--On Tuesday, October 25, 2011 10:19 -0700 Fred Baker
<fred@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Oct 25, 2011, at 8:55 AM, Ping Pan wrote:
>
>> the original issue remains: please make IETF meetings easier
>> and cheaper for us to go to. ;-)
>
> I think that a lot of people would like that. There are a
> number of problems that need to be solved to make them cheaper
> to attend.
>
> One is the issue of air fare and hotel cost; these have been
> brought up before. 25 years ago, all meetings were in the US,
> as were most of the participants. People came from Europe and
> Australia at significantly greater cost, but for the average
> attendee, putting all meetings in the US reduced meeting cost.
> It's now 25 years later, and that logic doesn't remotely start
> to work.
>...
Ok, Fred, let me enter one suggestion into this discussion that
would actually cut total costs, recognize and take advantage of
the observation that an increasing number of WGs are holding
virtual interim meetings, and reduce pressures on meeting time
conflicts and trying to get everything done in 4 3/4 days.
Eliminate one of the face to face meetings entirely -- go to two
a year and either hold the 4 3/4 day schedule or, better cut it
back to four. Don't let any WG meet at those f2f meetings
unless it can demonstrate to the relevant AD that significant
progress has been made, via virtual interim meetings and posted
drafts, during the previous six months. No interim meetings, no
drafts between full IETF meetings equals no meeting time (and a
lot of risk of being shut down as useless).
This wouldn't come for nothing. We'd have to get much more
serious about interim meetings and adequate documentation and
tracking. We've have to rethink our financial model (at least
the part ISOC doesn't cover) so that it didn't depend almost
entirely on getting the maximum number of people to travel to
f2f meetings three times a year. We'd have to make a real
commitment to remote participation between full meetings --
possibly covered by the requirements and tools the RFP
contemplates, possibly not. ADs would have to think very
carefully about what they need to watch and how... and about
adjusting the roles of WG Chairs they couldn't trust to do most
things without anyone looking over their shoulders. Nomcom
schedules and many other things that depend on three full, f2f,
meetings a year would need to be reevaluated.
It is probably more change to our culture and how we do things
than anyone is actually willing to consider. But the other way
to read your note --with which I almost entirely agree-- is
that, if one wants to see real savings, one has to change the
equation, not just diddle around with tuning some of the
parameters. I continue to think we could do better with
location and cost tradeoffs, but probably not hugely better.
Simply reducing the number of times per year we need to have
large numbers of participants fly long distances, put them into
hotels and conference centers, etc., actually changes the
equation.
john
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