On Aug 15, 2018, at 21:52, Joe Touch <touch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > It’s not a conference - it doesn’t say so on our web pages. It’s a meeting of a standards body, but that is considered work by some people. Joe, while I understand that it can be very satisfying, this is the kind of hair splitting that in the end benefits no-one. *Of course* the IETF event is a conference: conference | ˈkɑnf(ə)rəns | noun 1 a formal meeting for discussion: he gathered all the men around the table for a conference. • a formal meeting that typically takes place over a number of days and involves people with a shared interest, especially one held regularly by an association or organization: an international conference on the environment | the third annual National Wilderness Conference. • [usually as modifier] a linking of several telephones or computers, so that each user may communicate with the others simultaneously: a conference call. 2 an association of sports teams that play each other. 3 the governing body of some Christian churches, especially the Methodist Church. (Sense 1, in case you wondered, although I sometimes wonder about whether the other ones apply too…) The IETF event is not a business meeting in the sense that we are discussing contract conditions and signing agreements. I would not use the term “meeting” because it does carry this implication to many. And I don’t care (at all!) whether that is right: I try to communicate with officials and I have to use language that evokes the right connotations with *them*, not with learned scholars of the English language. (The problem with “work” is that it implies gainful employment. Immigration officials will then additionally infer “for a business entity in the host country”, which of course isn’t true for the foreign attendees except for the AMS people. [BTW, I would love to learn how they are handling the visa issue… But maybe that cannot be discussed in the open.]) If the IETF web pages are broken in this regard, maybe they can be fixed. I haven’t yet had immigration officials google the conference I’m going to, but it appears that does happen. (And I’m still wondering whether we are endorsed/sponsored by TCEB.) Grüße, Carsten
