I guess I miss something. Some "smart" initiative to get money from participants? Internet Society Ecuador www.isoc.org.ec Síguenos @isocec > El 13/2/2015, a las 17:47, Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpenter@xxxxxxxxx> escribió: > >> On 14/02/2015 10:50, Brian Trammell wrote: >> hi Mary, all, >> >>> On 13 Feb 2015, at 22:30, Mary Barnes <mary.h.barnes@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >>> >>> On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 2:58 PM, Ted Lemon <Ted.Lemon@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >>>> On Feb 12, 2015, at 3:27 PM, Sam Hartman <hartmans-ietf@xxxxxxx> wrote: >>>> In the past I've been nervous about giving remote participation too much >>>> power in part because I'm worried about how that impacts meeting fees >>>> and in part because I value cross-area involvement. >>> >>> It's possible that we could collect meeting fees from remote attendees, offering a hardship exemption for those who can't afford it. That would depend on remote attendance working better than it does now, I think, but it would be unfortunate if the main impediment to making remote attendance work well were that we didn't want to lose meeting revenue. >>> >>> [MB] I totally agree on this latter point. I'm very conflicted about charging for remote participation, but perhaps something nominal. It's also quite possible that if we improve the quality, we will get more remote participants. >> >> A requirement (at least at first) to allocate n% of remote participation fees directly to expenses related to the improvement of remote participation would make this a lot more feasible. > > But it begins to smell like a poll tax. Some people participate remotely > because they simply can't justify the travel expenditure; if it costs (say) > $200 to participate remotely, that would be enough to keep some people out. > How the Secretariat could possibly validate hardship cases remotely > is beyond me. > > Also, does particpate mean "watch and listen" or "watch, listen and speak"? > I find it hard to imagine paying $200 just to watch and listen. > > (Of course, I made up "$200" but it does need to be an amount of money > that's worth collecting, and in that case it will be a significant issue > for, say, a student in a developing country.) > > Brian C > >