I have some basic observations: - for non North-American, that's too many IETF meetings in North America. The IETF should have a fallback in other places than North American - for non North-Americans, there are different criterias for defining what normality is (I ACK Dave on the other thread for observing this), and the ability the attend a conference and sleep in a different hotel - possibly in tens different hotels for all the attendees - is also something some of us would consider normal. So, it the IETF is unable to secure a location that corresponds to its criterias, I would think that the problem is more lying in the selection criterias established by the IETF rather than the inability for prospective locations to meet these criterias. - if the less dangerous cities where to be chosen, I wonder what is meant by dangerous. Is a city like Paris where you get your wallet stollen more dangerous than a city like Washington or Los Angeles when you might have your ... lafe stollen ? - if the less dangerous city would have to be chosen based on any available metric (life threat or theft threat, or whatever), probably we should consider having meeting in Japan permanently. - when are we going to Dubai ? They have great conference centers, and it's pretty as much accessible from everywhere in the world about a roughly well-balanced average traveling time for everyone including Australia (well, kind of ;-) - it would be nice to know why the prospective locations out of North-America could not be selected. Just informing the IETF community of a non-selection is not sufficient. - I've heard here and there a lot of critics about the American-centric IETF organization. Though I do not subscribe at all to these critics, I do have to recognize that the selection of meeting venues doesn't help to defend our community against such critics. - Budget wise, a trip to North-America costs me significantly more than a trip in Europe (not speaking about the flight cost). And travel wise, I consider the time spent in airplace as a loss of time (OK, I can read drafts, but after a couple of hours packed in economy class, I don't consider this benefical and there is the resulting jet lag). So, we should definitely share the load of the IETF meeting locations. In order to protest, I'm considering not attending one of the forthcoming 3 IETF meetings to be held in North America. Regards, Thierry _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf