On 8/11/2014 2:35 PM, Lou Berger wrote: > Which, of course, just highlights how broken this survey process is. > I'd love to see the responses weighted by *any* metric of contribution > to IETF work product, i.e., RFCs... Or for that matter just kill the > idea that such surveys have any real benefit to the IETF. (That is other > than to justify IETF tourism.) That won't help. Most real contributors are well-funded. Their biases are the same as other well-funded participants. > Perhaps it's time for an RFC on the role of beauty contests in judging > IETF consensus... Unfortunately a serious treatment of that issue requires a) discussing meaningful survey methodology -- including proper respondent sample selection, and b) getting IETF management to believe it (or, rather, believe that it matters). Perhaps you can have more success that I have had over recent years. In the current example, a desire to ensure that IETF meetings are adequately accessible for those with modest funding requires explicitly asking such folk where they would prefer to meet and what sorts of resources they need access to. While there is current attention paid to the availability of 'other' lodging, there has not been careful consideration of the costs at those alternatives. I certainly haven't seen any modest choices anywhere near to the Hawaii venue. Perhaps we should ask to have every venue include publication of specific resource information, along the lines of: 1. Examples of nearby modest lodging, including what the rate range is likely to be and what the transportation time/cost will be if not in walking distance. 2. Examples of nearby restaurants, at various price points. 3. Examples of nearby grocery choices, as the fallback for those with severe dietary restrictions. Some of this is already done informally. I'm suggesting it be done carefully and that the results be published. Some venues have masses of nearby resources at all sorts of price points. They don't need this sort of formal exercise, of course. Others, however, do. Of course, none of that attends to choosing venues that are strategically out of the way to nearly all regular participants, but really nice for tourism or beneficial for "marketing" the IETF... d/ -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net