We could also simply tell everyone please take one pastry in the first half of the breakfast hour or one cookie in the first half of the "cookie time". I would hope (but maybe this is naive) that if people realize that the food is not infinite they will leave some for their peers. I think issueing tickets would be ridiculous. Taking drinks for non-local consumption is another issue. I have to admit, I like to take a bottle of water to drink in the meeting room. Some hotels put water in the room. Some don't. We do need to have drinking water but it doesn't have to be bottled in most places. The cost of food should not be blown out of proportion. If one counts airfare, hotel, food (lunch & dinner), and the value of time at the meeting (don't forget the time preparing for the meeting), IETF attendance is not cheap and the meeting fee is usually a minor part of the total cost unless it is a local meeting. We might try foregoing or limiting the cookies which would probably increase the life expectancy of the attendees but somehow I doubt this will be a popular suggestion. :-) In Paris, we switched to a late dinner which was necessary in Paris but we did this in Dallas. Was this a general decision that I missed? I prefer dinner from 6 - 8 and a night session where the local customs support this. This might also cut down the need for afternoon sugar consumption. Steve Silverman > -----Original Message----- > From: Spencer Dawkins [mailto:spencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] > Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2006 10:07 AM > To: ietf@xxxxxxxx > Subject: Re: About cookies and refreshments cost and abuse > > > ... warning, this thread involves "geeks trying to > understand the real > world" ... > > My impression (from inside the hotel in Dallas) was that > enough people had > travel problems coming into Dallas, which included "travel problems > returning from dinner in the West End to the hotel on > Sunday", that even > knowing how many people had signed up for breakfast before > the deluge > started wouldn't have helped that much. There were people > who were "staying > at the conference hotel" who couldn't even get to the > conference hotel. I > suspect, without knowing, that the adjusted estimates were > lagging new > arrivals by about one break for most of Monday and Tuesday. > ... > I thought the same thing about Jordi's suggestion initially > - "who would > collect the tickets?", but his explanation ("no one, just > the expectation > that people put down a ticket when they pick something up") > helped. If this > could be tried for the price of five or six spools of > "admit one" tickets at > a wholesale store, maybe it's worth doing. > > .. but suggestions like this can now usefully go to > iad@xxxxxxxx, without > setting off cookie discussions on this list... > > Thanks, > > Spencer > > > > Hi JORDI, > > > > --On March 23, 2006 5:32:29 PM -0600 JORDI PALET MARTINEZ > > <jordi.palet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > >> So my suggestion to be reasonable and fair to all, will > be to provide > >> together with our registration pack, a given number of > refreshment > >> tickets, enough to cover the average needs. > > > > The problem with tickets is who do you get to collect > them? Presumably > > this would have to be hotel staff - at which point the >... _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf