----- Original Message ----- From: "Iljitsch van Beijnum" <iljitsch@xxxxxxxxx> To: "Olaf Kolkman" <olaf@xxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: "IETF-Discussion list" <ietf@xxxxxxxx> Sent: Monday, August 30, 2010 10:33 PM > On 30 aug 2010, at 21:57, Olaf Kolkman wrote: > > > If you want to be fair to the individual participants you have to optimize in such a way that attending 6 meetings costs the same for every individual that regularly attends the IETF. Obviously one can only approximate that by putting fairly large error bars on the costs but isn't the X-Y-Z distribution where X= approx Y= approx Z the closest optimum? (or finding one place that sucks equally for everybody) > > > Am I missing something? > > Yes. > > Optimizing for min(X+Y+Z) WITH the constraint X=Y=Z is almost certainly going to produce a higher X+Y+Z than without that constraint. In other words, if you want to be fair the total expense for the entire community will be larger. > > Contrary to popular belief, distance is not the most important factor in travel expenses. My flight from Madrid to Dublin cost almost what I paid to fly from Amsterdam to Minneapolis a few years before. Hotel rates have a much bigger impact, especially now that the official IETF hotels seem to be getting more expensive every time we meet. I agree about the distance. I see America as the travel industry's equivalent of the sociometric star, and would happily go for 6:0:0 since it is travel costs that dictate my presence (usually absence:-( By contrast, almost anywhere in Europe is more expensive to get to (from the UK). Tom Petch > _______________________________________________ > Ietf mailing list > Ietf@xxxxxxxx > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf