Subject: Re: Friday experiment

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2008 13:20:35 -0500

--On Friday, 28 November, 2008 10:49 +0000 Stewart Bryant
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> 
>> Another option would be to run until 1300, that's still early
>> enough  to have lunch but it does give us a 1.5 hour extra
>> timeslot but only  takes that 1.5 hours, not 3.5 like the
>> 1300 - 1500 timeslot so people  with flights at 1700 or even
>> 1600 can possibly attend.
> We could maybe start earlier on Friday as well - say 8am -
> i.e. run 0800 till 1300 with only only a 10 min
> coffee break. That would put nearly 5 hours into the schedule.
> 
> I agree with using the Friday for meetings, but not if  the
> cost is staying over Friday night and maybe not getting home
> until Sunday.

At any given meeting, in any given timezone, that will always be
the cost for some people: meeting on Friday morning equals not
getting home until Saturday morning and possibly not until late
Saturday night or Sunday.  That, to me, is the bottom line --
whether IETF is really important to all of us to justify giving
up two consecutive weekends.

Note that, while there are more exceptions than there used to
be, most flights to the US from Europe leave late morning or
early afternoon.   Allowing a few hours to get to airports and
check in, Friday meetings have to be over rather early in the
day if they are held at all.  The situation is better for
getting from the US to Europe _if_ one is on the US East Coast.
If one is further west on the continent (with San Francisco
being an extreme case) then one is typically back to mid-day
flights.  From Stockholm, there is a mid-morning departure to
New York; anything else I sampled to the US requires a fairly
early-morning departure.

Hiroshima is going to be at least as "interesting": while the
flights from Narita to the US seem to leave late afternoon, one
has to transit from Hiroshima to Narita, either by air (the only
departure I can find is at 0755) or train, again, killing most
of the day.  Flights from Narita to Amsterdam, Frankfurt, and
London (my small, not-random, sample) leave mid-day, with the
same connection issues, i.e., "meet Friday" means "depart
Saturday and arrive Saturday afternoon at best".

I would much rather see the IESG working with WGs to make sure
they do what they are supposed to be doing, which involves most
of their work by email, rather than figuring out how to get more
face time in --whether by big, multi-WG-interim meetings or
longer full IETF meetings.  The place where the latter path
leads is well-known, more participants proportionately for whom
"IETF participant" the the major element of their job
descriptions and less by those who actually design, build, and
operate things.  We have gotten ourselves into a situation in
which, for many ADs, the IESG is their major job commitment for
as long as they serve.  Let's not let that progress to include
the rest of us.

    john

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---

From: Joel Jaeggli <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2008 12:09:27 -0800

> Saturday and arrive Saturday afternoon at best".

While I won't observe to much about the schedule in relation to this I
will say:

As a purely practical matter the Hikari Shinkansen on the Sanyo line
goes from Hiroshima to Osaka in about 90 minutes if I recall, Tokyo if
you want to go that far, is around 2.5 hours from Osaka with NRT being
about 40 minutes from Tokyo stations... however getting to Tokyo is not
the fastest way to leave or enter to country headed to hiroshima.

The Kansai airport KIX is directly accessible from the US as well as
well as many well connected  and some not so well connected European
cities and it's about 20-30 minutes from shin-Osaka.

Given that flights are frequently late but the highspeed rail system
almost never is. I wouldn't bother prepurchasing tickets or padding
interaries, rather I'd just show up and purchase tickets on the fastest
train going in the correct direction. hiroshima shin-osaka non-reserved
is around 4000 yen. by the time you link together the three or so mass
transit options required to get there it should be order of $60-70 each
way unless the dollar drops even further.

---

From: Joel Jaeggli <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2008 12:13:21 -0800

Joel Jaeggli wrote:

> hiroshima shin-osaka non-reserved
> is around 4000 yen.

One correction, I was on a rail pass the last time. it is ~5400 without one.

---

From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2008 12:37:09 -0800 (PST)

Here is a link to an English-language travel planner that you can use 
to check train times, prices and duration:

http://www.hyperdia.com/cgi-english/hyperWeb.cgi?

Enter, for example, Tokyo as the starting point and Hiroshima as the
destination, in the next step set your departure time, type of fair
(the name for First Class is "Green seat"). I came down from Tokyo
to Hiroshima yesterday on the first Nozomi (fastest express) of the
day. It left Tokyo at 06:00 and arrived here at 09:47, which isn't
bad for 894.2km. 

We will be working with the Japan Travel Bureau (JTB) to allow you
to book a hotel room in Tokyo (even at Narita itself) if you need to
on your way in or out of the country. The main obstacle is that the 
Shinkansen stops running at midnight at the DESTINATION so to get to
Hiroshima from Tokyo, say, you'd have to leave Tokyo before 8pm. That 
should be doable for most flights into Narita, but as Joel says, 
flying into Kansai is much better, assuming the sagging economy does
not do away with flights to Kansai as well.

There will be much more info about this on a website that I am working 
on and also on the local IETF 76 website which is also under 
construction.

Ole

Ole J. Jacobsen
Editor and Publisher,  The Internet Protocol Journal
Cisco Systems
Tel: +1 408-527-8972   Mobile: +1 415-370-4628
E-mail: [email-masked]  URL: http://www.cisco.com/ipj

---

From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2008 22:05:15 +0100

> up two consecutive weekends.

Personally, I'm not too worried about the lost weekend, but the issue  
with flying on saturday and arriving on sunday is that it doesn't  
allow for any time zone adjustment before the new week begins.

But like I said, the meeting slots won't be popular because fewer  
people will show up. But at least with a friday slot there is the  
OPTION to stay for those who care enough, or aren't particularly  
inconvenienced, when sessions are scheduled at the same time no such  
option exists. And scheduling conflicts have been an ongoing issue for  
me.

Since many people leave thursday or friday early anyway, there is only  
a relatively small difference between the number of people attending  
friday afternoons vs friday mornings so I don't think the reduced ease  
of flight scheduling can be definitive argument against partial friday  
afternoons.

> early afternoon.

Didn't we have this same discussion earlier this year?

There are options from San Francisco to Europe at 1530, 1625, 1730 and  
2000.

 From Stockholm to the US west coast it's a different story: no point  
in leaving after ~1300 because then the travel time gets much longer,  
may as well stay the extra day. Within Europe the options are very  
limited as well. I guess we should meet in London, Frankfurt,  
Amsterdam or Paris, that makes things a lot easier.

> of their work by email

They already do that. It doesn't seem to reduce the need for timeslots.
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From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2008 22:11:51 +0100

> not do away with flights to Kansai as well.

Hm, seems like we could try another experiment for the Hiroshima  
meeting: chartering five or so planes to bring IETF'ers from major  
American and European hubs to Hiroshima and back... I wonder how many  
commitments it would take to make it feasible and how many to make it  
competitive.
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From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2008 16:19:24 -0500

--On Friday, 28 November, 2008 22:11 +0100 Iljitsch van Beijnum
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>> flying into Kansai is much better, assuming the sagging
>> economy does not do away with flights to Kansai as well.
> 
> Hm, seems like we could try another experiment for the
> Hiroshima meeting: chartering five or so planes to bring
> IETF'ers from major American and European hubs to Hiroshima
> and back... I wonder how many commitments it would take to
> make it feasible and how many to make it competitive.

That, of course, would create another argument against Friday
(and against meetings starting the previous Saturday) -- making
charters competitive would require that most of us arrive and
leave at the same time.

   john

---

From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2008 22:44:16 +0100

On 28 nov 2008, at 22:19, John C Klensin wrote:

>> chartering five or so planes to bring

> charters competitive would require that most of us arrive and

No problem, just have the pre- and post meeting meetings on the plane!

Iljitsch

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2008 20:23:41 -0500

>>>>> "John" == John C Klensin <[email-masked]> writes:
    John> flights from Narita to the US seem to leave late afternoon,
    John> one has to transit from Hiroshima to Narita, either by air
    John> (the only departure I can find is at 0755) or train, again,
    John> killing most of the day.  Flights from Narita to Amsterdam,
    John> Frankfurt, and London (my small, not-random, sample) leave
    John> mid-day, with the same connection issues, i.e., "meet Friday"
    John> means "depart Saturday and arrive Saturday afternoon at best".

  Last time, they had IPv6 on the train.
  If we all have to go from Hiroshima to Narita by train... can we
just... well... have the Friday meeting on the train?

  :-)

-- 
]       ON HUMILITY: to err is human. To moo, bovine.           |  firewalls  [
]   Michael Richardson, Sandelman Software Works, Ottawa, ON    |net architect[
] [email-masked] http://www.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca/ |device driver[
] panic("Just another Debian GNU/Linux using, kernel hacking, security guy"); [
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From: Joel Jaeggli <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2008 03:27:34 -0800

> just... well... have the Friday meeting on the train?

Normally, when I need to go to New York for a meetingI don't fly into
Detroit and take the train...

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2008 13:15:23 +0100

John C Klensin wrote:
> ...
> ...

Big +1

I think it would be good to finally enforce the rules for agenda 
submissions. For instance, if no agenda for a meeting is published in 
time, the meeting shouldn't take place.

BR, Julian

---

From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2008 14:10:07 +0100

On 29 nov 2008, at 13:15, Julian Reschke wrote:

> submissions. For instance, if no agenda for a meeting is published  
> in time, the meeting shouldn't take place.

Yes, that will solve all our problems.
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