Re: [Recentattendees] IETF 100, Singapore -- proposed path forward and request for input

kathleen.moriarty.ietf@xxxxxxxxx · Sun, 22 May 2016 00:58:42 -0400

Sent from my iPhone

On May 22, 2016, at 12:04 AM, Ted Hardie <ted.ietf@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sat, May 21, 2016 at 12:45 PM, Paul Wouters <paul@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

   In Singapore, there are classes of people who are effectively excluded (e.g. any same sex couple whose child is of age to need both parents present).   Whether any member of that

class speaks up at the moment is not the issue, if we believe a family member of that class should be able to attend.

But this example does not relate to IETF participation.

I am sorry that this was not clear, but it is about participation.  If a child is of an age or in circumstances where both parents are needed, then holding a meeting where both parents cannot be present or cannot be recognized as parents excludes the IETFer(s) in the group from participating.

This has been the circumstance for me in the past, and it is the reason I missed one of the meetings when I was an AD.

Anyone breastfeeding needs to travel to these meetings with their baby plus someone to help with the baby while in meetings -  not an uncommon need.  There are probably other circumstances that participants run into where it just makes sense to travel with the family given the duration of meetings.  Sometimes family traveling with you is necessary.
Kathleen 

If you pick local laws related to _anything_ as exclusion criteria, you

are going to cut out a lot of the world (also excluding the US)

which then runs against the diversity principle of holding meetings at

different places.

I think the diversity principle is not "hold meetings in different places", which would put a premium on novelty, but on "hold meetings so that the disadvantages of travel are equally distributed".  It may well be that only a small number of places meet our bar for inclusiveness, and that we shuttle among them.  As long as that shuttling still spreads the disadvantages of travel equally, we meet the goal.

Ted Hardie 