> There is no objective way to identify 'primary contributors' other than by > assuming the regular attendees are also contributors. This is simply silly. It's not much of a secret, in any WG, who does the work and who comes to listen. > We've tried looking at how many local first-time attendees from (say) > Korea later became regular attendees but the data are hard to state in any > meaningful way and the time constants are long (years). This is a somewhat round-about way of saying that you have no data to support your position. > We certainly know that going a long way from most places, > as we did in Adelaide, impacts attendance significantly - > but my recollection is that Adelaide was a very successful > meeting in terms of WGs making progress. Obviously recollections differ. By scattering meetings all over the world, with no consideration of the average travel time, you encourage the creation of a class of professional standards-meeting-attenders, which is just the opposite of what is wanted. > income [from local participants] that we badly need. Well, this is the first I've heard that we want to maximize the number of people who come to listen rather than to work. Everything I've ever heard in the past suggested the opposite. If we now want to maximize the number of passive attendees, I'm sure we can find a way to do it without scattering the meetings all around the world. _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf