Subject: Re: IETF Meeting Venue Selection Criteria

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2005 05:07:19 +0300

Eliot,

I've talked to quite a few folks that have been unable to attend meetings in the US because of visa issues. Some consideration is needed for these reasons. Also, the delay in getting future meetings listed has just made the situation worse. I do think some of this discussion has been overkill, but a general document on selection criteria for future IETF meetings, without RFC 2026 language could be a good thing.

John

--- original message ---
Subject:	Re: IETF Meeting Venue Selection Criteria
Sender:	Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date:		10/18/2005 4:27 AM

Avri Doria wrote:
> Hi,
Forgive me Avri and Jordi, but why?

I've been going to IETF meetings since 1988 and I really can't remember 
the Secretariat fouling it up.  Did I miss a problem?  Could people not 
get to France or Minnesota?  Is this something we really need to do?

Eliot

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---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2005 07:47:09 +0200

John,

> I've talked to quite a few folks that have been unable to attend meetings in the US because of visa issues. 

Is it your or other people's position that we should no longer have 
meetings in the U.S.?  If not, what's the practical benefit of the 
guidance?  If so, we should go back to the chair's poll on just how many 
participants we would lose.

Is it your or other people's belief that this document will cause venues 
to be booked more in advance?  If so, on what do you base this belief?

My point: I think we've got requirements on the brain, engineers that we 
are.

Eliot

---

From: Eric Rosen <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2005 09:04:21 -0400

I find this  whole discussion to be  nothing but an attempt by  some to push
their personal political views and  preferences down the throats of everyone
else.  

I don't think there should be any political preconditions on the IETF venue.
If we  are going  to start requiring  that the  host country be  governed in
accordance to  our own political views,  I have quite a  few preconditions I
could offer, but they're quite different from the ones Avri offered.

Further, if we're going to select  host countries based on how convenient or
inconvenient it is to enter  that country, the preference should be weighted
by  the  number of  attendees  (or  even better,  by  the  number of  active
contributors), so that we don't eliminate venues which are convenient to the
many but inconvenient to the few.

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 10:51:37 +0200

Eric Rosen wrote:
...
> I don't think there should be any political preconditions on the IETF venue.

The issue is whether the IETF can hold an effective meeting in
a given location. We need to refine the guidelines on that basis.

> many but inconvenient to the few.  

Unfortunately, that won't help us broaden IETF participation to bring
in people from countries that currently don't have many participants. On the
contrary, it will tend to freeze our participation profile where it is
today. On a long term basis, that would not be good for the IETF, IMHO.

    Brian

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 11:08:36 -0700

Brian,

> today. On a long term basis, that would not be good for the IETF, IMHO.

Worrying about expanding the diversity of participation in IETF meetings 
made quite a lot of sense when the IETF was initially expanding, along 
with global adoption of the Internet's technology.

It is far less clear why that is a significant factor in current venue 
choices. 

Productivity of working groups would seem to be far, far more important.

An implication of this is that a venue which gets lots of local 
participation, but which winds up getting LESS participation among the 
primary contributors to working groups, would be a poor choice.

Statistics about attendance seem to focus on total numbers, rather than 
participation by primary contributors.

d/

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 07:13:44 -0700

> I've talked to quite a few folks that have been unable to attend meetings in the US because of visa issues. Some consideration is needed for these reasons. Also, the delay in getting future meetings listed has just made the situation worse. 

Failure to publish venue logistics details at least 18 months in advance 
-- as it more typical for major international events  -- causes a 
variety of problems.  However the implications of requiring locking it 
down that far ahead has never been deemed a requirement.

d/