On Jul 10, 2013, at 2:17 PM, Josh Howlett <Josh.Howlett@xxxxxx> wrote: >>> Day passes have nothing to do with it. >> >> I disagree. Day passes encourage the notion that it's normal to >> parachute into the IETF to attend a single session. I think that the >> IETF's strength is that we don't totally compartmentalise work items. > > I am perplexed that there is, on the one hand, a (valid, IMHO) concern > about increasing IETF diversity & participation, when there appears to be > an active policy of discouraging potential participants who simply wish to > get work done in some specific sessions. Superficially, it would seem that > making participation more flexible and affordable might help to improve > diversity & participation. > > Josh. Dear Josh, I agree. A single day fee should also be considered in conjunction with the increased status of remote participation underwritten by a much smaller remote meeting fee. It seems there is a general reluctance to consider schemes aimed at capturing face-to-face meetings in a realtime fashion permitting moderated realtime interaction with selected network entities. Experiments with things like WebEx and others involve a fair amount of network resources or they offer poor results. An audio/video bridge suitable for many simultaneous participants is difficult to solve in a generic manner. The real question is simultaneous participation in conjunction with telephone bridges really necessary? Setting up a dedicated low cost device to manage video projectors, microphones, and PA systems for a single moderated inbound access should supplant much of the complexity. By not permitting multiple video/audio sources and requiring presentation being available in the cloud prior to the meetings, issues of distribution and audio quality are removed. Such an approach will necessitate greater meeting discipline to ensure only those at an active microphone are recognized, and that presenters both local and remote are permitted control of their presentation. Developing this approach would offer a number of benefits extending well beyond that of the IETF since this is a common problem. Much of the ongoing work related to HTML5 facilitate standardizing the needed APIs. There are many fairly powerful systems using dual core Atom processors available well below $300. These systems should be able to handle audio using USB adapters and source video presentations accessed from the cloud. A fallback operation should be able to carry meetings forward completely from the cloud "as if" moderators and participants were present locally. In other words, treat loss of the Internet at the venue as being equivalent to being denied access to the physical venue and include this requirement in venue arrangements. Those traveling thousands of miles already confront many uncertainties. Those that elect to participate remotely should be afforded greater certainty of being able to participate when problems occur at local venues or with transportation. Increasing participation without the expense of the brick and mortar and travel should offer long term benefits and increased fairness. Regards, Douglas Otis