Melinda, When I said "the ietf thinks" I reefer about the consciousness of the IETF as a group. I disagree with you about meeting location as a factor "openness". I think that it is an important one to consider. Language is another, but I am not going there now. Regards, as On 10/11/2012 14:51, Melinda Shore wrote: > On 11/10/2012 5:35 AM, Arturo Servin wrote: >> It's not bitching, it self criticism. I think that the IETF thinks >> that it is very open but in reality it could do better. > > I'm not sure the IETF can "think" anything, but openness is > an institutional value and goal, and we're sometimes more > successful and sometimes less. That said, I find it a little > difficult to believe that meeting location is a particularly > significant contributor to meeting openness objectives. I'd > agree that face-to-face meetings have become more important > to IETF process than they probably should be, but I think it's > still probably the case that you can be a significant > contributor without actually attending a meeting. > > I think that we haven't done a sufficiently good job of > acculturating newer participants and that can probably make > the organization look more opaque and closed than it actually > is. Most (but not all) working groups don't have enough help > with document review, and I think that's probably the fast > path to agency within the IETF. Being a body in a chair at a > meeting is not. > > Melinda >