Subject: [73attendees] Attendance by country

From: "Dale Worley" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:28:36 -0500

I've calculated these figures from the IETF web site:

Rank    Country         Registered      % of total              cum. %
of total

 1      US              531             0.477948                0.477948
 2      JP              97              0.0873087               0.565257
 3      CN              79              0.0711071               0.636364
 4      DE              51              0.0459046               0.682268
 5      FR              39              0.0351035               0.717372
 6      GB              30              0.0270027               0.744374
 7      SE              29              0.0261026               0.770477
 8      CA              29              0.0261026               0.79658
 9      FI              28              0.0252025               0.821782
10      KR              22              0.019802                0.841584
11      NL              16              0.0144014               0.855986
12      IT              16              0.0144014               0.870387
13      IN              13              0.0117012               0.882088
14      IL              12              0.0108011               0.892889
15      AU              11              0.00990099              0.90279

Taken from https://www.ietf.org/registration/attendance.py

15 countries account for 90% of attendance (or rather, registration).

Based on GDP, the US should have about 33% of attendance, so the
observed 47% is not too much above expectation.

Seeing that China is 3rd on the list, with 7% of attendance, if there
are particular visa problems regarding China, some attention should be
paid to it.

Dale

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From: "Donald Eastlake" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 15:45:03 -0500

It is my impression that this is the first US IETF meeting with less
than 50% US attendance. That seems like a remarkable occurrence and if
so it seems very odd that no one has pointed it out so far...

Donald

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From: "Richard Barnes" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 15:00:45 -0600

Dale,

Actually, there is a noticeable difference between CN and others: If
you sub-divide those 79 registrations according to who paid, you get
the following breakdown:
   Yes: 31  (39%)
   No: 48  (61%)

For contrast, the breakdown for the US is as follows:
   Yes: 484 (91%)
   No: 22 (4%)
   Comp: 25 (4%)

If you rank countries by the percentage of attendees that are unpaid,
then most countries (50 of 66) have fewer than 10% unpaid.  The
remaining 16 countries all have >50% unpaid; they are as follows:
UG, TN, SN, PH, ID, GH, GG, DZ, DO, CI, AF, IN, CG, BD, CN, AR
Of these, the leaders by far in GDP, population, and overall
registration are CN and IN.

Assuming that those who didn't pay were those unable to attend, these
data could indicate a notable difference between these groups.  In
addition, there may also be underreported problems for Indians as
well.

--Richard

---

From: Stewart Bryant <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:24:27 +0000

Another cut on this is 209 from the EU = 18.8%

However EU has a 2007 GDP of 17B vs US GDP of 14B, and
is thus significantly under represented on a GDP basis.

Now I am not sure what practical significance that has, but
I think that EU is a more comparable unit of comparison
for these purposes than the individual countries.

Stewart

---

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 15:34:19 -0600

It's also worth noting that at least some people who need visa letters for 
San Francisco need to be able to get them really soon ;-)

http://www.ietf.org/meetings/meetings.html doesn't have registration open 
yet - is there an alternative source of invitation letters? I put one 
co-worker in touch with Ray because the co-worker has an embassy appointment 
on the 12th, but didn't want to unleash everyone on Ray if there's a better 
way...

Spencer

---

From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 22:37:11 +0100

---- +
                        209

The EU countries in the top 15 are 209. However, that leaves out the  
countries that don't show up in the top 15. I came with two colleagues  
from Spain so it's at least 212.
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From: Bernie Hoeneisen <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 22:53:02 +0100 (CET)

I am just wondering what do you consider as EU country here...

  A) a country that lies geographically in Europe, or

  B) a country that is part of this political construct
     called the 'European Union' (EU)

In case of A) I also wonder how Russia or Turkey would be counted...;-)

"Luckily" in the top 15 there is no country where this
actually matters. :-)

Anyways, have fun!

cheers,
  Bernie

On Tue, 2 Dec 2008, Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote:

> countries that don't show up in the top 15. I came with two colleagues from 
> Spain so it's at least 212.

---

From: Stewart Bryant <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2008 22:02:49 +0000

Spencer Dawkins wrote:
> It's also worth noting that at least some people who need visa letters 
> for San Francisco need to be able to get them really soon ;-)
>
> http://www.ietf.org/meetings/meetings.html doesn't have registration 
> open yet - is there an alternative source of invitation letters? I put 
> one co-worker in touch with Ray because the co-worker has an embassy 
> appointment on the 12th, but didn't want to unleash everyone on Ray if 
> there's a better way...
>
> Spencer

I had a group of people from China here at ITU-T ask what to do and also 
put them in touch with Ray.

Stewart

---

From: Stewart Bryant <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2008 22:05:42 +0000

I meant EU as in European Union the political grouping.

... and the numbers are not $B, but units of $10^12.

Stewart

Bernie Hoeneisen wrote:
>> countries that don't show up in the top 15. I came with two 
>> colleagues from Spain so it's at least 212.

---

From: "Blaine Cook" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 13:45:27 +0000

I'd assume that a bigger factor than visas in this case (just guessing
here) is cost --- $700 is an awful lot of money for people who (1) may
not be employed by corporations with big expense budgets, (2) already
paying upwards of $1000 to fly to the US, and (3) live in a country
where the exchange rate and average salary make paying for things in
USD very difficult.

The ability for the IETF to comp registration fees is unmentioned
during the registration process. As I'm new to the IETF and its
processes and goals, I'm not going to presume anything, but the centre
of this discussion seems to be trying to allow as many interested
attendees as possible to attend, and therefore might be relevant.

Unpaid registration in this case indicates a desire to attend, but an
inability (not necessarily due to visa issues). The only way to find
out why people didn't attend is to ask them.

San Francisco is vastly cheaper to fly to than Minneapolis for people
outside the US; some useful data might emerge from that. If it turns
out that cost is the major factor, then Canadian venues make little
sense, since it's often more expensive to fly to Canada than anywhere
in the US.

b.

---

From: "Romascanu, Dan (Dan)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 14:52:29 +0100

>  since it's often more 
> expensive to fly to Canada than anywhere in the US.
> 
> b.
> 

This is not necessarily true. Flying to Canada is less expensive than
flying to the US from many locations in Europe. Of course, I am
referring to direct flights to Canada, and not to itineraries that take
you to the US first.

Dan

---

From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 15:12:16 +0100

On 3 dec 2008, at 14:45, Blaine Cook wrote:

> outside the US;

I don't think this is true flying from Europe.

The cheapest flight from Madrid to San Francisco for the next IETF  
flying both ways on saturday is 514 pounds on amadeus.net on the first  
page, 609 of the fifth and 676 on the tenth.

For Minneapolis this is 560 / 568 / 603.

 From Amsterdam, SFO: 471 / 572 / 590, MSP: 450 / 505 / 595

London, SFO: 386 / 440 / 451, MSP: 477 / 527 / 548

Helsinki, SFO: 583 / 639 / 738, MSP: 595 / 714 / 891

So only for London there is a real difference.
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From: "Blaine Cook" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 14:36:46 +0000

On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 2:12 PM, Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]> wrote:
> ...

Fair enough; I was thinking of China / Asia in particular, since
Europeans by and large can afford fluctuations of $100.

b.

---

From: "Blaine Cook" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 14:39:36 +0000

> referring to direct flights to Canada, and not to itineraries that take

Please let me know where you're seeing these flights! I'm a Canadian
living in the UK, and even routing via Amsterdam, Frankfurt, etc,
flights are universally cheaper flying to Seattle than Vancouver,
Boston than Montreal, etc, often by large enough margins to make
flying to the US, then driving to Canada cheaper overall.

b.

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 09:51:39 -0500

On Dec 3, 2008, at 9:39 AM, Blaine Cook wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 1:52 PM, Romascanu, Dan (Dan) <[email-masked] 
> > wrote:
>>

The same is frequently true inside the US, and I went to one Vancouver  
IETF by driving from Seattle.

Regards
Marshall

---

From: "Roni Even" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 17:10:37 +0200

If you compare flight prices, you should also check the hotel prices. I
assume that SF hotels will be more expensive than Minneapolis so the overall
stay will be more expensive.

Roni 

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On
Behalf Of Blaine Cook
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 3:45 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [73attendees] Attendance by country

b.

---

From: "Mary Barnes" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 09:34:37 -0600

Definitely hotel prices (and meal prices) will be higher in SF - likely
around $50-$75 per nite for the hotel (on average) and meals I'm
guessing are going to be around $20 per day more - for the equivalent
restaurant categories as were available in Minneapolis. Given that many
companies find cutting travel costs to be an easy target, some of us are
having our daily meal expenditures (for those of us on expenses) cut
$10-$20.  

So, I agree comparing airfare only between SF and Minneapolis won't give
you a true comparison of overall costs for the two meeting sites. In
general, Minneapolis is a bargain compared to most other major U.S.
cities.  

Mary. 

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]
On Behalf Of Roni Even
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 9:11 AM
To: 'Blaine Cook'; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [73attendees] Attendance by country

If you compare flight prices, you should also check the hotel prices. I
assume that SF hotels will be more expensive than Minneapolis so the
overall stay will be more expensive.

Roni 

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]
On Behalf Of Blaine Cook
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 3:45 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [73attendees] Attendance by country

where the exchange rate and average salary make paying for things in USD
very difficult.

The ability for the IETF to comp registration fees is unmentioned during
the registration process. As I'm new to the IETF and its processes and
goals, I'm not going to presume anything, but the centre of this
discussion seems to be trying to allow as many interested attendees as
possible to attend, and therefore might be relevant.

Unpaid registration in this case indicates a desire to attend, but an
inability (not necessarily due to visa issues). The only way to find out
why people didn't attend is to ask them.

San Francisco is vastly cheaper to fly to than Minneapolis for people
outside the US; some useful data might emerge from that. If it turns out
that cost is the major factor, then Canadian venues make little sense,
since it's often more expensive to fly to Canada than anywhere in the
US.

b.

On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 9:00 PM, Richard Barnes
<[email-masked]>
wrote:
> UG, TN, SN, PH, ID, GH, GG, DZ, DO, CI, AF, IN, CG, BD, CN, AR Of 
> these, the leaders by far in GDP, population, and overall registration

> are CN and IN.
>>  8      CA              29              0.0261026
0.79658

>> are particular visa problems regarding China, some attention should 
>> be paid to it.
>>
>> Dale
>>
>>

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 10:41:03 -0500

> stay will be more expensive.

In my opinion, we (for some definition of we) need to look at the  
total cost to the community of IETF activities.

Money is fungible. If we waste the community's money, it will come out  
of the IETF bucket even if it isn't on the IETF's books. The IAOC does  
a good job (IMHO) of keeping track of IETF expenses, but there is no- 
one who tries to systematically look at the total cost, including  
travel, lost time, etc.

For example, is Malta better than Frankfurt because rooms are cheaper,  
or worse because it takes 10+ hours longer (and thus a working day)  
for many participants to get there ? If the average IETFer costs their  
employer $ 500 per working day, and a meeting requires the loss of 2  
days of travel time for 500 people, that is a $ 500,000 effective  
expense that currently is not counted. Such hidden, employer or  
attendee born, expenses need to be  analyzed systematically in my  
opinion. (Maybe Malta would still be cheaper, I don't know, but my  
point is that this
should be considered.)

Marshall

> On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 9:00 PM, Richard Barnes <[email-masked] 
> >
> wrote:
>> Dale,
>>

---

From: Nicholas Weaver <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 07:42:19 -0800

> general, Minneapolis is a bargain compared to most other major U.S.

OTOH, if you look at aggregate expenses across all participants,  
holding an IETF meeting in the SF bay area may result in less total  
spending, because of the attendees, what fraction are from Silicon  
Valley?  Or who, if travel budgets are a concern, know friends who  
live in Silicon Valley?

Has the actual hotel & location been announced, however?

---

From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 16:44:48 +0100

On 3 dec 2008, at 16:41, Marshall Eubanks wrote:

> For example, is Malta better than Frankfurt because rooms are  
> cheaper, or worse because it takes 10+ hours longer (and thus a  
> working day) for many participants to get there ?

In that regard the choice of Stockholm is interesting: pretty much all  
flights leave around noon. So either people won't be attending the  
friday session or they'll have to stay an extra day.

We may as well scrap the friday sessions in Stockholm.
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From: "Mary Barnes" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 09:42:32 -0600

I think these situations are very much YMMV. For me flying from DFW to
Vancouver, my airfare by going through Seattle (and staying there two
days for other business), was cheaper than flying direct from DFW to
Vancouver (seems to be the common theme). BUT, for me to take the rental
car over the border was going to cost over $300 extra, so the fly-drive
approach doesn't work for everyone. Although, I guess we could
coordinate with local Seattle folks and share the cost of driving. And,
of course, I could drive my minivan from Dallas with 6 other Dallas area
IETF attendees and share the driving and drive straight through to any
major U.S. city and actually to most Canadian destinations for that
matter.

So, yes, overall we can certainly arrange more cost effective
approaches, but the end savings for these various things ends up in the
+/- several hundred dollar range depending upon the target country for
folks coming from specific areas. So, I personally, don't think the
choice of a meeting site is that big of a deal within a specific region.
For those of us in North America, I fully agree we get the lowest cost
overall since far more meetings over the past decade have been in NA. 

Mary. 

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]
On Behalf Of Marshall Eubanks
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 8:52 AM
To: Blaine Cook
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [73attendees] Attendance by country

>> referring to direct flights to Canada, and not to itineraries that 
>> take you to the US first.
>

Regards
Marshall

---

From: "Mary Barnes" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 09:44:59 -0600

I don't think scrapping the Friday sessions is a good idea - at least
for RAI where we need all the time we can get. And, many of us stay over
on Friday nite - finishing up business on Friday afternoon and that
allows at least one person from my company to attend the Friday sessions
and not worry about catching a flight. And, the flights on Saturday are
generally slightly less expensive and less full. 

Mary. 

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]
On Behalf Of Iljitsch van Beijnum
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 9:45 AM
To: Marshall Eubanks
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [73attendees] Attendance by country

> for many participants to get there ?

---

From: "Romascanu, Dan (Dan)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 16:53:36 +0100

> And, the flights on Saturday are generally 
> slightly less expensive and less full. 
> 
> Mary. 
> 

Not necessarily on the Saturday at the start of the big vacations in
Europe. You need to take into the consideration the different regions
perspective - this is true for all this discussion. 

Dan

---

From: "Mary Barnes" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 09:58:56 -0600

In that case, the timing for IETF-73 was not good as I do agree travel
before holidays does result in fuller flights with far more amateur
travelers. Fortunately, some of the airports/airlines in the U.S. are
setting up different security lines for more experienced travelers vs
the amateurs ;)

And, the March meetings almost always coincide with Spring Break in the
U.S.

So, I don't personally think it's possible for the secretariat to work
around these holidays given the constraints they already have in getting
hosts in many cases, etc.  ISTM there's almost always a holiday
somewhere - e.g., our summer meetings often seem to be in places that
are popular for vacationers and often are in places with increased
crowds - at least in the U.S. and Europe. Thus, airfares are higher
then, as well.  So, unless someone wants to produce a tool that scans
airfare databases, hotel databases, etc. for the lowest cost options and
factor in whether there is a host and the desireable dates for a host
(usually depends upon their quarterly budgets), etc., I don't think this
thread of discussion is so productive ;) Even, the Malta concerns are
unfounded in IMHO since the Jan timeframe often has the absolute lowest
fares to Europe (from NA) and there were convenient direct flights from
Frankfurt to Malta on major European Airlines at very reasonable rates.

Regards,
Mary. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Romascanu, Dan (Dan) [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 9:54 AM
To: Barnes, Mary (RICH2:AR00); Iljitsch van Beijnum; Marshall Eubanks
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: RE: [73attendees] Attendance by country

> And, the flights on Saturday are generally slightly less expensive and

> less full.

Dan

---

From: Marc Blanchet <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2008 11:08:58 -0500

it appears to me that we had been "enjoying" discussions about travel
costs and the related topics for about each IETF. I don't get a lot of
conclusions, because, to me, there are too many variables and it mostly
depends on each one perspective such as location, destination, culture,
country, state of aviation in respective country, etc...

My only conclusions are:
- getting visas for some people depending on the source and destination
countries are not simple. We need to improve here: maybe a mix of
location choices, better in-advance work, ...
- travel costs all depends on the perspective, specially source and
destination location pairs. to me, no real outcome.
- the attendance by various metrics such as countries, continents are
interesting as raw data, but to me, it should not be taken as a hard
metric to draw conclusions (i.e. 36% of attendees come from X country,
so there should be 36% IETF in that country). We should keep an eye on
the origin of the attendance but not too strong, because I think we want
to expand our outreach and this requires taking new locations more
aggressively than the past attendance ratios.

my 2 cents canadian

Marc.

Disclosure: we would really welcome an IETF in my home town Quebec city,
but this is irrelevant to what I wrote above.

-- 
=========
IPv6 book: Migrating to IPv6, Wiley, 2006. http://www.ipv6book.ca
Stun/Turn server for VoIP NAT-FW traversal: http://numb.viagenie.ca

---

From: Magnus Westerlund <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:44:26 +0100

> perspective - this is true for all this discussion. 

Well, the Swedish population are already in the middle of their suummer
vacations during the IETF week. So flying out on that Saturday shouldn't
be particularly bad.

Cheers

Magnus Westerlund

IETF Transport Area Director & TSVWG Chair
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Multimedia Technologies, Ericsson Research EAB/TVM
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ericsson AB                | Phone  +46 10 7148287
Färögatan 6                | Mobile +46 73 0949079
SE-164 80 Stockholm, Sweden| mailto: [email-masked]
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From: "Romascanu, Dan (Dan)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 17:49:53 +0100

> From: Magnus Westerlund [mailto:[email-masked]] 

> Well, the Swedish population are already in the middle of 
> their suummer vacations during the IETF week. So flying out 
> on that Saturday shouldn't be particularly bad.
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Magnus Westerlund
> 

Maybe, but for folks who need to connect through another European city
(my case as there are no direct flights from Stockholm to Tel Aviv) this
will be a crowded weekend, not to speak about price of tickets at
seasonal peak. 

Dan

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 15:33:37 -0500

I have to second Mary's disagreement on canceling Fridays.  If there  
are sessions on Friday for me I don't want to travel that day anyway.   
What's the hurry?

On Dec 3, 2008, at 10:44 AM, Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>  
wrote:

> In that regard the choice of Stockholm is interesting: pretty much  
> all flights leave around noon. So either people won't be attending  
> the friday session or they'll have to stay an extra day.
>

---

From: Dean Willis <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 14:42:02 -0600

On Dec 3, 2008, at 2:33 PM, Ted Lemon wrote:

> are sessions on Friday for me I don't want to travel that day  
> anyway.  What's the hurry?
>

Another $200 in travel costs (hotel and meals), opportunity of >   
$1,000 in billable time, plus an increased probability of divorce  
costs for some attendees?

--
Dean

---

From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:53:29 +0000

>costs for some attendees?

The divorce fees should be a valid business expense.

---

From: "Mary Barnes" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 14:54:40 -0600

Again, it's a YMMV situation - my family is actually much happier to
have me return on Saturday (after a reasonable nite's sleep) rather than
on Friday nite, where I would often arrive very late and having only had
about 16 hours of sleep over the past 5 days.  

Also, in terms of cost, since I spend Fri. pm/Fri nite and part of Sat.
working, I don't think the addt'l nites expense is excessive and I
certainly wouldn't be able to do any of that if I traveled on Fri. nite.
And, I have encountered far more travel delays on those evening flights
than I typically have with a Sat. flight.  Thus, returning home on
Friday also ensures that I'm a grump on Sat, as well. 

Mary. 

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]
On Behalf Of Lloyd Wood
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 2:53 PM
To: Dean Willis; Ted Lemon
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [73attendees] Attendance by country

>$1,000 in billable time, plus an increased probability of divorce costs

>for some attendees?

---

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 16:12:37 -0500

Excerpts from Mary Barnes on Wed, Dec 03, 2008 02:54:40PM -0600:
> have me return on Saturday (after a reasonable nite's sleep) rather
> than on Friday nite, where I would often arrive very late and having
> only had about 16 hours of sleep over the past 5 days.  

+1

> Also, in terms of cost, since I spend Fri. pm/Fri nite and part of
> Sat.  working, I don't think the addt'l nites expense is excessive
> and I certainly wouldn't be able to do any of that if I traveled on
> Fri. nite.

+1

> And, I have encountered far more travel delays on those evening
> flights than I typically have with a Sat. flight.  Thus, returning
> home on Friday also ensures that I'm a grump on Sat, as well. 

+1

+swb

---

From: Ben Campbell <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 15:29:53 -0600

I suspect the difference between Mary's and Dean's positions has a lot  
to do with whether one is getting reimbursed for expenses. Although I  
personally do get reimbursed (at the moment, anyway), I think we  
should try very hard to avoid making choices that discourage  
contribution from people who don't have that advantage.

We have the fee discount for students, but that's only a small piece  
of the total cost--and it doesn't help self-employed people, or people  
whose employers won't pay to send them to meetings.

On Dec 3, 2008, at 2:54 PM, Mary Barnes wrote:

> than
> Sat.
> flights
>>> anyway.
>> costs

---

From: Nicholas Weaver <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 13:34:18 -0800

On Dec 3, 2008, at 1:29 PM, Ben Campbell wrote:

> I suspect the difference between Mary's and Dean's positions has a  
> lot to do with whether one is getting reimbursed for expenses.  
> Although I personally do get reimbursed (at the moment, anyway), I  
> think we should try very hard to avoid making choices that  
> discourage contribution from people who don't have that advantage.
>
> of the total cost--and it doesn't help self-employed people, or  
> people whose employers won't pay to send them to meetings.

If thats the goal, center the conference where lots of attendees live  
in any geographic area, so, eg, if in the US, stick to Silicon Valley  
and Seattle, Washington, because in-town attendees can commute and out- 
of-town attendees are more likely to have friends in the industry.

You can cut your attendence bill by a good 30%+ for a conference by  
staying with a friend or relative, and the company is better anyway.

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2008 22:43:46 -0500

--On Wednesday, 03 December, 2008 14:42 -0600 Dean Willis
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>> I have to second Mary's disagreement on canceling Fridays.
>> If there   are sessions on Friday for me I don't want to
>> travel that day   anyway.  What's the hurry?
>> 
> 
> Another $200 in travel costs (hotel and meals), opportunity of
> >  $1,000 in billable time, plus an increased probability of
> divorce costs for some attendees?

Yep.  With small variations, that about covers it.

Of course, if we also met Saturday and part of Sunday, that
would guarantee Saturday night stays, which might help offset
some of the travel costs (although not the hotel ones).    On
the other hand, for those attendees for which it is relevant, it
would probably further increase the divorce costs (or at least
the divorce risk).

        john

---

From: "Phillip Hallam-Baker" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 22:51:07 -0500

Either meet on Friday or start mid-day Monday.

One weekend is acceptable home-wise. two weekends are not.

On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 10:43 PM, John C Klensin
<[email-masked]<[email-masked]>

-- 
Author: The dotCrime Manifesto: How to Stop Internet Crime
http://dotcrimemanifesto.com
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---

From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 10:05:45 +0100

> anyway.  What's the hurry?

I flew back from Philadelphia on saturday (= arriving on sunday) and  
had early meetings monday - thursday. That was pretty terrible, and a  
good reason to prefer flying back on friday, allowing for at least one  
good night's sleep before the new week starts.

In the case of Stockholm this is not an issue for me as it's in my  
home timezone, and for Americans there is no lost night flying home,  
but the fact that there are almost no flights after 1300 makes having  
sessions on friday more problematic than normal in Stockholm.
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---

From: "Romascanu, Dan (Dan)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 12:06:11 +0100

> From: [email-masked] 
> [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Nicholas Weaver
> Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 11:34 PM
> To: Ben Campbell
> Cc: [email-masked]; Nicholas Weaver

> 
> If thats the goal, center the conference where lots of 
> attendees live in any geographic area, so, eg, if in the US, 
> stick to Silicon Valley and Seattle, Washington, because 
> in-town attendees can commute and out- of-town attendees are 
> more likely to have friends in the industry.
> 
> You can cut your attendence bill by a good 30%+ for a 
> conference by staying with a friend or relative, and the 
> company is better anyway.
> 

... and have the bill be paid constantly by folks who are coming from
other geographical areas for whom a Seattle or California location means
another five or six hours of flight each way added to the transatlantic
flights, another additional three hours of jetlag, another several
hundreds of dollars in tickets and expenses, and two full weekends
remote from home for each meeting? 

Dan

---

From: "DRAGE, Keith \(Keith\)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 12:54:45 +0100

And the chief problem with a light Friday, is that we have found it impossible to schedule WG ad hocs anytime from lunchtime on Thursday because people have decided they are going to start going home at that time.
 
If you cancel Friday, then you might as well start about thinking about cancelling Thursday, etc.
 
Oh by the way, can we now schedule 3 ad hocs a year so we can actually get the work done.
 
And IETF is the only standards body I know of that seems to think the people need weekends off for those very special US participants. Many home locations of anyone outside NAR cannot make the connections to attend the Friday sessions and get home even on Saturday morning. And I finally got home from IETF last Thursday morning.
 
regards
 
Keith

________________________________

	From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Phillip Hallam-Baker
	Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2008 3:51 AM
	To: John C Klensin
	Cc: [email-masked]
	Subject: Re: [73attendees] Attendance by country

	On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 10:43 PM, John C Klensin <[email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]> > wrote:

		

		
		       john

---

From: "Phillip Hallam-Baker" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 07:39:00 -0500

IETF is the only standards body I work in that regularly schedules more than
one Monday and Friday meeting a year.

OASIS does not meet in plenary session. W3C only meets in plenary session
once a year.

OASIS and W3C WG chairs know that they cannot schedule F2F meetings for
Mondays or Fridays, just does not happen. And I can't think of an
international standards body that does. IEEE, ANSI, ETSI are all parochial,
at least in theory. Two have a geographic descriptor in the title and the
other decided to insert itself into US politics by lobbying Congress on
immigration policy.

On Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 6:54 AM, DRAGE, Keith (Keith) <
[email-masked]> wrote:

>  And the chief problem with a light Friday, is that we have found it
> impossible to schedule WG ad hocs anytime from lunchtime on Thursday because
> people have decided they are going to start going home at that time.
>
> And IETF is the only standards body I know of that seems to think the
> people need weekends off for those very special US participants. Many home
> locations of anyone outside NAR cannot make the connections to attend the
> Friday sessions and get home even on Saturday morning. And I finally got
> home from IETF last Thursday morning.
>
> regards
>
> Keith
>
>  ------------------------------
> *From:* [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]
> *On Behalf Of *Phillip Hallam-Baker
> *Sent:* Thursday, December 04, 2008 3:51 AM
> *To:* John C Klensin
> *Cc:* [email-masked]
> *Subject:* Re: [73attendees] Attendance by country
>
> On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 10:43 PM, John C Klensin <[email-masked]<[email-masked]>
> > wrote:
>
>>
>>

---

From: Patrik Fältström <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 18:20:22 +0530

FWIW, the IGF, that is a UN process, this week meets in Hyderabad,  
India, and the meetings are Wed-Sat. RIPE in Dubai the other month was  
Sun-Thu.

YMMV

    Patrik

On 4 dec 2008, at 18.09, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:

>> If you cancel Friday, then you might as well start about thinking  
>> about
>> cancelling Thursday, etc.
>>
>> Oh by the way, can we now schedule 3 ad hocs a year so we can  
>> actually get
>> the work done.
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 10:43 PM, John C Klensin <[email-masked]<[email-masked] 
>> >
>>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>

---

From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 14:30:03 +0100

On 4 dec 2008, at 13:50, Patrik Fältström wrote:

> India, and the meetings are Wed-Sat. RIPE in Dubai the other month  
> was Sun-Thu.

Hm, normally RIPE meetings are monday afternoon to friday (early?)  
afternoon. But most people going to those don't fly across the ocean.  
(I guess they changed the days for religious reasons.)
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---

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 08:38:22 -0500

> India, and the meetings are Wed-Sat. RIPE in Dubai the other month was  

ITU-T (a UN treaty organization) study groups meet for two full weeks
several times a year.
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---

From: "DRAGE, Keith \(Keith\)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 15:25:16 +0100

We just to complete the story:
 
3GPP meetings regularly start at 9:00 on Monday morning and finish at 3:00, 4:00 or even 6:00 on Friday.
 
ETSI TISPAN meetings work similar schedules.
 
Haven't been to ITU-T for a long while, but when I used to attend SG11, they went on for 3 weeks at a time, and finished when the traslators went home on Friday, and sometimes continued after, so sometimes 5:00 or 6:00. Only relaxation on that one was that these were generally SG or WP plenaries, and therefore you could let some of the technical people go.
 
But the main point I am really making is that the shorter you make the main meeting, the greater the need for face to face ad hocs inbetween, so you may save 1 nights expenses in the main meeting by gaining an extra night and a travel bill, and another travel round trip elsewhere in the year. Plus all the problems of trying to schedule it in my already crowded calendar.
 
regards
 
Keith

	From: Phillip Hallam-Baker [mailto:[email-masked]] 
	Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2008 12:39 PM
	To: DRAGE, Keith (Keith)
	Cc: John C Klensin; [email-masked]
	Subject: Re: [73attendees] Attendance by country

	IETF is the only standards body I work in that regularly schedules more than one Monday and Friday meeting a year.
	
	OASIS does not meet in plenary session. W3C only meets in plenary session once a year. 
	
	OASIS and W3C WG chairs know that they cannot schedule F2F meetings for Mondays or Fridays, just does not happen. And I can't think of an international standards body that does. IEEE, ANSI, ETSI are all parochial, at least in theory. Two have a geographic descriptor in the title and the other decided to insert itself into US politics by lobbying Congress on immigration policy.

	On Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 6:54 AM, DRAGE, Keith (Keith) <[email-masked]> wrote:

		 

		regards
		 
		Keith

			

				

				
				
				       john

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 09:50:03 -0500

On Dec 4, 2008, at 8:38 AM, Scott Brim wrote:

>> was

No weekends off ? I didn't know that they were such stakhanovites.

Regards
Marshall

---

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 10:51:29 -0500

> No weekends off ? I didn't know that they were such stakhanovites.

It depends who you are.  Core people work all weekend, and evenings
too.  But we digress.
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---

From: "Phillip Hallam-Baker" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 10:53:20 -0500

I don't see how it is possible for the IETF to schedule plenary meetings
that give WGs as much time as you have in a 2 day F2F.

If you have small children missed weekends count for a lot more than time
missed during the week, particularly when both parents work.

On Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 9:25 AM, DRAGE, Keith (Keith) <
[email-masked]> wrote:

> Haven't been to ITU-T for a long while, but when I used to attend SG11,
> they went on for 3 weeks at a time, and finished when the traslators went
> home on Friday, and sometimes continued after, so sometimes 5:00 or 6:00.
> Only relaxation on that one was that these were generally SG or WP
> plenaries, and therefore you could let some of the technical people go.
>
> But the main point I am really making is that the shorter you make the main
> meeting, the greater the need for face to face ad hocs inbetween, so you may
> save 1 nights expenses in the main meeting by gaining an extra night and a
> travel bill, and another travel round trip elsewhere in the year. Plus all
> the problems of trying to schedule it in my already crowded calendar.
>
> regards
>
> Keith
>
> *From:* Phillip Hallam-Baker [mailto:[email-masked]]
> *Sent:* Thursday, December 04, 2008 12:39 PM
> *To:* DRAGE, Keith (Keith)
> *Cc:* John C Klensin; [email-masked]
>
>   IETF is the only standards body I work in that regularly schedules more
> than one Monday and Friday meeting a year.
>

---

From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 16:56:39 +0100

If traveling during the weekends is such a problem, then the solution  
is simple: rather than meet monday - friday, we can meet thursday -  
tuesday or something like that. Guaranteed to miss _one_ weekend but  
no more than that.

However, that means more lost work time for people who have to fly  
more than a few hours, and people who _don't_ have to fly very long  
now miss a weekend at home that they would otherwise be able to  
salvage for the most part.
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---

From: "Roni Even" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 18:03:05 +0200

Hi,

I think that this list is very useful but the point that was made before is
that we need the time to do the work. 

We can have a shorter meeting if we find a way to have all the sessions and
enough time for some ad-hoc meetings during the IETF meeting to progress the
work. As was pointed out some of the mentioned standard groups work longer
hours and spend evening time on editing sessions (This is my experience from
ITU-T SG-16 and MPEG).

Personally, I have to stay till Saturday anyhow in most  cases. Having
meeting on the US west coast makes it impossible for me to fly on Friday
(have to take an early morning flight to the east coast) and I get home
usually by Sunday afternoon due to time difference.  But if there is no
efficient way to cover the same content in shorter time I accept it.

Roni Even

From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On
Behalf Of DRAGE, Keith (Keith)
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2008 4:25 PM
To: Phillip Hallam-Baker
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [73attendees] Attendance by country

3GPP meetings regularly start at 9:00 on Monday morning and finish at 3:00,
4:00 or even 6:00 on Friday.

Haven't been to ITU-T for a long while, but when I used to attend SG11, they
went on for 3 weeks at a time, and finished when the traslators went home on
Friday, and sometimes continued after, so sometimes 5:00 or 6:00. Only
relaxation on that one was that these were generally SG or WP plenaries, and
therefore you could let some of the technical people go.

regards

Keith

  _____  

On Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 6:54 AM, DRAGE, Keith (Keith)
<[email-masked]> wrote:

If you cancel Friday, then you might as well start about thinking about
cancelling Thursday, etc.

Oh by the way, can we now schedule 3 ad hocs a year so we can actually get
the work done.

And IETF is the only standards body I know of that seems to think the people
need weekends off for those very special US participants. Many home
locations of anyone outside NAR cannot make the connections to attend the
Friday sessions and get home even on Saturday morning. And I finally got
home from IETF last Thursday morning.

regards

Keith

  _____  

From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On
Behalf Of Phillip Hallam-Baker
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2008 3:51 AM
To: John C Klensin
Cc: [email-masked] 

On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 10:43 PM, John C Klensin <[email-masked]
<mailto:[email-masked]> > wrote:

       john

---

From: "Phillip Hallam-Baker" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 11:08:58 -0500

That would actually be more acceptable for me. But I don't think that we
need to do that to all 1000 attendees.

In fact I would suggest that what is done is:

* The *only* Friday activity is the NOC teardown, no formal meetings of the
IAB, IESG or IAOC.
* WG meetings scheduled from Monday 9am thru Friday 8pm.
* Any lost IAB, IESG, IAOC meeting time is moved to Saturday and Sunday.
One side benefit of this is that it then frees up Friday morning for the
type of 'at convenience' ad-hoc meetings that you often want to set up with
four or five people before they catch their plane. It need not be lost
working time. If the combination of location and participants makes that
unattractive you schedule for Sunday.

Regular participants do not usually have to lose any weekends and I* members
only lose at worst one weekend.

On Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 10:56 AM, Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>wrote:

> If traveling during the weekends is such a problem, then the solution is
> simple: rather than meet monday - friday, we can meet thursday - tuesday or
> something like that. Guaranteed to miss _one_ weekend but no more than that.
>
> However, that means more lost work time for people who have to fly more
> than a few hours, and people who _don't_ have to fly very long now miss a
> weekend at home that they would otherwise be able to salvage for the most
> part.
>

---

From: "Phillip Hallam-Baker" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 11:13:37 -0500

Most Hotels have smaller meeting rooms as well as the main venue. If there
was an easy way to book a room for a small pre-meeting on the Sunday this
might become popular. Then folk can hold a pre-meeting for detailed
discussion and spec editing in advance of the main meeting. The main meeting
then processes the issues list where a need for more discussion is
identified.

On Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 11:03 AM, Roni Even <[email-masked]> wrote:

> *On Behalf Of *DRAGE, Keith (Keith)
> *Sent:* Thursday, December 04, 2008 4:25 PM
> *To:* Phillip Hallam-Baker
>
> On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 10:43 PM, John C Klensin <[email-masked]<[email-masked]>>
> wrote:
>
>
>

---

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 11:24:16 -0500

Excerpts from Iljitsch van Beijnum at 16:56:39 +0100 on Thu 4 Dec
2008:
> If traveling during the weekends is such a problem, then the
> solution is simple: rather than meet monday - friday, we can meet
> thursday - tuesday or something like that. Guaranteed to miss _one_
> weekend but no more than that.

Really, what we have to do is push hard to make remote tools work.

Some WGs are very good at resolving issues via mail.  Others -- and
other issues -- just don't work that way.  We need to figure out how
to make it possible for more issues to be resolved in more WGs before
without having to get together in person.  We've done this several
times in the past but now we *must* take the next step, we have no
choice.

Videoconferencing is not necessary (although it's nice to be able to
show people a pad of paper you're drawing on), but good queue
management is.  Meeting tools need to ensure that everyone is heard,
and that topic threads are kept organized and distinct until the time
to bring them back together.

There are audio conference tools for participants to "raise their
hands" and for moderators to call on them.  There are text-based tools
(real-time and not) that can do the same thing.  I still like the
MediaMoo "conference rooms".

Wikis are useful for organizing issues and serve us well but
apparently they are not enough.

Is there a forum where tools for enhancing WG progress are worked on?
tools-discuss is mainly about the tracker.

Scott

---

From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 17:30:27 +0100

> times in the past but now we *must* take the next step, we have no

We don't?

> There are audio conference tools

Yes, all the tediousness of listening to people with hard to  
understand accents or idiom at times you're normally asleep without  
getting to enjoy the airline food... I don't think this works for  
large groups.

The trouble is that it's often hard to get feedback on something  
without presenting it in a meeting. If we could get some incentives  
happening for reviewing other people's work, we wouldn't have to  
present all this stuff.

For instance: some kind of official recognition that can go on a CV or  
something. Or review swapping: review three drafts and we'll get two  
quality reviews for yours, with some kind of reputation system for  
review quality.
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---

From: "Mary Barnes" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 11:29:16 -0500

Again, a YMMV issue.  Having spent 14 years in a both parent's working
household (and now being in a single parent household), this is still
not such a significant issue. In my experience, it's actually a bigger
issue in a household where the mother is a SAHM because they rarely get
a break.  And, yes, I know this is a controversial point. When I was at
Telecom '99, which required more than two full weekends away, the guys
were fussing as the SAHM wives back home were complaining about all the
family issues without the Dad home for support and they were really
taken aback when I told them that the job that the moms were doing was
far more stressful than anything we were dealing with on a daily basis,
particularly when you consider most of us have opportunities of enjoying
at least one nice meal and we usually have someone that makes our beds
daily, etc.  There is research that shows that the stress levels of
mothers (determined by both questionnaires and blood tests of hormones
impacted by stress) is equivalent to that of a soldier on the front
lines of a war. 
 
Personally, I welcome Monday mornings as I them get 8+ hours of sitting,
whereas I've just spent my weekend running around like a ninny, catering
to all the needs of my children.  And, maybe because I have two sons,
but the additional time with Dad while I'm away is actually a good thing
- there's a body of research that shows that time with Dad has the
greatest impact on how well kids do overall.  Also, despite the theory
that things are typically 50/50 in a household where both parents work,
that isn't the case - lots of studies show this and IMHO, it's this
issue that's a larger contributor to the divorce rate than being away a
few weekends during the year. As Keith points out, IETF standard's
related activities are far less demanding in terms of time away from
family.  
 
So, I really think this is a huge digression and not that important a
consideration in meeting planning, etc. We all make choices based on our
individual situations and if a job where one does have to take time away
from family is considered detrimental to the quality of life for a
family, folks can very likely find a different job. My experience has
been that the majority of folks that are active contributors in IETF
have top notch technical skills that are easily transferrable to a
different role even within the same company. 
 
Regards,
Mary H. Barnes

From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]
On Behalf Of Phillip Hallam-Baker
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2008 9:53 AM
To: DRAGE, Keith (Keith)
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [73attendees] Attendance by country

If you have small children missed weekends count for a lot more than
time missed during the week, particularly when both parents work.

On Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 9:25 AM, DRAGE, Keith (Keith)
<[email-masked]> wrote:

	3GPP meetings regularly start at 9:00 on Monday morning and
finish at 3:00, 4:00 or even 6:00 on Friday.

	Haven't been to ITU-T for a long while, but when I used to
attend SG11, they went on for 3 weeks at a time, and finished when the
traslators went home on Friday, and sometimes continued after, so
sometimes 5:00 or 6:00. Only relaxation on that one was that these were
generally SG or WP plenaries, and therefore you could let some of the
technical people go.
	 
	But the main point I am really making is that the shorter you
make the main meeting, the greater the need for face to face ad hocs
inbetween, so you may save 1 nights expenses in the main meeting by
gaining an extra night and a travel bill, and another travel round trip
elsewhere in the year. Plus all the problems of trying to schedule it in
my already crowded calendar.
	 
	regards
	 
	Keith

		IETF is the only standards body I work in that regularly
schedules more than one Monday and Friday meeting a year.
		
		OASIS does not meet in plenary session. W3C only meets
in plenary session once a year. 
		
		OASIS and W3C WG chairs know that they cannot schedule
F2F meetings for Mondays or Fridays, just does not happen. And I can't
think of an international standards body that does. IEEE, ANSI, ETSI are
all parochial, at least in theory. Two have a geographic descriptor in
the title and the other decided to insert itself into US politics by
lobbying Congress on immigration policy.

			And the chief problem with a light Friday, is
that we have found it impossible to schedule WG ad hocs anytime from
lunchtime on Thursday because people have decided they are going to
start going home at that time.
			 
			If you cancel Friday, then you might as well
start about thinking about cancelling Thursday, etc.
			 
			Oh by the way, can we now schedule 3 ad hocs a
year so we can actually get the work done.
			 
			And IETF is the only standards body I know of
that seems to think the people need weekends off for those very special
US participants. Many home locations of anyone outside NAR cannot make
the connections to attend the Friday sessions and get home even on
Saturday morning. And I finally got home from IETF last Thursday
morning.
			 
			regards
			 
			Keith

				From: [email-masked]
[mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Phillip Hallam-Baker
				Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2008 3:51
AM
				To: John C Klensin
				Cc: [email-masked] 

				Subject: Re: [73attendees] Attendance by
country

				Either meet on Friday or start mid-day
Monday.
				
				One weekend is acceptable home-wise. two
weekends are not.

				On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 10:43 PM, John C
Klensin <[email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]> > wrote:

				--On Wednesday, 03 December, 2008 14:42
-0600 Dean Willis

				> divorce costs for some attendees?

				Yep.  With small variations, that about
covers it.
				
				Of course, if we also met Saturday and
part of Sunday, that
				would guarantee Saturday night stays,
which might help offset
				some of the travel costs (although not
the hotel ones).    On
				the other hand, for those attendees for
which it is relevant, it
				would probably further increase the
divorce costs (or at least
				the divorce risk).
				
				       john

	

				-- 
				Author: The dotCrime Manifesto: How to
Stop Internet Crime
				http://dotcrimemanifesto.com
<http://dotcrimemanifesto.com/> 

		-- 
		Author: The dotCrime Manifesto: How to Stop Internet
Crime
		http://dotcrimemanifesto.com
<http://dotcrimemanifesto.com/>

---

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 12:06:13 -0500

Excerpts from Iljitsch van Beijnum at 17:30:27 +0100 on Thu 4 Dec
2008:
> > Some WGs are very good at resolving issues via mail.  Others --
> > and other issues -- just don't work that way.  We need to figure
> > out how to make it possible for more issues to be resolved in more
> > WGs before without having to get together in person.  We've done
> > this several times in the past but now we *must* take the next
> > step, we have no choice.
> 
> We don't?

I don't know about you but for me there simply isn't enough time
during IETF week to have all the meetings I need to have in order to
make progress.  There is so much going on right on.

> getting to enjoy the airline food... I don't think this works for

There are text-based tools as well.  Real-time text generally favors
people who type fast in the language of the meeting, so they can't be
used all the time.  (btw I'm not talking about jabber, which is just
free form talk.)

> For instance: some kind of official recognition that can go on a CV
> or something. Or review swapping: review three drafts and we'll get
> two quality reviews for yours, with some kind of reputation system
> for review quality.

The kind of reviews you want are the ones from well-informed,
deep-thinking people.  They are in high demand (like you).  They don't
need credit, they need more time.  Review swapping might work.  I
suspect that making it _easier_ for them to contribute would be even
better.  These days, written comments need to be substantive in order
to be acceptable, and that takes time.
_______________________________________________
73attendees mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/73attendees

---

From: Derek Atkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:42:28 -0500

I've got a wedding to attend on Saturday the 1st back in the US.  So
that's my hurry.

-derek

Ted Lemon wrote:
> I have to second Mary's disagreement on canceling Fridays.  If there are
> sessions on Friday for me I don't want to travel that day anyway. 
> What's the hurry?
> 
> 
> 

-- 
Derek Atkins
Principal Software Engineer

PGP Corporation
4 Farragut Ave
Somerville, MA  02144

+1 617 623 3745 | [email-masked]

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---

From: Stewart Bryant <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:40:51 +0000

> ITU-T (a UN treaty organization) study groups meet for two full weeks
... and questions often hold two one week long interims between the two 
week plenaries and you often need to work in more than one question.

To do work you MUST go to the meetings - there is no voice m/c and 
raporteurs will not take input by im or my email.

Stewart

---

From: "Phillip Hallam-Baker" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 19:00:35 -0500

Thats nothing compared to what they expect in the army

---

From: Joel Jaeggli <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:10:26 -0800

> Thats nothing compared to what they expect in the army

18 months at camp dreamland and an opportunity to do it again as soon as
you get home?

> On Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 4:40 PM, Stewart Bryant <[email-masked]
> <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
> 
>     Scott Brim wrote:
> 
>             FWIW, the IGF, that is a UN process, this week meets in
>             Hyderabad,  India, and the meetings are Wed-Sat. RIPE in
>             Dubai the other month was  Sun-Thu.
>                
> 
> 
>     ... and questions often hold two one week long interims between the
>     two week plenaries and you often need to work in more than one question.
> 
>         [email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>
>     [email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>

---

From: "Phillip Hallam-Baker" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 19:24:27 -0500

What the ITU or other bodies do is irrelevant. They are completely different
organizations with different purposes.

In the case of the ITU it was founded for the purpose of collaborating
amongst telegraph companies to suppress the use of codes that might enable
customers to reduce charges (essentially compression).

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2008 13:01:49 -0500

--On Thursday, 04 December, 2008 18:03 +0200 Roni Even
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I think that this list is very useful but the point that was
> made before is that we need the time to do the work. 

> We can have a shorter meeting if we find a way to have all the
> sessions and enough time for some ad-hoc meetings during the
> IETF meeting to progress the work. As was pointed out some of
> the mentioned standard groups work longer hours and spend
> evening time on editing sessions (This is my experience from
> ITU-T SG-16 and MPEG).

I believe that you have just summarized the fundamental
disconnect we are all having about this.  With ITU-SGs and many
similar bodies, the expectation has historically been that most
of the group work will get done at meetings.  Documents are sent
out in advance of meetings so that people can better prepare for
the meetings.  Email tends to serve much the same purpose, e.g.,
gaining sufficient group understanding of the issues that people
can come together at face to face meetings to resolve them.

That approach has a number of strengths and weaknesses.  But it
clearly has the implication that one needs large blocks of
meeting time, not, e.g., one or two sessions of a couple of
hours duration a few times a year.  If one adopts that model,
then, as Keith pointed out in another note, shorter meetings in
terms of days is going to imply more interim face to face and ad
hoc sessions.  In the ITU's case, it has resulted in SG plenary
sessions that last for weeks, not days.

That, in turn, is often associated with a fundamental difference
in  the people who attend meetings and the organizational
relationships than send them.  While there are certainly
exceptions, few companies consider it wise to regularly send
someone with critical-path product design and implementation
responsibility off to attend standards meetings whose duration
is measured in weeks.  The situation for academics with teaching
responsibilities or consulting firm principals is even worse.

With so much time spent in meetings that people usually have to
justify their jobs on the basis of their standards activities,
there is also a tendency to be sure that workloads expand to
fill up the time available and to make good trip reports.  There
is little evidence that there is a positive correlation between
that behavior and high-quality, useful, standards. 

By contrast, we've historically tried to optimize the IETF so
that our primary way to get work done is on mailing lists and so
that those who can make significant technical contributions but
for whom extensive meeting attendance is hard or impossible can
fully participate.  We should need face to face meetings only to
raise the odds that people understand issues the same way at a
high level and to argue about particular loose end issues in the
hope of laying a foundation for resolution.  This broadens our
base and keeps things more open and less a matter of company
representation and balancing company positions and objectives.
We have usually thought that was good.

Marshall Rose's long-ago distinction between Do-ers and Go-ers
doesn't quite capture all of the relationships and their
consequences, but may be helpful in understanding both the
attitudes and why they are important.

I believe that, especially if we are facing a period in which
times are tough and budgets restricted in the industry, "how can
we get in more face to face meeting time" is the wrong question.
Instead, I think we should be asking questions like:

(1) If there are so many WGs in an area that having them all
meet requires making IETF meetings longer, or requires regular
interim meetings, what is wrong with that area, how its WG are
organized, or the amount of work it is taking on?  Is all of
that work really effective, or would some pruning and
restructuring help?

(2) If a given WG has evolved into a working mode in which
extensive face to face meetings are needed, there is little
progress between the three IETF meetings a year, and there is
frequent demand for interims, what is wrong?  How can the group,
or its work or leadership, be restructured to what we should
consider a problem?  Would it be appropriate to export the work
to another organization that works better in that mode?

(3) How can we rethink the IETF to require less face time, not
more?  Have Internet conferencing technologies advanced to the
point that, with some preparation and changes to how we do
things, we could do more than way and cut face time to two
meetings a year instead of three (even if those meetings needed
five full days, the cost savings to participants and participant
organizations would be significant (any IAOC member who says "we
couldn't do that because of the budget hit", rather than
thinking about how to management it, should immediately resign
-- we are, IMO, placing too large a burden on those who attend
meetings anyway and reducing meetings and meeting planning time
ought to have a significant impact on secretariat costs).

To put that more extremely, if the IAOC treats WG or area
complaints that "we need more meeting time" as an indication
that should be made to happen, and the IESG goes along, and that
takes us into cycles, not only of dropping attendance but of
attendance that is increasingly dominated by a relatively small
number of large organizations, then we might as well give it up.
To take just two examples, ITU-T and ISO/IEC JTC1 actually have
a lot of organizational advantages over the IETF (not least
being long-term budget line items in many enterprises rather
than having to try to squeeze resources out of engineering) and,
if our work methods and attendance become indistinguishable from
theirs, the organizations that pay the bills, and the industry
in general, would probably be better served by eliminating the
duplication and additional meetings.

    john

---

From: "Phillip Hallam-Baker" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2008 13:35:52 -0500

I think I agree with most if not all of what John said.

I think that working groups need to meet more than once a year. But that
does not mean that the entire IETF needs to meet twice a year. I do like the
practice of plenary meetings, in fact it is going to be one of my
recomendations that OASIS moves to at least one plenary meeting a year.

But do we need three 1500+ person meetings each year? Do we need the IESG
and the IAB to be in attendance?

Two IETF meetings a year would allow active working groups to hold as many
as four meetings a year, two at main meetings and two ad-hocs. The ad-hocs
can be organized for the convenience of the participants for that meeting.
They can be two or even three day meetings if required. Less active groups
that are in maintenance mode can have zero.

For the security area, a meeting on the Monday of RSA week in San Francisco
would be a highly useful place for CFRG to meet with cryptographers and have
a discussion as to the current state of crypto algorithm recommendations.
Most of the people you would want are there anyway.

On Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 1:01 PM, John C Klensin
<[email-masked]<[email-masked]>

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2008 13:46:41 -0500

--On Wednesday, 03 December, 2008 09:34 -0600 Mary Barnes
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> So, I agree comparing airfare only between SF and Minneapolis
> won't give you a true comparison of overall costs for the two
> meeting sites. In general, Minneapolis is a bargain compared 
> to most other major U.S. cities.  

Especially once it starts to get cold.  I understand that
Phoenix can be a huge bargain if one decides to schedule July
meetings there and that, since the AmericaWest - US Airways
merger, it pretty easy to get to in terms of connections.  Now,
if one wants to avoid that carrier and its attitudes toward
customer service, flight cancellations, etc., that is another
matter entirely, but that is yet an additional dimension of the
problem.

That is not entirely a joke.  I worked with a standards group
for some years that regularly scheduled its meetings into places
that were considered very attractive destinations, but used them
only in the "place nearly closed" off-season.  The facilities
were available, the local hotels, etc., were extremely happy to
get the business, airlines did not price flights on a "we can
sell those seats no matter what we charge" basis, and no one in
an organizational travel policy office was going to suggest that
Phoenix (since I'm picking on them) in July or Provincetown in
November (anyone who has been there at that time of year would
have an immediate understanding of why the Mayflower crew
stopped, took a look around, contemplating the prevailing
breezes, and moved on) were big tourist destinations and a
general boggle.  Off the North American continent, I'd also
suggest considering Aberdeen in March, Cairo in July,...

I assume that, if the IAOC called Hilton and asked for good (for
availability and for them) meeting locations in a given month,
they could offer any number of recommendations of the above type
on the continent of our choice :-(

   john

---

From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2008 19:17:47 +0000

At Friday 12/5/2008 01:46 PM -0500, John  C Klensin wrote:
>  I understand that

Phoenix is a hub for Southwest Airlines.

L.

---

From: Nicholas Weaver <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2008 11:25:23 -0800

> Phoenix is a hub for Southwest Airlines.

For the US meetings, there is a pretty simple statement:

If southwest has several flights/day into the area, airfairs are going  
to be far more reasonable.

---

From: Dean Willis <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2008 14:55:46 -0600

On Dec 5, 2008, at 12:35 PM, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:

> Do we need the IESG and the IAB to be in attendance?
>

I find the presence of both area directors at my meetings so that they  
can try and explain their positions to the participants is  
indispensable. That may the single most-useful aspect of having formal  
face-to-face meetings.

--
Dean

---

From: "Phillip Hallam-Baker" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2008 17:21:52 -0500

But do they find you to be so?

I agree that we need some level of input, but reducing from 3 to 2 would not
affect that dramatically.

On Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 3:55 PM, Dean Willis <[email-masked]>wrote:

> I find the presence of both area directors at my meetings so that they can
> try and explain their positions to the participants is indispensable. That
> may the single most-useful aspect of having formal face-to-face meetings.
>
> --
> Dean
>
>

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2008 17:28:30 -0500

> I think I agree with most if not all of what John said.

Then, given you comments below, I may not have been clear about
a large part of what I was suggesting.

> I think that working groups need to meet more than once a
> year. But that does not mean that the entire IETF needs to
> meet twice a year. I do like the practice of plenary meetings,
> in fact it is going to be one of my recomendations that OASIS
> moves to at least one plenary meeting a year.
> 
> But do we need three 1500+ person meetings each year? Do we
> need the IESG and the IAB to be in attendance?
> 
> Two IETF meetings a year would allow active working groups to
> hold as many as four meetings a year, two at main meetings and
> two ad-hocs. The ad-hocs can be organized for the convenience
> of the participants for that meeting. They can be two or even
> three day meetings if required. Less active groups that are in
> maintenance mode can have zero.

What I'm suggesting is that we should start, at least as a null
hypothesis, with the assumptions that:

	(1) The IETF doesn't need to meet more than twice a year.
	
	(2) That number is sufficient for groups that are
	actually getting work done to meet and get it done and
	for the sort of consensus-forcing that Dean and others
	have mentioned to occur _if_ other things are going well.
	
	(3) That WGs generally do not need to meet F2F more than
	twice a year, that we should be questioning a WG that
	needs more than six or seven meetings in a two year
	period very intensely and either holding them to a very
	tight schedule or trying to rearrange how they are
	managed and doing work.   For example, I'd consider a WG
	that started up, held the four meetings you are assuming
	for two consecutive years and, within that period,
	finished all its work and shut down to be tolerable.
	I'd think it was especially tolerable if the last two of
	those meetings were post-last-call issue resolution
	meetings, i.e., all of the documents were in Last Call
	within 18 months of chartering.  A longer or more
	intense schedule would imply to me that the WG isn't
	working in an IETF style and I'd start worrying that it
	wasn't going to be open enough to serious input from
	those who were not active members of the "WG Club" (note
	that a large number of F2F meetings can be easily used
	to exclude people who are interested, have considerable
	relevant expertise, but who are not supported by
	organizations pushing the work).

	(4) Any proposal for a WG or Area interim meeting should
	have to overcome a presumption that such meetings are
	unnecessary and unhealthy for openness and cross-area
	review, presumably by defending the requirement to the
	IESG (or an occasional WG meeting) and the community
	(for more frequent WG meetings or an area meeting).

	(5) WGs that are making good progress may not need to
	meet at every IETF, although "making good progress but
	need to hammer out consensus on some small set of
	issues" is the best of reasons for meeting.  WGs that
	are not making good progress should be required to
	explain why meeting time would help and to explore why
	they can't make progress without the meeting time.  A
	failure of that explanation should be rewarded by the
	WG's being shut down, not more meeting slots.   And any
	area that has discovered that it can't hold all required
	meetings within set total time limits should be
	conducting reviews of how many WGs it actually needs and
	whether they are working efficiently, not asking for
	more meeting slots to be created

I doubt that is workable in exactly in that form (in particular,
I really don't think we can get down to two meetings a year),
especially without some serious transition efforts, but I think
our discussions would be much more helpful if they were based on
"why is the above not feasible?" and "what would need to be
changed from the above in order for IETF to continue to be (or
to again start being) effective?", rather than about "how do we
squeeze in more meeting time"?
 
> For the security area, a meeting on the Monday of RSA week in
> San Francisco would be a highly useful place for CFRG to meet
> with cryptographers and have a discussion as to the current
> state of crypto algorithm recommendations. Most of the people
> you would want are there anyway.

And it would be an even more effective mechanism than any
devised so far to get the active participants in the security
area out of touch with, and irrelevant to, the activities in
other Internet areas that security work is supposed to be
supporting.  It might even be effective in convincing people
that non-cryptographers were unimportant to the security area's
work.

    john

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2008 19:14:50 -0500

> responsibilities or consulting firm principals is even worse.

There is a related issue : This will filter out small companies. Large
ones might be able to afford this, smaller ones will not. One of the  
things
that attracted me to the was the relative "flatness" of the  
organization; you
don't have to be with big company X to make a difference.

Regards
Marshall

---

From: "Richard Shockey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2008 20:51:57 -0500

+1  Dean is absolutely correct. AD presence is indispensable especially in
resolving very touchy issues and getting a sense of how the IESG views the
directions protocols are going.

>  From: [email-masked] [mailto:73attendees-
>  [email-masked]] On Behalf Of Dean Willis
>  Sent: Friday, December 05, 2008 3:56 PM
>  To: Phillip Hallam-Baker
>  Cc: [email-masked]
>  Subject: Re: [73attendees] Meeting lengths and locations (was: Re:
>  Attendance by country)
>  
>

---

From: "DRAGE, Keith (Keith)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2008 14:42:53 +0100

If you happen to be coming from the US.

>From anywhere else, it would appear to be totally irrelevant.

Keith 

> Sent: Friday, December 05, 2008 7:25 PM
> To: Lloyd Wood
> Cc: Nicholas Weaver; [email-masked]
> >> meetings there and that, since the AmericaWest - US 
> Airways merger, 
> >> it pretty easy to get to in terms of connections.  Now, if 
> one wants 
> >> to avoid that carrier and its attitudes toward customer service, 
> >> flight cancellations, etc., that is another matter 
> entirely, but that 
> >> is yet an additional dimension of the problem.
> >
> If southwest has several flights/day into the area, airfairs 
> are going to be far more reasonable.
>