Leslie,
Again, I am not questioning the decision (or, really, the text).
I do no have a problem with abandoning the "Local participant"
rule (or reinterpreting it to continental or large scale, which
is probably the same thing in practice). I note, too, that the
only thing that makes Vancouver in "Asia" is by replacing "Asia"
with "Asia-Pacific" and using a broad definition of that term
(observing that Auckland, Sydney, and Melbourne are in _that_
region and we have active participants from those places). If,
on the other hand, we are looking at continents, there there may
be no difference between Boston and San Diego (which are further
from each other than Beijing and Bangkok) either.
However, if we have moved from a strong "local participants"
criterion to a broadly-defined "world regions" one, I don't
think that decision should sneak up on the community by virtue
of what can (or cannot) be detected from reading between the
lines of the I-D or inferred from what that document does not
say. I don't think changes to the document are necessary but,
unless the criteria are clear to, and agreed by, the community,
I think there is a problem. The most extreme version of that
problem is a concern I expressed about the document when the
MTGVENUE effort got started -- that we would end up with a lot
of broad statements, no real criteria about relative priorities,
and sufficient flexibility that the IAD and meetings committee
could do whatever it liked, with no real accountability to the
IETF community. While the document is better than I feared in
that regard, the question is, in part, a way to examine on at
least one dimension, whether it actually provides clear guidance
and accountability and, if it does not, whether the community is
ok with that.
best,
john
--On Friday, February 2, 2018 12:01 -0500 Leslie Daigle
<ldaigle@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Speaking as an individual, all hats off.
>
> The practical reality is that the geographic zone of
> consideration for your question needs to be set at about the
> level of "Asia".
>
> We don't do well at finding locations anywhere Asia that
> have the hotel space for meetings and attendees (Sections
> 3.3.2 and 3.3.4), with appropriate network access (3.3.3) We
> still struggle with finding and securing locations that work
> — as evidenced by the fact that this announcement is less
> than a year before the actual meeting. There are many
> reasons why this is true — and not a reflection on the
> venues in Asia, so much as our ability to interface with
> opportunities. IMO, it's an area we desperately need to
> improve our skillset.
>
> Back to the question at hand, and quoting from draft-mtgvenue:
>
>> Where do we meet?
>> We meet in different locations globally in order to
>> spread the pain and cost of travel among active
>> participants, balancing travel time and expense across
>> the regions from where IETF participants are based. We
>> also aim to enhance inclusiveness and
>> new contributions.
>
> To your question — Bangkok is much more "local" for most
> in Asia than Vancouver is, which has been, and remains, our
> fallback for failed attempts at securing a location in Asia
> proper.