Did you read my document? It does exactly what you're suggesting to address your somments at the end of your email and is why it has the format it does rather than the simpler one you should have in your previous email. I wrote it 10 years ago after the Dublin meeting where we were stuck at a country golf resort and the only lunch option was a buffer of random food, whereas I had done my homework over the weekend and found that the hotel restaurants could accommodate restrictions only to find that on Monday lunch, you could NOT order from a menu. I've updated the document a few times. So, yes, I have tried and tried and tried - the fact that I couldn't get staff to arrange food so veggies were covered with cookie crumbs is a fantastic of the level of failure. You can find these same discussions over and over in the archives. You are not bringing up any new points. We have made some progress, but again where this topic ended up in terms of priority in the meeting venue document means that I have failed as considering this issue can be traded against having a place for people to meet socially - i.e., if a venue has a nice, large bar with cheap beer that can easily be traded against whether there is food that can be obtained at the venue, etc.
The fact that we have had successful meetings where the food requirements happened to be met quite well means your point around having to compromise isn't really valid. We've done it well by chance before, so if we plan we should easily be able to do it properly.
Regards,
Mary.
On Mon, Mar 5, 2018 at 12:40 PM, Toerless Eckert <tte@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Mary,
> BTW, your mocking of this situation for medical conditions is inline with
> mocking someone that uses a wheelchair or is deaf, etc.
Please point me to a place where you think i did that. I specifically did
NOT intend to do anything like that, but maybe something i wrote
could be misconstrued to read that way and then i would like to know which
so i can improve in the future in my writing.
I did mock indirectly lifestyle choices, but primarily because as in the case
of airline food it caused constraints to those with other lifestyle choices
like me. Knowing from friends with medical gluten intolerance some of those
lifestyle choicers are actually quite useful for folks like them with actual
medical conditions, so that lifestyle mocking is really only friendly mocking.
Wrt to compromising what to eat, this naturally comes when going to foreign
places, and one has to reccognize that a conference already has to fight
against that base level to make it easier to collaborate internationally,
so i would really opt to differentiate in expectation settings for medical
vs. lifestyle and how much IETF should work on either.
If you read further below into my mail, i was suggesting to come up
at last with some written up guidance for food to venues and circulate
that early enough with the venue. Including a classes of food required.
Has that been tried ?
Cheers
Toerless
--
On Mon, Mar 05, 2018 at 11:16:26AM -0600, Mary B wrote:
> So, my situation is absolutely a medical condition and not just a personal
> preference. Meetings can be extremely difficult, especially when you're
> chairing and you have to run to the bathroom every 30 minutes because
> you've been glutened. One important point here is that despite the fact
> that I wore a ribbon at the last meeting that said "It's all about me",
> there are others with this issue that seem to be of the same predisposition
> as those that we are trying to protect with the photography policy - i.e.,
> they don't want to make a fuss. They're not going to hunt down staff to
> find food to eat like I did in Dublin. My whole point is that if you can
> accommodate dietary restrictions for medical reasons, you can also come up
> with food that would suffice for the majority of folks with restrictions
> including vegan, etc. You are correct that in some cases it's a choice,
> but people shouldn't have to compromise principles to eat. And, unless,
> it's made a priority at contract negotiation time, the idea of getting food
> on the spot and having staff that are aware doesn't work well at all. I do
> often contact hotels ahead myself in other situations. But, again, it's
> NOT just me.
>
> And, yes, there are other conferences that do this - I've been to many.
> I'm not gonna list them all off, but your response is consistent with that
> which I've received over the past 10 years - this is too hard. The key is
> that it MUST be planned in advance and you need to have a venue that's
> willing to accommodate - not all of them are when there are crowds. And,
> your suggestion that I just eat a salad doesn't actually provide adequate
> nutrition - would you be happy if all you could eat for lunch everyday was
> a salad?
>
> I realize you are trying to be helpful, but there is lots of past
> discussions where I've done what you suggest and it's clear after 10 years
> it's certainly not easy as you suggest. And, your suggestion to bug the
> secretariat isn't particularly constructive as they've got a whole lot of
> other stuff to do right before a meeting. And, again, it requires more
> than just a week ahead planning.
>
> BTW, your mocking of this situation for medical conditions is inline with
> mocking someone that uses a wheelchair or is deaf, etc.
>
> Regards,
> Mary.
>
> On Mon, Mar 5, 2018 at 9:50 AM, Toerless Eckert <tte@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > Inline
> >
> > On Sat, Mar 03, 2018 at 05:12:27PM -0600, Mary B wrote:
> > [...]
> > > we might consider some of their other policies that could be adopted
> > > including dealing with allergies:
> > > http://www.sirensconference.org/about/questions.html# (justphotography
> > > below the photography FAQ item).
> > > I feel very disheartened that it's almost 10 years since I first wrote my
> > > draft trying to raise awareness of the issue:
> > > https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-barnes-healthy-food-07
> > >
> > > And while we've made some progress, the discussion in meeting venue still
> > > left the food issue as a would be nice and not mandatory. Also, my
> > > document highlighted 4 requirements in dealing with this:
> > >
> > > 1. The meetings should be held in a location where markets that sell
> > > foods for special diets are conveniently located.
> > > 2. The right food should be accessible to the participants at the
> > > meeting venue.
> > > 3. Food that is served at the venue should be prepared and served by
> > > appropriate methods as described above.
> > > 4. The meeting coordination and venue staff should be made aware of
> > > participants requiring such food and should be willing to
> > > accommodate such requirements.
> >
> > IMHO the document would probabyl benefit from some executive level
> > simplifcation section:
> >
> > a) Enforce better labelling of food offered by IETF
> >
> > b) Figure out a priority list of food necessary to deal with health related
> > dietary restrictions.
> >
> > IMHO, that requires to change the IETF attendee worksheet and
> > specifically ask only (or separately) about medially justified
> > dietary restrictions.
> >
> > c) Designate a CFO (Chief Food Officer) responsible for preparing
> > with the community information before meetings about outside
> > food options. With first priority being to provide information
> > for health related dietary restrictions indicated by IETF
> > participants.
> >
> > Aka: I am intentional insensitive to lifestyle food restrictions such
> > as religious or other socio-culturully self-elected diets because
> > i think that after 10++ years it seems somewhat clear that we will
> > not make progress without triage and i would suggest to start with health
> > and downgrade everything else to c&a) - collect/publish information
> > first but do not try to actively work on making those lifestyle
> > food choices more available until we have made progress on the
> > actually medically required food options.
> >
> > For example: The mayority of folks asking for gluten-free do that
> > actually as a lifestyle choice and that has ended up in the production
> > of a lot of food to support their lifestyle but that food can
> > still be dangerous for an actual medically gluten intolerant person.
> > (friends of mine are, which is why i know). I am not sure if we
> > will get those lifestylers NOT mark in the attendee worksheet
> > "medically gluten intolerant", but we can at least try. We will see
> > if attendees want to lie simply by looking at the stats.
> >
> > [rant on]
> >
> > When it comes to lifestyle food choices, i am also agin in your
> > document in the neglected percentile:
> >
> > I can only eat "Local" or "Tasty". These are not mentioned in your
> > document.
> >
> > My food preferences actually are a medical condition developed
> > as a sensitiviy against airline food, which is "Chicken or Pasta",
> > and that again is a result of airlines playing lowest common denominator
> > against all those airline passengers with their ever exploding
> > list of lifestyle food choices excluding more and more foods.
> > ;-))
> > [rant off]
> >
> > > There is labeling of food at some of the venues some of the time, but
> > we've
> > > never had direct access to is a person at the venue that we can contact.
> > > And, yeah, I can bug the secretariat and I have done so, and most of the
> > > time things are handled, but they have better things to do with their
> > > time. And, the number of times that those of us that have dietary
> > > restrictions have had to hunt down staff to find out what we could eat is
> > > way more than the number of meetings we attend. It's not such a big deal
> > > now that I'm no longer on IAB but folks in leadership positions (some of
> > > whom do have dietary restrictions) have a lot of meetings and it is hard
> > to
> > > even think about finding food elsewhere during their very long days.
> >
> > The problems of leadership are somewhat of a luxury problem given how
> > they get a lot more food over the week from the event than the normal
> > attendee.
> >
> > As i said in another thread, worst case there must be a "plan c", aka:
> > get food ordered in if your medical or lifestyle choices can not be met.
> > And make sure upfront this is permitted by venue. Figure out how to play
> > the venues by referring to laws etc..
> >
> > "plan b" would then be to create the IETF version of airline food, aka:
> > lowest common denominator options for IETF leadership food.
> >
> > With gluten-free being the mayor new kid on the block, it seems you would
> > want a a vegan/gluten-free salad and a vegetarian sandwich for lunch, and
> > for warm servings always a rice/potato option and a vegan sauce&veggie
> > option
> > that includes some non-animal/nut protein.
> >
> > Probably need some detail refinement on these four key options to make
> > them halal&kosher as well, but i am pretty sure that can be done. Just
> > makes the spec somewhat longer.
> >
> > Shouldn't really be that difficult for most of these overpriced venues we
> > go to.
> >
> > > And, the issue of cross contamination is thoroughly ignored even when
> > I've
> > > explicitly asked nicely when they've been arranging break food, if they
> > > could please not put the cookies right next to the veggies at afternoon
> > > break. Since people like to use their hands when grabbing food rather
> > than
> > > tongs (another social issue we have), I rarely can get something at
> > > breaks. But, of course with tongs there, people use the same ones for
> > > cookies and veggies. This happened in London last time - while staff
> > were
> > > setting up, I asked them to re-arrange and the staff told me that would
> > > "upset the chef" but they would do it latter. They never did. If we had
> > > access to a person, we could make sure this didn't happen. I've said
> > > before that I"m perfectly happy to interact with the staff ahead of time
> > to
> > > discuss these issues. And, as I've said before, in many cases I
> > wouldn't
> > > have made it through meetings without the contraband food I've brought
> > into
> > > other countries. And, yes, we've gotten better about having the meetings
> > > with market access (requirement 1), but actually being able to eat at the
> > > venue would be nice (requirements 2, 3 and 4). The only time all the
> > > requirements have been met was in Beijing and I ended with my personal
> > chef
> > > Eric - that was only because I just happened to meet the food service
> > > manager on Sunday, who noted that I was eating so healthy and my response
> > > was that what was on my plate was all that I could eat from their
> > monstrous
> > > buffet. He said that just wasn't acceptable. He then got the head chef,
> > who
> > > appointed chef Eric as my personal chef for the week. I certainly don't
> > > expect this level of service everywhere, but the point here is that the
> > > professionals that run the food services at the venues we use are often
> > > very willing to be able to handle this well if they're made aware that
> > it's
> > > a requirement for some of the attendees. And, I do seriously mean, as
> > > described in my document that the issue should come up during contract
> > > negotiations. And, yes, I know about the other people that manage the
> > > issue entirely on their own without any fussing, but for me in the past
> > > this has involved eating a can of green beans with slivered almonds for
> > > dinner in several situations. Although, I have found my sprouted pumpkin
> > > seeds, that are probably illegal to bring into all the countries we visit
> > > and some US states can serve as adequate meal replacement.
> >
> > I hope the absence of paragraph separators in the above text is
> > mostly an indication of passion and hopefully less that of a medical
> > condition, although i fear it might be frist triggered by the second ? ;-(
> >
> > In any case, see my initial a), b), c). Prioritize the resolution by
> > starting with medical. Otherwise its too easy to get lost in too many
> > options and continue running up against windmills. And try to focus
> > on one or two incremental achievements for every IETF and try to push
> > those through. Can't be that difficult to bug IETF personnel in the week
> > before IETF to always get the name of the chef and have that discusion.
> > You may just need to volunteer for that CFO role i suggested firsst times
> > and then try to pass on the responsibility when its an established success.
> >
> > > And, yeah, I realize to most of you all, this is just me whining about
> > food
> > > yet again. But, just imagine the uproar in this community if you all
> > > didn't have cookies for even one day at the afternoon break.
> >
> > Its worse. Now i am even afraid of just taking photos of the empty
> > cookie trays when i am a minute too late - in fear of capturing the
> > likeness
> > of someone equally starved as i am.
> >
> > > Or your sodas and the only beverage available all day was water.
> >
> > I am pretty happy that i am mostly too late to catch any soda.
> >
> > > And, again, other
> > > organizations consider this important, so it's not clear to me why this
> > > can't be the case for IETF. Especially, now that we seem to have become
> > > so sensitive about what some might consider to be "personal issues".
> >
> > I have not done a scientific comparison with other conferences, i wold
> > doubt they fare any better than IETF given the same amount of financing.
> > Do you have concrete evidence (same price, better results )?
> >
> > > Now...back to my drafts...
> >
> > Me2 ;-)
> >
> > Cheers
> > Toerless
> >
> > > Regards,
> > > Mary.
> > >
> > > On Fri, Mar 2, 2018 at 5:42 PM, Eric Rescorla <ekr@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hi Joel,
> > > >
> > > > Yes, we discussed this video issue in the IESG before we wrote the
> > policy.
> > > > I think there are three relevant differences:
> > > >
> > > > 1. Video actually is important to our operations both for documenting
> > the
> > > > meeting and to allow remote participation.
> > > > 2. The actual act of videography the way we do it is fairly
> > unobtrusive to
> > > > the subject, by contrast to still photography, which can be intrusive
> > even
> > > > if the photos are never published [0]
> > > > 3. The video that we take is actually pretty hard to work with to find
> > a
> > > > specific point, as anyone who has tried to work with the archives to
> > get
> > > > clarity on the minutes knows.
> > > >
> > > > So, yes, this line is a bit fuzzier than I would like, but I think for
> > the
> > > > reasons above, this is about the right place to draw it.
> > > >
> > > > Best,
> > > > -Ekr
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > [0] Yes someone can really get in your face with a video camera, and I
> > > > would hope that we would discourage that as well, but that's not what
> > > > meetecho is like.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > On Fri, Mar 2, 2018 at 3:25 PM, Joel M. Halpern <jmh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> So explain to me why we will allow people to prohibit posting of still
> > > >> photos of themselves, but we will not prohibit video of them?
> > > >>
> > > >> It's not like they can stop others outside our purview from taking
> > stills
> > > >> from the video and re-posting them.
> > > >>
> > > >> Frankly, given modern technology, the difference between video and
> > still
> > > >> pictures is minuscule. I was trying to stay out of that aspect of
> > this
> > > >> policy. But you have chosen to push it.
> > > >>
> > > >> Yours,
> > > >> Joel
> > > >>
> > > >> On 3/2/18 6:20 PM, Eric Rescorla wrote:
> > > >>
> > > >>>
> > > >>>
> > > >>> On Fri, Mar 2, 2018 at 3:11 PM, Joel M. Halpern <jmh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > > >>> <mailto:jmh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
> > > >>>
> > > >>> The fundamental driver here is organizational transparency. Our
> > > >>> leaders are accountable to the community.
> > > >>>
> > > >>>
> > > >>> Yes. That's why we have videography, minutes, etc. We are talking
> > very
> > > >>> specifically about published *still* photography.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> -Ekr
> > > >>>
> > > >>>
> > > >>> I am sorry, the image of declaring that the IEtF chair can
> > require
> > > >>> that photographers not talk pictures of the IETF chair when
> > > >>> presenting to the community seems explicitly wrong to me.
> > > >>> Equally, the image of a Working Group chair saying that he or she
> > > >>> can not be photographed while running a working group session
> > seems
> > > >>> completely counter to the transparency and accountability of our
> > > >>> organization.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> We do place behavioral expectations and constraints on our
> > > >>> leadership in many ways.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> Yours,
> > > >>> Joel
> > > >>>
> > > >>> On 3/2/18 6:07 PM, Eric Rescorla wrote:
> > > >>>
> > > >>>
> > > >>>
> > > >>> On Fri, Mar 2, 2018 at 2:57 PM, Joel M. Halpern
> > > >>> <jmh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:jmh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > > >>> <mailto:jmh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:jmh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>>>
> > > >>> wrote:
> > > >>>
> > > >>> One of the aspects that concerns me about the policy is
> > > >>> that it
> > > >>> seems to allow our leadership to require that their
> > images
> > > >>> be
> > > >>> removed from pictures of them doing their job.
> > > >>>
> > > >>>
> > > >>> I don't understand the motivation for this proposal, and it
> > has
> > > >>> clear downsides in terms of discouraging participation by
> > people
> > > >>> who wish not to be photographed.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> Why should being a leader require you to have your picture
> > > >>> publicly posted? Your appearance isn't any necessary part of
> > the
> > > >>> leadership function.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> In case it's not clear, the purpose of the text about panels
> > is,
> > > >>> like the text about large groups, a concession to
> > practicality,
> > > >>> not derived from the notion that leaders inherently have some
> > > >>> diminished right to privacy.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> -Ekr
> > > >>>
> > > >>>
> > > >>> Yes, there is text about panels. But that seems
> > > >>> insufficient. I
> > > >>> would suggest we add:
> > > >>>
> > > >>> IETF Leadership (such as IAB members, IESG members,
> > and
> > > >>> Working Group
> > > >>> Chairs) should understand that when they are
> > performing
> > > >>> their formal
> > > >>> duties they may be photographed, and those
> > photographs
> > > >>> may be
> > > >>> displayed in public.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> That would be in addition to the existing text about
> > > >>> panels. Thus,
> > > >>> it would cover WG chairs and cases where for example the
> > > >>> IAB Chair
> > > >>> or IETF chair are presenting even without a panel of
> > others.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> I will leave it to others as to whether the example
> > lsit of
> > > >>> leadership needs to be more comprehensive. I hope that
> > we
> > > >>> do not
> > > >>> need to be more specific about what we mean by
> > performing
> > > >>> their
> > > >>> formal duties.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> Yours,
> > > >>> Joel
> > > >>>
> > > >>>
> > > >>>
> > > >>>
> > > >
> >
> > --
> > ---
> > tte@xxxxxxxxx
> >
> >
---
tte@xxxxxxxxx
