Dear Lars and IESG colleagues,
Thank you for your consideration and for addressing the points we raised in our appeal. We believe that this addresses the issues we raised, and that the appeal is thus resolved.
best regards,
Ted Hardie and Alan Frindell
On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 7:58 AM Lars Eggert <lars@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Dear Ted and Alan,
the IESG has reviewed your appeal from July 19, 2023 of the current January 27, 2023 IESG statement the update of the IESG statement on "Guidance on In-Person and Online Interim Meetings" published on January 27, 2023 [1]. The appeal is available in full at [2].
Your requested remedies were:
1. To revert the text of the IESG statement in question [1] to the previous version published on May 1, 2020 [3].
2. To bring a proposal for updated procedures on interim meetings to the community in an appropriate venue.
After investigation and consideration, including a discussion with you during the IETF 117 meeting, the IESG decided to address the first point of the appeal by further revising the IESG statement published on January 27, 2023 [1], rather than reverting to the May 1, 2020 version [3]. This latest revision of the IESG statement published on August 14, 2023 [4] had already been under preparation and rolls in a number of other clarifications and changes, in addition to addressing the points raised in the appeal.
On the second point of the appeal, the IESG hopes that publishing the revised guidance [4] immediately gives Working Groups the benefit of planning upcoming interim meetings in light of the new clarified guidance. At the same time, the community may make further suggestions to the IESG on the contents of the latest version of the IESG statement on interim meetings. Suggestions for further changes or clarifications may be made to the IESG directly (iesg@xxxxxxxx) or on another suitable mailing list.
The IESG hopes that this response is clear and addresses the concerns you raised in your appeal. Thank you for raising some important points that needed to be reconsidered.
Thanks,
Lars Eggert
IETF Chair
[1] https://www.ietf.org/about/groups/iesg/statements/interim-meetings-guidance-2023-01-27/
[2] https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf/8RyNtAqzLIREyFIGAffyjVo5u54/
[3] https://www.ietf.org/about/groups/iesg/statements/interim-meetings-guidance-2020-05-01/
[2] https://www.ietf.org/about/groups/iesg/statements/interim-meetings-guidance/
On Jul 19, 2023, at 17:17, Ted Hardie <ted.ietf@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Dear IESG,
>
> The undersigned write to appeal the current Guidance on in-Person and Online meetings (https://www.ietf.org/about/groups/iesg/statements/interim-meetings-guidance/).
>
> Remedy requested:
>
> The current guidance should be reverted to the previous guidance and a proposal for updated procedures brought to the community in an appropriate venue. MTGVENUE seems like an appropriate place to discuss this, but a new list or other designated venue would be fine.
>
> Background:
>
> The MoQ working group chairs requested the Secretariat to provide letters of invitation for an interim meeting to be held in Seattle, Washington in January of 2023. The Secretariat referred the matter to the IESG, which failed to render a timely decision; it eventually instructed the Secretariat to decline, but at a time so late that the decision had long been moot.
>
> The IESG then promulgated the updated guidance on January 27th of 2023. While members of the IESG have stated that they believe that this was a clarification of existing guidance, issues were raised with the language as early as January 29th of 2023. Among the most serious of these concerns is the following text:
>
> "If invitation letters are required for visa purposes, the host of the meeting needs to be able to issue those to all interested in-person participants."
>
> This fails to recognize that interim meetings may take place without a host, and it binds those with a host to making a significant legal commitment which may not be possible (e.g. if an "interested in-person participant" comes from a country under sanction by the host's jurisdiction).
>
> There are other issues with the text, among them its failure to recognize that "in-person" meetings are now by default hybrid, with full support of MeetEcho or similar facilities. There is an additional ambiguity in this text: "The proposed meeting venue should also be accessible without participants needing to sign non-disclosure-agreements (NDAs) or similar agreements." as it is not clear on whether agreeing to abide by a code of conduct at a venue is a "similar agreement".
>
> These issues were raised again at the plenary of IETF 116, and the IESG agreed at the time to bring it back to the community after discussion at their retreat in May of 2023 (see https://youtu.be/LRRMKm4tXIc?t=6140 for Lars agreeing that after the retreat the IESG would bring it to the community).
>
> The IESG has not brought it back to the community. When a private request for clarification was made to the IESG, the response given was that it had been discussed but that the IESG intends to promulgate a new set of guidelines without community discussion.
>
> The undersigned believe that this is both contrary to their public commitment and contrary to the interests of the community. The choice of the community to carry out a working group process and publish an RFC on meeting venue guidance is a strong indication that meeting mechanics are a topic where community input is required. RFC 8718 has nuanced guidance on some aspects of this, and the IESG guidance in the document cited above does not, in the opinion of the undersigned, follow its guidance in considering trade-offs. A conversation with the community on why this should be different seems warranted.
>
> Thank you for your attention and we look forward to a resolution of this matter and a public conversation on a proposed updated set of guidelines.
>
> best regards,
>
> Ted Hardie
> Alan Frindell
