Brian, This expectation is exactly what is inappropriate if IETF wants to attract pointed experts in a subject to contribute to a specific activity. Often they can't afford or justify to attend a week of other unrelated (even if interesting) discussions. Numbers have privately confirmed that they also see it as a major hinderance to participation and growth of IETF in some areas. BTW the tao is clear that agenda may change not to what extent. Common sense should prevail. One might argue that adding slots or movimng days is an unreasonable change. Extending meetings when agreed by participants would be much more acceptable. Eventually, I have noted and be told in several private notes that indeed this expectation of participation to the whole meeting has been questioned repeatedly and never addressed. I have been told that whatever worth is the argument the IETF will not care and will not act. It looks like it so far... But I hope that this is not true and that IETF caters to the issues raised by its community and can adapt to changes when warranted. I have not seen a discussion of pros and cons solely a statement that it's always been like that and loosely stated as a foundamental assumption that if you do not come the whole week, well too bad. That's not the way to address this. So I hope we will get a bit more constructive. Cheers. Stephane _____ Stephane H. Maes, PhD, Director of Architecture - Mobile, Oracle Corporation. Ph: +1-203-300-7786 (mobile/SMS); Fax / UM: +1-650-607-6296. e-mail: stephane.maes@xxxxxxxxxx IM: shmaes (AIM, Y!) or stephane_maes@xxxxxxxxxxx (MSN Messenger) -----Original Message----- From: ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx <ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx> To: ietf@xxxxxxxx <ietf@xxxxxxxx> Sent: Sun Nov 07 14:07:51 2004 Subject: Re: FW: [Inquiry #19085] Issue with Meeting Schedule change at the last moment I haven't really see anyone state clearly what has always been my understanding of this issue. The IETF meeting starts Monday morning and ends Friday lunchtime. We hold all the WG and BOF sessions in one place because synergy and cross-fertilization between WGs is necessary to achieve a reasonably consistent Internet. The intention is that everybody stays for 4.5 days and takes an active part in multiple WGs and BOFs. Parachuting in for one WG is simply not effective, since we need to understand and resolve conflicting issues between WGs. In that context, late agenda changes in order to minimize clashes are common events. (This is made fairly clear in the Tao of the IETF, which is more or less required reading for newcomers: http://www.ietf.org/tao.html#2 .) Brian _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf