--On Monday, August 01, 2011 19:02 -0400 Margaret Wasserman
<mrw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>...
> If we don't want to hold meetings on Friday afternoons due to
> conflicts, I'd much rather see us eliminate one of the
> plenaries and hold meetings during that time slot.
Margaret,
FWIW, I personally think the plenaries have enough value, if
only as potential checks on the leadership, that I'd hate to see
one or both go. I even think their substantive content is
occasionally helpful.
However, my main purpose in responding to the above is to advise
that you Be careful what you wish for. I suggest that, until
we start pushing back aggressively on requests for meeting slots
(or, if necessary, on new WG requests), the number of slots that
are asked for will always expand to fill (or nearly fill) the
number of slots available. The IESG has concluded that it is ok
to have three meeting slots on Fridays. If we eliminate a
plenary to open up one or two more slots and use those slots to
stop using the Friday afternoon ones, I suggest that it will be
only a matter of time before we have enough demand for slots
that we expand back into the Friday afternoon times, retaining
the slots that eliminate the plenary.
If we really want to eliminate the Friday afternoon slots, then
we should eliminate those slots, ratcheting up the criteria for
getting meeting time to the point that we don't need them.
Whether or not we need two plenaries (or one or zero or three)
is almost independent of thet, even though we could get some
short-term relief. Given the amount of burnout I often see by
Friday, simply dropping the afternoon sessions is my personal
favored solution.
If we want to keep the Friday afternoon slots, or keep the
number of slots that Friday afternoon gives us, then compressing
the day make sense to me. Doing that compression according to
the suggestion has disadvantages --both those you cite and
others. But maybe modifying the proposal to include a short
beverage and cookie break around 11:30 would make sense. Maybe
there are other ideas too. But I think the trends are very
clear and that, in the long run, eliminating a plenary would
"buy" an extra slot or two (and another very long and exhausting
day) but would not improve the Friday situation.
john
_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
Ietf@xxxxxxxx
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf