Re: Venue selection (Re: Options for IETF administrative restructuring)

["JORDI PALET MARTINEZ" <[e-mail]>]

Hi Harald,

See my comments below, in-line.

Regards,
Jordi

---- Original Message ----
From: "Harald Tveit Alvestrand" <[e-mail]>
To: "JORDI PALET MARTINEZ" <[e-mail]>; <[e-mail]>
Sent: Monday, August 30, 2004 7:29 PM
Subject: Venue selection (Re: Options for IETF administrative restructuring)

> Thanks for your comments, Jordi!
> 
> I'm replying to part of your note, and changing the subject line to get
> different topics on different threads..... I do think we need some kind of
> IETF consensus on the criteria for venue selection - and once we have that
> documented consensus, we need to evaluate how well we follow them...
> 
> This is not trivial, nor is it easy to get everything in line; for
> instance, one of our requirements is fairly large (and expensive) offsite
> Internet bandwidth; one potential US site was able to deliver that
> bandwidth as part of the conference package - BUT insisted that it be able
> to perform its usual packet filtering on the traffic, and refused to allow
> alternate bandwidth provisioning on site.

Clearly we should not accept that site ;-)

> 
> Not something we expected five years ago. Foretec declined the offer -
> wisely, in my opinion.
> 
> The subject of continent selection is, BTW, one of the real touchy ones;
> my statistics show that in the North American contingent, the attendance
> is cut in half when we meet outside North America; in the Asian
> contingent, the attendance from the host country quadruples or more when
> we meet in their country, while Europeans show more steady attendance
> statistics. 

I'm not sure that's correct, but probably you have the right figures ;-)

But the point probably is not if the figures show that you're right or not ... The point is to be fair with the participants, independently from where they come.

Why participants from continent X have less possibilities to attend IETF ? Why they should spend more money to attend the IETF meetings in comparison with participants from continent Y ?

Are we considering in the meeting cost, the extra (or lower) cost that organizing the meeting in place A or place B means for the attendees ?

And being clear, is time may be for the Asian to have more IETFs there, and what about Latin America, or even Europe ? We should now start balancing and having more IETFs there and less in NA !

Is the IETF a competition in the number of attendees from continent A or B or C ?

Just food for though ...

> 
> Fred Baker formulated a principle of IETF meeting placement as "if you
> contribute to the IETF, the IETF sometimes holds a meeting near you".
> Measuring contribution is a difficult thing - it's certainly not the same
> as attendance! - but I think the principle is not unreasonable.

I also thought this could be reasonable, but after years attending, I don't think anymore this is correct, neither fair. Probably on the other way around. I feel that holding meetings where there is less contribution, can help to increase it.

In any case, the issue comes back to the original point: We need a clear definition about what are the requirements. San Diego didn't meet the "requirements" (those that we feel, because aren't clearly written anywhere), and it was not that bad, so probably those requirements are wrong.

We also need to ask what is the reason for attending, and if that reason is in the benefit of the IETF process, or on the other way around. How much cost have attendees not actually participating ? Or may be in the other way around, they finance the meeting for those that contribute ?

> 
> And after having picked a continent, we need to pick a venue - which can
> depend on the wishes of the sponsor, cost of doing business, availability
> of reasonable venues (I have been told by Foretec that the sensible
> Vancouver venues are booked solid on the dates we want for the next 2
> years, for instance). And that sometimes interferes with the selection of
> continent - for a while, I was told that Foretec was looking at Europe in
> spring 2005; now I'm told it's looking at summer 2005 - because venues
> worked better for August.

I know about this very well, I need to book one year in advance, at least, and is my own city ... But I can tell you also that this is part of the miss-planning. I offered during 3 years ... and the venue was visited only in Summer 2003. We had good chances at that time to block the venue for end of 2004 or spring/summer 2005, but the decision didn't come !

> 
> I think the organizer needs to be able to make these tradeoffs in real
> time, and without going back to the IETF for a consensus process on
> individual meetings - but we do need to have our criteria right out in the
> open.

Exactly. Let's start working on it ? Do we need an I-D ?

We can start with the known issues and keep adding what we believe is not working, or wrong or whatever. We should have this clear by the next meeting. The plenary is a good place to present this and get the last feedback and go for the last call ;-)

> 
> I would prefer to split the process into two rather independent parts: One
> (open) that sets the criteria, and one (subcontracted) that attempts to
> find sites that fulfil the criteria. Then we can evaluate the result - for
> economics, for venue performance, for sponsor satisfaction (that too
> matters!), and for "fairness".

Agree, but if we don't have the criteria, then is difficult.

Anyway, the subcontracting cost money, and is subjected to persons, so this means that could always be (perceived) as a subjective applications of the criteria (once agreed), and that means that it need to be also open and subjected to feedback. This is actually probably the most difficult part, but should be part of the process.

> 
> As to how to achieve all that.... I'm not at all sure.
> 
> A long note about a subject that is a small part of the "reorg"
> issue...... hope this makes sense to you!

A lot of sense if we start with the I-D !

> 
>                        Harald
> 
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