--On Thursday, December 17, 2015 08:37 -0800 Dave Crocker <dhc@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> But it wold be useful thought experiment for them all to >> examine how their weeks would be different if they had a 20 >> minute walk each way each day. > > > Effort to get decision-makers to have better empathy for the > rank-and-file is certainly useful. The challenge is to make > the effort practical and sufficient. By 'sufficient' I mean it > has to cover enough of the core issues in ways that work. > > In this case, hotel choice is only part of the equation. > Travel time and travel cost are two other major factors. So > are additional costs, such as food in the main venue. (We had > one main venue with reasonable hotel room rate but US$ 25 > hamburgers...) Hi. Having proposed this particular experiment, I agree with Dave. It is only part of the issue, perhaps even the most important part. but has the advantage that pain-sharing is relatively easy to test and perhaps symbolically important. Because several of the responses have been from IESG members, let me be clear that, as a sometime IESG and IAB member, I found it a huge advantage, one that I think improved IETF efficiency, to be able to stagger into a 7AM meeting (especially the second or third of the week) by getting into an elevator rather than walking down the street, even more so if it followed an evening meeting or bar BOF than ran past midnight. My objection isn't really to making those "hold back" arrangements, it is to the combination of enough regular controversies about hotels and meeting locations with having the decisions made out of community view and with no apparent accountability. I think it would be entirely reasonable for the IESG to say to the community "we need to be on-site because... and believe that IETF efficiency would suffer if we weren't". Personally, I'd probably support that position. But these discussions have gone on long enough that it is probably time for the community to decide whether the value of that improved efficiently is worth lowering the chances of other participants who want to be in the conference hotel doing so by whatever part of 28% the IESG involves. I'd like to believe that, it the community said "it is more important for you folks to share the pain" that the IESG would respect that decision and that, if the community believed that having the IESG in the meeting hotel was important, some of the whining would stop. But there is no way to know without asking and the current system avoids asking. I'm not certain the same argument about the importance to the community of being in the main hotel can be made for all of the members of the IAOC. If they need that consideration, let them explain why to the community and then ask. Personally, I believe that a great deal of the source of these regular disconnects and complaints is a perception about lack of accountability and responsiveness of the IAOC and Meetings Committee. With "3 years" and "confidential business arrangements" figuring prominently in the situation (whether actually justified or not), this is not a good community to tell things that amount to "we have your best interests in mind and are not going to explain further". I note that some IAOC and Meetings Committee members have tried really hard to be good about this, but the overall record does not appear to me to be so good and I consider it a bad sign that we keep having the same discussions over and over again without discernable change or real community conclusions. Similarly, I have no doubt that having some secretariat staff in the main hotel is absolutely necessary. My impression is that AMS has been hyper-careful to not abuse that requirement and I trust them to continue to exercise good judgment about it. But a bit of explanation of who (by either role or name) needs to be in the conference hotel and why, would, OMO, do a lot to build general confidence. FWIW, 28% of only 400+ rooms feels like a rather big number. Had Ray said "5%", it wouldn't have occurred to ma to propose that particular exercise. best, john