial risk, than the current  
> current set. Knowing with certantity what cities (and by extension  
> hotels) the meetings are going to be in in a year means having  
> potentially costly contracts in place that you may or may not be in  
> a postion to fund (consider the attendee flucuations over the time  
> frame 2000-2002 for example).

Other organizations with periodic meetings seem to have successfully  
addressed this issue. I'm no wizard when it comes to these  
contractual things, but I'm sure the IAD is talking to people with  
this expertise.

Lars

---

From: Stephen Casner <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 08:18:59 -0700 (PDT)

> now. We didn't identify the ambiguity until too late.

I thought the primary purpose of the survey was to find out whether
people preferred the later schedule of hours during the day, and no
evening sessions, as used in Paris, rather than to ask again about
Friday.  The question about hours was raised in the discussion on this
list, and that prompted to say a survey would be taken.  However, that
question is not asked on the survey, unless the one quoted above is
it.  That would be even more ambiguous.

                                                        -- Steve

---

From: "James M. Polk" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 10:49:56 -0500

At 06:25 AM 8/18/2005 -0400, Jeffrey Altman wrote:
>microphones.

floating mics are a bad idea for many reasons - each getting worse with 
room and or audience size increasing.

Who is in charge of who's next to speak?
Who passes the mics to the folks in the middle of a row who didn't bother 
to get up?
Turning of heads happens now to know places (mics in the aisles), but 
because seated persons are not standing, they cannot be easily seen, 
causing some confusion and general discomfort in the audience to "find the 
person", then "find their face" to know who's saying what - which is 
important sometimes.

Few people talk during sessions, and those that do, know to sit where they 
can readily get to a mic to make a point. I see nothing wrong with keeping 
this layout

>Participants are more than capable of turning their heads

cheers,
James

                                 *******************
                 Truth is not to be argued... it is to be presented.

---

From: Tony Hansen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 12:13:17 -0400

The sessions where floating mikes worked well were smaller in size,
attendance wise. In fact, most of the time, the main reason for using
the floating mikes was *not* so that everyone in the *room* could hear
what was being said, but instead so that people listening in on the
*audio stream* could hear what was being said.

In larger rooms, the dynamics are much different, and floating mikes
would not work as well.

	Tony Hansen
	[email-masked]

James M. Polk wrote:
> Who passes the mics to the folks in the middle of a row who didn't
> bother to get up?
> causing some confusion and general discomfort in the audience to "find
> the person", then "find their face" to know who's saying what - which is
> important sometimes.
> 
> Few people talk during sessions, and those that do, know to sit where
> they can readily get to a mic to make a point. I see nothing wrong with
> keeping this layout
>

---

From: JORDI PALET MARTINEZ <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 18:14:02 +0200

I think it will be very easy to use a VoIP simple application to avoid the
need to use any mic.

The application should probably turn off the laptop speaker to avoid
coupling.

Of course, it can be even improved if the chair can have a way to "pass the
virtual mic" to each of those that want to talk, something such as a simple
screen showing everyone who pushed the "talk" button in their own laptop and
when they queued, to keep the order. The chair can in any case, choose a
different order, cancel the talk requests in order to move to a different
topic, or whatever.

May be there is something similar, open source, which can be easily adapted
to our needs.

Regards,
Jordi

> De: "James M. Polk" <[email-masked]>
> Responder a: <[email-masked]>
> Fecha: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 10:49:56 -0500
> Para: Jeffrey Altman <[email-masked]>, Brian E Carpenter
> <[email-masked]>
> CC: <[email-masked]>, IETF General Discussion Mailing List <[email-masked]>
> Asunto: Re: IETF 63 On-line Survey
> 

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From: Joel Jaeggli <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 09:20:22 -0700 (PDT)

> I think it will be very easy to use a VoIP simple application to avoid the

floor control in multi-point conferences is never simple.

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 17:45:43 -0400

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

>>>>> "Joel" == Joel Jaeggli <[email-masked]> writes:
    Joel> Predicting how many people are going to show up far in advance
    Joel> (say a year) is a different kind of finacial risk, than the
    Joel> current current set. Knowing with certantity what cities (and
    Joel> by extension hotels) the meetings are going to be in in a year
    Joel> means having potentially costly contracts in place that you
    Joel> may or may not be in a postion to fund (consider the attendee
    Joel> flucuations over the time frame 2000-2002 for example).

  I don't need to know which hotel, nor even which city, or even which
country.  
  I would like to know which continent.    
  It would also be enough to know, for instance, "not North America"

  The cost of flying to Geneva or Venice (or Syndey vs Auckland) is not
significantly different 
  (it's ~$1400 for Europe, and around ~$2300 for anywhere in the pacific
rim for me, while a trip to Washington, DC is ~$700. Of course, you can
do better, and you can do much worse. But these numbers represent
reasonable advance planning)

  What also matters is that I know how far I have to go, how much
time-zone time adjustment time I have to add, if there are other
conferences that may either conflict or complement my travel, and in the
case of summer IETFs, if my family thinks they want to attach a
side-trip.  
  
  I suspect that many would also like to know "US vs non-US", given the
difficulties of getting in/out of that country.  

- --

---

From: Prakash Jayaraman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 15:07:51 -0700

>difficulties of getting in/out of that country.  
Difficulty to enter US depends on the citizenship and visa requirements. 
If one does not need a visa to visit the US because of native 
citizenship, I agree privacy issues (such as fingerprints, pictures) are 
causing problems these days for entry into the US.

Most visas are biometric these days. Schengen visa is also biometric 
although France is doing this only on a trial basis at selected 
locations. My point is that although I fully agree knowing the country 
is quite helpful to make travel plans for everyone, "US vs non-US" helps 
only those that don't need a visa and have issues with privacy.  Those 
that need a visa don't have a choice with respect to the privacy issues.

- prakash

---

From: Joel Jaeggli <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 15:21:50 -0700 (PDT)

On Thu, 18 Aug 2005, Prakash Jayaraman wrote:

> Difficulty to enter US depends on the citizenship and visa requirements. If 
> one does not need a visa to visit the US because of native citizenship, I 
> agree privacy issues (such as fingerprints, pictures) are causing problems 
> these days for entry into the US.

Biometric identifiers aren't secrets.

http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-9808.html#biometrics

Whether or not they should be the basis of conditional access controls is 
a seperate debate.

> Most visas are biometric these days. Schengen visa is also biometric although 
> France is doing this only on a trial basis at selected locations. My point is 
> that although I fully agree knowing the country is quite helpful to make 
> travel plans for everyone, "US vs non-US" helps only those that don't need a 
> visa and have issues with privacy.  Those that need a visa don't have a 
> choice with respect to the privacy issues.
>
> - prakash
>
>
>

---

From: Jeffrey Hutzelman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 20:44:25 -0400

> room and or audience size increasing.

Your hypothetical problems notwithstanding, in _actual practice_, we found 
them to be extremely useful in KITTEN and in some other sessions.  In the 
case I remember, there were a total of six microphones in the room - a 
table mic for the chair, a wireless clip-on for the current speaker, two 
floor mics, and two wireless mics that could be passed around.

In actual usage we treated the "speaker" mic the same as the others, which 
effectively gave us an easy way to have a discussion in which 2-3 people 
speak frequently and many others speak less often.  If you're not one of 
the 2-3, you get up and go to the mic.  If/when it becomes clear that you 
are, you get a wireless mic (or multiple people sitting near each other 
share one).

For this case, the floor control problem is the same as that for an 
in-person conversation between a group of people without microphones of any 
kind.  People can talk at the same time, interrupt each other, etc., and 
you mostly have to expect everyone to behave reasonably.  This is different 
from the problem for a multi-user conferencing system, where there may be 
technical reasons why it is desirable to have exactly one designated 
speaker at a time, rather than mixing audio from all sources.

I know the audio setup is largely determined by what the venue can/will 
provide, but I would _very_ much like to see something similar to what we 
had in Paris; that is, a mixture of 1-2 fixed floor mics and at least 2-3 
floating wireless mics.  This venue had plenty of things to complain about, 
but this was one aspect which I found superior to other sites we've been to.

-- Jeffrey T. Hutzelman (N3NHS) <[email-masked]>
   Sr. Research Systems Programmer
   School of Computer Science - Research Computing Facility
   Carnegie Mellon University - Pittsburgh, PA

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 22:02:35 +0200

> it.  That would be even more ambiguous.

The question was "Did you prefer the schedule change which had dinner 
following all sessions?" - it only shows when you click "Yes" on the "Did 
you attend Paris" question.

Forms that change their content based on the answers given look fancy, but 
they can be almighty confusing if you're trying to scan the questions 
before filling them in.....

                 Harald

---

From: Stephen Casner <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 22:19:37 -0700 (PDT)

> before filling them in.....

I did not attend Paris, but I wanted to answer Yes to that question
anyway.

                                                        -- Steve

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 16:20:06 +0200

Stephen Casner wrote:
> list, and that prompted to say a survey would be taken.

Actually, we had planned the survey in any case.

> However, that

That question *is* asked

"Did you prefer the schedule change which had dinner following all sessions?"

     Brian

---

From: Tony Finch <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2005 16:12:08 +0100

On Thu, 18 Aug 2005, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
> they can be almighty confusing if you're trying to scan the questions before
> filling them in.....

The form didn't change at all when I filled it in. I may have had
Javascript turned off.

Tony.
-- 
f.a.n.finch  <[email-masked]>  http://dotat.at/
BISCAY: WEST 5 OR 6 BECOMING VARIABLE 3 OR 4. SHOWERS AT FIRST. MODERATE OR
GOOD.