Re: IETF attendance costs

[Ted Lemon <mellon@xxxxxxxxx>]

On May 14, 2019, at 2:43 PM, Mary B <mary.h.barnes@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

AFAICT, those most against presentations are those for whom English is a native language.  We know we have speakers that talk really, really fast.  If I, as a native English speaker have problems following them, I can't fathom how others can.

What this suggests to me is not that we should use more slides, in order to help non-native speakers, but rather that we should rely less on the spoken word.  It can be helpful to see peoples’ body language, so I don’t think we can completely eliminate the need for this, but what in-person meetings do best is to help people to come into agreement on contentious issues, and if this process excludes everyone who can’t keep up with rapid-fire english speech, then that’s going to be a problem, isn’t it?