--On Wednesday, June 3, 2020 14:51 -0400 Christopher Morrow <morrowc.lists@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Tue, Jun 2, 2020 at 8:30 PM George Michaelson > <ggm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> >> My only concern is that the ESTA/CBP barriers to entry for >> IETF participants who have travel issues to the USA remain. >> We are in effect normalising US foreign policy discrimination >> against IETF participation F2F > > It seems that putting a meeting back in the US is really not > something the IETF should do... not until the current problems > (virus, <internal strife>, external restrictions> are fixed... > I don't think we(ietf) should be concerned about the potential > loss on the SF site deposits/etc... Apologies in advance between some of the following might be a rant. However, July 2023 is almost 3 1/2 years from now (although IETF 111 is much closer). Maybe, by then, the US will be in the middle of a full-fledged civil war, there will be a big earthquake and San Francisco will have slipped into the Pacific, or there might be another COVID-19 wave and San Francisco might shut down completely again. I'd rate the odds of any of those as quite low but predicting the future is hard and you may have skills in that area that I lack. Similarly, a different big earthquake might sweep Vancouver into the Pacific, there might be another violent revolution in Bangkok, the situation in Catalonia might lead to a dangerous level of street fighting in Madrid (or there might be a second wave of COVID-19 and Spain might shut down completely again), or another round of border closures might make travel to parts of Europe (including either Prague, Madrid, or both) impractical for selected people outside and/or inside Europe. The last I checked, it wasn't real easy for most international travelers to get into Australia or New Zealand either. If you want to use the present to predict things several years out, I think planning a meeting in Libya, Syria, parts of The Ukraine, etc., would be a bad idea, but I note none of them are on the future meeting list. If any of those catastrophic events occurs between now and the meeting at a place were we are schedule to go, the LLC will just need to cope. I'd think it would be close to dereliction of duty on their part to not be thinking about contingency plans for all future meetings (not just US ones) right now (and for those plans for IETF 109 to already be fairly well developed). Maybe a bad result from the November US elections and its aftermath should trigger some of those plans (and, given that political commentary is excluded as a site selection criterion, I'll leave the definition of "bad result" to the reader). However, one thing seems almost certain to me from the various numbers that have been posted or pointed to in the last several days, with no requirement for accurate interpretation of crystal balls, reading omens, etc.: if we blow off any of the three currently-scheduled US meetings without either reasons that impress insurance companies or involve arrangements with the facilities (most likely ones that allow deferral and rescheduling, not complete cancellation), it will hit the bottom line unless the LLC can identify additional donors who are willing to cough up a significant fraction of USD 1M per meeting cancelled. And, unless we significantly change how we do business and maybe even if we do, "hits the bottom line" is almost certain to go straight to significant increases in the registration fees. I have no way to prove it, but I'm much more confident that such increases will decrease participation in general and the diversity of perspectives among those who participate than I am about the state of various problems several years out. Do I like the current political situation in the US and its impacts? I hope it is obvious that the answer is "no". But we put the LLC together, signed off on the Exec Dir job description, and agreed to a different model for site selection in order that they could sort out these kinds of issues. IMO, it is not helpful for us to try to second-guess them at this level of detail or based on speculation about what is or is not possible in the future unless we think we have facts that they didn't or didn't consider. I do believe that continued community work on the conditions for canceling a meeting is in order. I also believe that we should insist that the LLC assure us that there are sufficient contingency planning efforts in progress that we never again hear "we had to do X without asking for community input because it was an emergency and there was no time" (maybe more on that if I decide to post a note I've been sitting on for a few days). best, john
