On Fri, Oct 3, 2014 at 6:22 PM, Mark Nottingham <mnot@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> * Finalising the agenda (far) before it currently is, so that people can make firm (and economic) travel plans without blocking out an entire week
>
> The agenda of a session is supposed to be finalized at least two weeks before. As you are a working group chair you already know how it goes. :-) Instead of arguing about why it is difficult to finalise an agenda
I don’t see anyone arguing about *why* it’s difficult to finalise the agenda — that seems to be well-understood.
> I'll ask you how much notice would the developers and implementers require for travel scheduling.
At least two months for the draft agenda; preferably three. Long-distance airfares generally start rising in that period of time, and most people who don’t do this for a living need to request and obtain permission to travel, which can add weeks of delay.
The obvious tension here is that the chairs might not know how much face time the WG will need three months ahead of time. Especially in area WGs, big things can come up suddenly or be resolved just as suddenly. Putting the deadline out that far might have more of us asking for 2.5 hour slots just-in-case, followed by a lot of last minute reductions or cancellations, and the agenda remains fluid (or there's lots of wasted room time).
I don't have a good solution to that; I'm just trying to describe the other extreme for us to consider.
-MSK