Subject: RE: Deja Vu

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 11:41:14 +0100

All,

OK, so when are we going to move from having 2 meetings per year in the USA
?

How about 1 per year in North / South America, 1 per year in Asia /
Australasia and 1 per year in Europe / Africa ?  

As for holding meetings near international air hubs -
1.  Oslo ?
2.  Have you tried getting a direct flight to Minneapolis from outside the
USA ?  or San Diego ?  It's not easy.

Regards,

Graham 

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	[email-masked] [SMTP:[email-masked]]
> Sent:	Saturday, March 24, 2001 12:31 PM
> To:	[email-masked]
> Subject:	Re: Deja Vu
> 
> [email-masked] (John Day)  wrote on 20.03.01 in
> <v04220801b6dd4a484c1a@[208.192.102.20]>:
> 
> > >sorry, but this is a US centric comment. IETF is international, so
> > >centrally located is an interesting question: center of the earth
> > >(probably enough hot...;-))).
> >
> > I'm not so sure.  From what I hear from the EU and Pacific Rim
> > countries, the Internet is a US plot intended at further imposing US
> > imperialism on the rest of the world.  How can that many people be
> > wrong?  I was just going with the majority opinion.
> 
> Looking at ICANN voting turnout, maybe it's a plot by the EU to take over
> 
> the US?
> 
> MfG Kai

---

From: "Donald E. Eastlake 3rd" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 07:50:08 -0500

IETF meetings are held because they are beneficial to accomplishing
the work of the IETF, not to promoate some sort of internationalism.
Thus far they have been geographically distributed roughly as the
recent IETF meeting attendees locations has been geographically
distributed.  (Availability of hosts and facilities is obviously also
a factor.)  As long as about 2/3 of the IETF attendees are from North
America, 2/3 of the meetings should be in North America.

Donald

PS: I don't think that being accessible via a direct flight should be
a controlling factor.  I usually don't take a direct flight to or from
the IETF meeting although I live in the USA and I don't see this as a
problem.

From:  [email-masked]
Message-ID:  <[email-masked]>
To:  [email-masked], [email-masked]
Date:  Wed, 28 Mar 2001 11:41:14 +0100

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 08:26:15 -0500

> As long as about 2/3 of the IETF attendees are from North

similar logic might apply to havana.

or, as long as 2/3 of the meetings are held in north america,
2/3 of the attendees will be from north america.

randy

---

From: "Donald E. Eastlake 3rd" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 09:16:46 -0500

From:  Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
To:  "Donald E. Eastlake 3rd" <[email-masked]>
Cc:  [email-masked]
References:  <[email-masked]>
	    	<[email-masked]>
Message-Id:  <[email-masked]>
Date:  Wed, 28 Mar 2001 08:26:15 -0500

>2/3 of the attendees will be from north america.

Why?  When the IETF meets in Europe, 2/3 of the attendees are not
European.  When the IETF meets in Australia, 2/3 or the attendees are
not Australian or Australasian.  Of the 50 IETF meetings thus far, the
first 26 were all in North America and 25 of those in the USA, yet
enough non-North American attendance developed to warrant meetings
outside North America.

However if, for the sake of arguement, I accept your claim that
meeting location controls attendance, what is to be concluded from
that?  That the IETF should meet equally in every continent or every
country or every ITU region or something to try to force a more
policitically correct or "international" attendance?  Doesn't language
also have an effect?  If you buy the geograhic argument, shouldn't the
IETF also require a rougly equal perecnetage of comments at WG
meetings and posting to WG mailing lists to be in every language?

I reject this and believe the IETF should continue to optimize for the
accomplishment of its goals of good Internet Engineering rather than
political correctness.  Meaning no disrespect for those who travel
great distances to attend IETF meetings or who strugle with English,
that means meeting where its open participants come from and the use
of the language most common to its open participants.

>randy

Donald
===================================================================
 Donald E. Eastlake 3rd                    [email-masked]
 155 Beaver Streeet                         [email-masked]
 Milford, MA 01757 USA     +1 508-634-2066(h)   +1 508-261-5434(w)

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 09:30:50 -0500

--On Wednesday, 28 March, 2001 11:41 +0100 [email-masked]
wrote:

> OK, so when are we going to move from having 2 meetings per
> year in the USA ?
> 
> How about 1 per year in North / South America, 1 per year in
> Asia / Australasia and 1 per year in Europe / Africa ?  

Graham,

Subject to constraints of invitations and practicality, part of
the plan has been to do this statistically.  I.e., when 2/3 of
the active participants are from outside the USA, I assume we
will move, or have moved, toward having 2/3 of the meetings
outside the USA.  But even that is conditioned somewhat by two
other factors that are not under our control but can be quite
significant:

* There are many places which, were we to hold meetings in them,
would set off concerns about junketing and tourism of other
sorts. Many organizations have rules about "conventions" which
IETF escapes but which would get invoked if we started a regular
tour of known tourist locations in season.  Those rules tend to
favor attendance by marketing types and to impose restrictions
on working-engineer attendance.  To by cynical about it, one of
the attractions of Minneapolis in February or March, or (to pick
on a place we haven't been) almost anywhere in South or
Southeast Asia during monsoon, no one would accuse us of going
there to meet in a nice place where many of the attendees would
come and not participate.   While it would presumably be
convenient for you, I'm actually worried a bit about London in
that regard.

* Meetings in the USA tend to be, relatively speaking and in
terms of the costs Fortec sees, cheap.   While it is often a
stretch (e.g., the San Diego hotel was clearly a bit too small),
we can still manage to use hotel facilities and meeting rooms,
and, when we fill the hotels up with people, we typically get
those facilities at very attractive rates.  Almost everywhere
outside the US, we've ended up needing to use conference
facilities, which we pay for separately.  Those conference
facilities impose costs separate from the hotel ones, make it
harder to run a single 24 hour terminal room (increasing costs
or decreasing convenience), and so on.  London is going to be a
good deal more expensive than Minneapolis and, were we not
applying some smoothing functions, you would be seeing _very_
high registration fees.  I think the Japanese meeting will
probably be worse.  And I, at least, don't want to get to a
situation in which we see significant numbers of people who
don't/can't come because of meetings costs -- would really bias
the participation.

    john

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 10:05:33 -0500

> the work of the IETF, not to promoate some sort of internationalism.

Hmm.  I thought the Internet was for everyone.

Keith

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 10:45:40 -0500

> political correctness.

of course.  but part of good Internet Engineering is developing protocols
that meet the diverse needs of the entire Internet community, not just 
the needs of those who have a strong presence in North America.

Keith

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 09:43:20 -0600

Having lived in New Zealand, Europe and (this week) in Chicago, I have 
to say that the US is a pretty good location for the majority of IETF
meetings, for many practical reasons. I've never been offended by
having to cross the ocean; with air fares as illogical as they are, it
isn't even a cost issue. One meeting a year outside the US seems
fine to me.

   Brian

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 11:01:15 -0500

> Hmm.  I thought the Internet was for everyone.

Exactly.  We're here to *get work done* for everyone, not to contribute
to some warm-and-fuzzy political feel-good agenda.  If meetings elsewhere
contribute to getting work done, they should be held elsewhere.  If meetings
elsewhere are being done to be "correct" or "fair", we're doing them elsewhere
for the Wrong Reasons.

Of course, I've never actually made it to an IETF, so it doesn't matter
much to me where they're held ;)

/Valdis (who would probably be feeling much more politically correct if
he had gotten more than four hour's sleep ;)

---

From: "Melinda Shore" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 11:20:14 -0500

> with air fares as illogical as they are, it
> isn't even a cost issue. 

The cost thing is, I think, misleading.  Having
had the experience of having to go to many ETSI
meetings, I've found that apart from a few 
incredibly expensive cities it's generally cheaper
to go to Europe than it is to travel in the US.
Airfares really are not that much more expensive (and
can be about the same during the winter and spring) 
and hotels and food tend to be less expensive.  Plus, 
there's that strong-American-dollar thing (for the 
moment ...).  The drawbacks are that it tends to look 
to the beancounters like a junket, and for those 
originating in the US and travelling west to east morning 
sessions can be pretty painful.

Melinda

---

From: leo vegoda <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 18:24:46 +0200

On Wed, Mar 28, 2001 at 09:30:50AM -0500, in message <2224339706.985771850@P2>, John C Klensin ([email-masked]) wrote: Re: RE: Deja Vu

[...]

> convenient for you, I'm actually worried a bit about London in

London's sort of OK - but's it's hardly party city.

I think your point on the cost of meetings becoming prohibitive for 
many attendees is much more important. London is well known to be 
one of the most expensive cities in the world for hotel accommodation.
It would be a bad thing if clue was excluded because of the total cost
of a meeting being very high.

Regards,

-- 
leo vegoda
"One size never fits all"
RFC1925 - The Twelve Networking Truths

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 11:38:59 -0500

> Exactly.  We're here to *get work done* for everyone

the work we do is of little value if it only caters to a narrow range of
interests.

Keith

---

From: "Donald E. Eastlake 3rd" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 12:04:18 -0500

I don't think internationalization of the Internet ==
internationalization of IETF meetings.  Sorry if I wasn't clear.

Donald

From:  Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Message-Id:  <[email-masked]>
X-URI:  http://www.cs.utk.edu/~moore/
To:  "Donald E. Eastlake 3rd" <[email-masked]>
cc:  [email-masked]
In-reply-to:  Your message of "Wed, 28 Mar 2001 07:50:08 EST."
	                  <[email-masked]> 
Date:  Wed, 28 Mar 2001 10:05:33 -0500

---

From: "Matt Crawford" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 11:35:02 -0600

> 2/3 of the attendees will be from north america.

You're being silly.  That does not stand a historical test: when 100%
of the meetings were in NA, it was not the case that 100% of the
participants were.

One could argue that all the meetings should be located at the
feasible site nearest the centroid of the homes of the participants,
but I suspect that centroid is not a well-defined concept on a sphere.

---

From: [email-masked] (Kai Henningsen)
Date: 28 Mar 2001 18:47:00 +0200

> USA ?  or San Diego ?  It's not easy.

My trusty timetable lookup offers "Napoli" when I ask for "Minneapolis".  
Though it might not cover flights, I've never tried.

MfG Kai

Smilies? What smilies?

---

From: Grenville Armitage <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 10:20:55 -0800

Supposedly we have a preference for developing ideas
and consensus on mailing lists. Many people have actually
achieved things in the IETF by being active on the mailing
lists without going to each and every IETF meeting. Perhaps
this argues in favor of moving an additional IETF meeting
out of north america, although personally I think it argues
against any urgent need to internationalize meeting locations.

cheers,
gja

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 10:10:29 -0800

>Subject to constraints of invitations and practicality, part of

Continued reliance on invitations and hosts ensure several problems.

One is that we tend to lock in a location one year later than we 
should.  Should be 2 years, and we tend to run no better than 1.  That 
constrains choice and that either increases price or decreases convenience.

Another is that the host is usually not skilled at the relevant technical 
details for a conference.  Usually the host compensates by throwing massive 
money or staff at the problem; usually that is sufficient.  With 
regularity, it is not.

If we are serious about trying to optimize the meeting in terms of cost, 
reliability and convenience, we need to choose a standard set of extremely 
convenient (and less expensive) locations and then keep using them.

Re-use reduces learning curve and that reduces problems (and cost).

>the active participants are from outside the USA, I assume we

As I believe Randy Bush pointed out, the flaw in this analytic methodology 
is that a meeting in the US is an unequal barrier to participation from 
outside the US.  I'm not "voting" for changing the current proportion of 
US/non-US meetings, but do feel compelled to note the danger in using 
history as the basis for deciding the future.

>tour of known tourist locations in season.

On the average, IETF decisions are best made when they focus on the primary 
concerns of a situation and not on the ever-present mass of other issues.

Worrying about possible rules that some organizations might have is like 
worrying about national encryption laws.  It's distracting and reduces the 
quality of our product.  We clearly made the right choice to ignore 
national variation in security laws.

We should equally ignore all but the essential factors in making meeting 
logistics "optimal".  My own view is that optimal is determined by access 
convenience (international hub), cost, and reliability of networking and 
presentation services.

Three factors are more than enough the try to optimize.

The rest need to be ignored.

If we are serious about the issues that cause complaints about IETF meeting 
logistics.

d/

----------
Dave Crocker   <mailto:[email-masked]>
Brandenburg InternetWorking   <http://www.brandenburg.com>
tel: +1.408.246.8253;   fax: +1.408.273.6464

---

From: John Stracke <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 15:25:54 -0500

> London's sort of OK - but's it's hardly party city.

Actually, I see what John means; for many Americans, London is pretty much an ideal foreign vacation.  A modern city, with beautiful
historical sites, great museums, and no language barrier.  If you're trying to be sneaky and hide your vacation in a business trip, you
don't have to go far, or make a great effort, to fit in some tourism in the interstices between meetings.

--
/==============================================================\
|John Stracke    | http://www.ecal.com |My opinions are my own.|
|Chief Scientist |=============================================|
|eCal Corp.      |Illiterate? Write today for free help!       |
[email-masked]|                                             |
\==============================================================/

---

From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 21:22:51 +0100 (BST)

> of a meeting being very high.

I'm sure the amount of local UK and European clue finally able to
attend a meet will more than make up for it.

L.

<[email-masked]>PGP<http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/>

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 15:41:42 -0500

--On Wednesday, 28 March, 2001 10:10 -0800 Dave Crocker
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>...
> If we are serious about trying to optimize the meeting in
> terms of cost, reliability and convenience, we need to choose
> a standard set of extremely convenient (and less expensive)
> locations and then keep using them.

We have, so far, found almost no inexpensive (for some weighting
of meeting-setup and attendee costs) sites outside the US.  And
your thoughts about doing away with invitation/host structures
entirely, regardless of their other merits, would tend to
further increase costs, especially if we use more than a few
sites.  If any international meetings are needed, we rapidly
head into a tradeoff situation not very different, IMO, from the
one we have albeit with a slightly different constraint space.
 
> Re-use reduces learning curve and that reduces problems (and

Total aggregate cost, including aggravation costs, certainly.
Costs as seen by either the meeting organizational process or
the attendees, maybe. 

> As I believe Randy Bush pointed out, the flaw in this analytic
> methodology is that a meeting in the US is an unequal barrier
> to participation from outside the US.  I'm not "voting" for
> changing the current proportion of US/non-US meetings, but do
> feel compelled to note the danger in using history as the
> basis for deciding the future.

When actual costs are considered, the barrier is peculiar, and
neither your oversimplification nor Randy's really work (mine
isn't any better).  At many times of year, it is cheaper for me
to get to London, or Paris, or Frankfurt than to San Jose.
Until intra-European fares started to come down, and maybe
still, it could be cheaper to get from Stockholm to the US than
from Stockholm to many parts of western and central Europe.  

As someone else pointed out, the percentage of US participants
at a non-US meeting probably gives a better clue about how we
should be distributing things than the percentages of non-US
people at a US meeting.  I suggest that, although one could
argue some bias, the statistics get even more interesting if one
discounts "visitor" effects, e.g., counts only people who are on
their second or later IETF meeting or people who come from more
than a few hundred km from the meeting site.  (I don't have
anything against visitors, but, if we wanted to optimize IETF
meetings for drop-in, or wander-in, traffic, it is fairly clear
that we would hold all meetings in San Jose or its close
vicinity.)  And, by any of those weighted or unweighted
statistics, we can't justify more than one meeting a year
outside the US without appeal to social arguments rather than
where the participants are based.

> On the average, IETF decisions are best made when they focus
> on the primary concerns of a situation and not on the
> ever-present mass of other issues.

I agree completely.  But I think that suggests that the present
formulae are probably just about right, at least for the
present.  As I note above, your concerns are lowering dependence
on hosts and sponsorship would, IMO, tend to reinforce, rather
than change, those formulae.   E.g., despite the cold and some
accessibility factors that have been raised on this list lately,
I've favored going back to Minneapolis which, with our third
appearance there, will definitely fall into a category of
convenient and inexpensive locations which we know how to make
work.

     john

---

From: "Kurt D. Zeilenga" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 13:43:16 -0800

At 03:25 PM 3/28/01 -0500, John Stracke wrote:
>Actually, I see what John means; for many Americans, London is pretty much an ideal foreign vacation.

My wife thinks so...  but she is really looking forward to Japan.
But she has no plans on becoming being an IETF "tourist".  :-)

Kurt

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 19:41:43 -0800

At 12:41 PM 3/28/2001, John C Klensin wrote:
>of meeting-setup and attendee costs) sites outside the US.

Apologies.  There's more to balance than the short list of 3 factors I 
cited, since I am in the camp that believes varying continents is entirely 
appropriate.

Basically I suggest separating the debate about continents from the debate 
about facility, equipment, and staff re-use.  That is, choose a limited set 
of venues around the globe and then, separately determine how often visit them.

So, yes, some continents are more/less expensive than others, along with 
variations within continent (such as the notable Kuala Lumpur comments 
being made on the original thread.)

>Total aggregate cost, including aggravation costs, certainly. Costs as 
>seen by either the meeting organizational process or the attendees, maybe.

Seems like both organizers and attendees share the aggravation costs and a 
fair part of the total cost.

Yes, it's true that the host absorbs significant costs and letting a 
sponsor continue to pick up the social, seems fine.

Computer projectors, net access, and some other items appear to be much 
better handled by a consistent set of professionals, and probably with a 
consistent set of equipment.  That's an area of technical risk that made 
sense when the industry was new, but not now.

>At many times of year, it is cheaper for me

Well, San Jose airfare is unpleasantly peculiar on an on-going 
basis.  Surprisingly, San Francisco often is, too.

Balancing airfare, travel time, number of travel hops, etc. etc. is 
definitely great fun, especially when combined with the IETF requirements 
for local facilities, notably more meeting rooms than equivalently-sized 
groups and especially the need for lots of alcoves for private discussions.

>  As I note above, your concerns are lowering dependence

Probably no one place is ideal.  My focus is on the paradigm of facility 
re-use and "self-reliance" for infrastructure services like net 
access.  Details of which places to place on the re-use list are a 
challenge and I'm not particularly criticing Minneapolis.

Having Minneapolis dominated by a single carrier is unfortunate.  The 
restaurant choices around the hotel seemed poor.  Private meeting alcoves 
were mighty scarce.  On the other hand, they have plenty of close, good 
hotels.  The meeting rooms seemed fine (or better than that) and actually 
getting there was dandy.

d/

----------

---

From: "Rahmat M. Samik-Ibrahim" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 10:45:44 +0700

> Australasia and 1 per year in Europe / Africa ?

And, what will be accomplished by this suggestion?
And, what has been accomplished by the "GOER"s on the 
meetings recently anyway?

> America, 2/3 of the meetings should be in North America.

I have no problem with that. But, if 2/3 of 2/3 are from the
bay area, should this rule also apply? What's the point
to have a meeting in a freezer/midwest anyway?

Brian E Carpenter wrote:
> One meeting a year outside the US seems fine to me.

No meeting is fine to me too. Or perhaps parallel meetings
in several region?

Ben Hale wrote:
> Lets hold the meetings in some of the poorer or more 
> developing countries.

What for? The IETF meetings are obviously not "developing 
countries" friendly, and therefore fellows there who are
interested in voluntary work should go somewhere else. 
There are obviously many other voluntary organizations 
that are more color friendly anyway.

> Hmm.  I thought the Internet was for everyone.

Whoa! That is a marketing slogan from the big-pipe
providers (and perhaps big router companies) for 
getting more $$$. No, the internet is only for the 
ones who can afford it and use it.

Joe Aiello wrote:
> What is this Internet thing I keep hearing so much about?

INTERNET= Indomie Telur Kornet (Instant Noodle, Egg, and 
          Corned meat :-).

-- 
Rahmat M. Samik-Ibrahim - VLSM-TJT - http://rms46.vlsm.org
- Blowfish, n (coup d'poisson) --- a secure blow job -----

---

From: Aditya Mohan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 10:01:45 +0530

> >against any urgent need to internationalize meeting locations.

It's not a urgent need, but having the IETF meeting at a certain place
does decide the audience. Not everybody will be ready to spend a
thousand dollars and with 14 hours of in-flight time to attend a meeting
of 14 hours. One would rather stick to his computer and see the online
videos of the meeting and be active on the IETF mailing lists , than
actually attend the same.

I am in favor of having the meeting in different part of the world, and
not just stick to one continent.

- Aditya

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 15:08:26 +0200

>to go to Europe than it is to travel in the US.

strangely, the opposite seems true for us Europeans .-)
at times I have wondered if we pay for the lower price through the jetlag. 
But it is hard to see a real benefit for the airlines from that .-(

actually the cheapest place, hotel-price-wise, to hold IETFs would probably 
be in a tourist trap on the off-season (the Riviera in October, after all 
the bathers have gone home, but before the staff leaves the hotel...)

and the main benefit (to me) of an European IETF is to see the *other* half 
have the jetlag for once.
Apart from the 30 hours I save in travelling time, of course :-)

--
Harald Tveit Alvestrand, [email-masked]
+47 41 44 29 94
Personal email: [email-masked]

---

From: "Donald E. Eastlake 3rd" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 09:40:40 -0500

From:  Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Message-Id:  <[email-masked]>
Date:  Wed, 28 Mar 2001 10:10:29 -0800
To:  [email-masked]
In-Reply-To:  <2224339706.985771850@P2>
References:  <[email-masked]>

>Continued reliance on invitations and hosts ensure several problems.

And some advantages.  Besides, there have been hostless meetings.

>constrains choice and that either increases price or decreases convenience.

While it contrains choice, it does not necessarily increase price or
decrease convenience.  Many large conventions reserve space 5 or 10
years out.  When you get down to 1 year out, facilities that are not
yet reserved are generally desperate and you can frequently negotiate
good deals.

>money or staff at the problem; usually that is sufficient.  With 

These hosts are technical companies.  I'm not involved with the behind
the scenes part of the IETF meeting network.  I'm sure people can find
plenty to complain about but it has always served my needs adequately.
And there seem to be plenty of equipment and service providers willing
to donate in return for a banner sign in the terminal room and a
mention from stage.

>Re-use reduces learning curve and that reduces problems (and cost).

You can also get stuck in a rut where people are afraid of change.
I've also seen facilities that were happy to negotiate a multi-year
(say 3 year) contract for an annual meeting at a good rate because it
was in a dead period and then, at the end of the contract period, have
their Dilbertesque management look just at the revenue record, insist
that it was no longer a dead period due to your multi-year contract,
and make the sales staff ask for a price higher enough to drive you
away.

>history as the basis for deciding the future.

Everything is an unequal barrier including location, dates, language,
etc.  While some efforts to equalize such things are warranted, that
is not the mission of the IETF.

>The rest need to be ignored.

I don't agree. I consider variety of location to be a viture in
itself.

>If we are serious about the issues that cause complaints about IETF meeting 

There will always be complaints.  The fact that there are complaints
does not necessarily imply the need for substantial change.  There are
also compliments.  Given human nature, you need to multiply the
complements by at least 10 before comparing with the complaints.

From my end-user point of view, there has been a substantial trend of
improvement in IETF meeting logistics over the years.  While I don't
think the Secretariate can relax, I see no reason for a change in
direction.

Donald

PS: I've managed facilities for three meetings with attendance of over
5,000 people and a number of smaller meetings so I do know something
of what I'm talking about.

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 09:14:38 -0800

>yet reserved are generally desperate and you can frequently negotiate

What you say sounds entirely logical.  Unfortunately reality intrudes on 
the logic:  we have been burned by the "too little choice" problem more 
than once.

My reference to needing a 2 year advance did not spring from my own 
theories, it was discussed previously (a couple of years ago, or more) and 
was essentially a consensus view.

> >details for a conference.
>
>the scenes part of the IETF meeting network.

Thank you for underscoring the problem:  It exactly demonstrates the 
failure to appreciate the convention-style networking is quite different 
from building products or running services for long-term use.  It is a 
specialty.  Added to that is that the IETF places significant strain on 
many products.

>You can also get stuck in a rut where people are afraid of change.

Worrying about being stuck in a rut is entirely appropriate for an activity 
that benefit from innovation.  Our meetings have had the same style for 
roughly 11 years.  Our biggest change has been to move the plenary from the 
end of the meeting week to Wednesday evening.

Your comment again exactly underscores the problem:  We need to treat these 
3-times-a-year, forever meetings as a utility, not an experiment.

>I don't agree. I consider variety of location to be a viture in

Again I'll apologize for the misstatement.  I also believe that changing 
continents is appropriate.

As to having the specific cities vary, the problem is finding an argument 
that justifies it for the week-long, working IETF event, especially given 
how intense the working activities are.

d/

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