Eric, In an interestingly twisted sort of way, the people who come to listen usually cause fewer delays than many of the people who come to work. Listeners ask questions - which can be annoying - but otherwise does not actively block progress. Those who come to work on stuff, need to align their agendas in order to avoid active blocking of the effort's progress. Agenda alignment can be tough, given that every single person intending to work on something believes that their's is the correct agenda. -- Eric Gray --> -----Original Message----- --> From: ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx --> [mailto:ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of --> Eric Rosen --> Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2005 9:01 AM --> To: Brian E Carpenter --> Cc: dcrocker@xxxxxxxx; ietf@xxxxxxxx --> Subject: Re: IETF Meeting Venue Selection Criteria --> --> --> --> > 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 mailing list --> Ietf@xxxxxxxx --> https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf --> _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf