Thanks John. Replied with some more thoughts on this to eodir... On Sun, Sep 22, 2024 at 10:06:36AM -0400, John C Klensin wrote: > > > --On Sunday, 22 September, 2024 10:01 +0200 Vittorio Bertola > <vittorio.bertola=40open-xchange.com@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > >> Il 22/09/2024 04:51 CEST George Michaelson <ggm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> > >> ha scritto: > >> > >> > >> Flight cost for most of Asia to Beijing is probably 1/2 to > >> 1/3 of Australia. Plus, masses of Chinese will come. > >> > >> I would expect Beijing to have less core 5+ ietf attendees > >> and more newcomers and to probably break even. > >> > >> No disagreement with much of what you say but I think > >> assuming it will be like Brisbane is a mistake. > >> > > In the end, we all know what the conditions in China are, and > > that most regulars from North America and many from Europe > > wouldn't attend in person, but there would be a lot of Chinese > > newcomers and this meeting would support the second biggest > > IETF community by country. Whether we want to have such a > > meeting is a "political" decision (you can remove the quotes > > if you like) to be taken by weighing the pros and cons. > > Among the pros, I see the fact that this meeting would counter > > the claims by non-Western-bloc governments that the Internet > > is currently controlled by the West and biased in its favour, > > and that its governance, and maybe its architecture, have to > > change to accommodate the rest of the world, at least if the > > claim that "there is a single global Internet" should stand. I > > think this could be worth sacrificing some participation. But > > again, I am an engineer that moved to the dark side and > > started doing policy a long time ago, so YMMV. > > One small bit of calibration (or maybe disagreement). We often > lump two groups together under the "newcomers" label. One group > consists of people who interested in the IETF's substantive > technical work and who are reasonably likely to become active > contributors in the future. The other group is characterized by > people who would be interested in attending a meeting to learn a > bit about what the IETF does and/or how works, but for whom the > odds turning into of long-term, substantive (and probably > technical) contributions in the future are very low. > > If we say "lots of newcomers", it should be clear which group we > are talking about because, whether we want to retain the first > group or educate the second, our orientation, "guide" program, > and other support arrangements should be quite different in > order to be successful. We should also note ISOC's program to > identify potentially significant members of the second group and > bring them to the IETF, rather than bringing the IETF to them > --including understanding what was successful about it and what > aspects deteriorated, e.g., into a "come to the zoo and see the > geeks in action and at play" effort. > > Just my personal opinion as someone who arguably started closer > to the policy side but was then drawn increasingly into > technical work, but, if we think in person attendance by active > participants makes the IETF more effective in its work, then > sacrificing that kind of attendance to get more "newcomers" of > the second group is not a good tradeoff. In addition, drawing > from both the experience of the last Beijing meeting and Ole's > and John Levine's comments, the first-time people we see may be > sufficiently vetted by the government to be sure they won't be > the source of what the government considers trouble that the > first-time attendance figures might not be as high as some are > predicting. > > I would, of course, by happy to be wrong about of all of the > above and to see 100 newcomers show up and have 75 of them as > active and constructive contributors (even if remote) three > years from now. However... > > john > > > -- --- tte@xxxxxxxxx
