This discussion seems to be ignoring the IETF's financial need for local sponsors, and sometimes that sponsorship leads to particular locations. For example, I know (because I was part of the local sponsor) that the first time we went to Minneapolis in 1999 was due to the IETF working with the sponsor to choose the location. We never would have gone to Memphis if Fedex hadn't sponsored that meeting. And so on. So there are other constraints that keep us from just meeting in Minneapolis, Prague, and (pick one Asian city) all of the time.
Cheers,
Andy
On Sat, Aug 23, 2014 at 5:12 AM, Eliot Lear <lear@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi,
ISOC did a tremendous job in Berlin, for instance, bringing in new
> For me Minneapolis or an equivalent would work every time. People would only go there to work on IETF stuff, travel arrangements and budget would be a template, we would know what to find when we got there, we would not need to qualify the venue, and it would be subject to incremental improvement through tuning.
people by calling around to local universities. Brilliant idea! That
requires co-locating in different places where we can do that outreach.
I imagine you were thinking of three or four standard locations. There
are a few organizations that regularly meet in Geneva. It's expensive
and somewhat hard to get to as well if you're not in Europe.
I'll also point out that some of my own favorite IETF meetings were in
more smaller locations: Santa Fe, Memphis, Saint Louis. I particularly
liked Santa Fe with close proximity to nice restaurants, and amazing
surrounds. Berlin was cool that way as well. Taking a day or an
evening to enjoy the locale is something I would encourage.
I do think it would be cool for the IAOC to commission a longer term
study that takes into account meetings, RFC production, and WG engagement.
Eliot