Re: All these discussions about meeting venues

[Dave CROCKER <[e-mail]>]

On 9/13/2010 2:52 PM, Fred Baker wrote:
> What I find irritating with these discussions

What I find irritating with these discussions is the tendency to get irritated.

The other thing that is irritating is the tendency to dismiss or attack serious 
efforts to make serious comments.

The nature of the IETF is that our openness guarantees a very poor signal to 
noise ratio.  Folks who make silly postings are making silly postings.  Silly to 
attack the IAOC.  Silly to attack or dismiss people making serious criticisms. 
Silly to be simplistic, chauvinistic, ignorant, or the like.  Silly to make 
sweeping assessments.

We each have a burden to filter out the noise. Silly postings need to be 
ignored, rather than used as a basis for dismissing or distracting discussion 
from legitimate concerns.

Maastricht suffered an impressive variety of problems.  Worse, some of those 
problems have become a recurring pattern.  As examples, we have had a 
significant number of venues in recent years that were distant from major 
transportation hubs and/or were distant from "local" resources such as the usual 
array of hotels, restaurants, markets and the like.


> who are (apart from AMS and the IAD) volunteers like the rest of us and put a
> fair bit of time and travel into getting things as close to "right" as they

Anyone attacking the intention or effort of the IAOC is being silly.  Anyone 
making a serious criticism of specific problems is /not/ being silly.  They 
might be right or they might be wrong, but they focusing on outcomes that can 
legitimately be viewed as problematic.


> can get them. We don't, to my knowledge, have anyone of restrictive religious
> persuasions such as muslims or orthodox jews in the team that does the site
> visits; there are a number of women involved, however, so I would expect the
> team to be aware of women's issues.

But, Fred, the problem really is with having such a varied population of 
attendees and then experimenting with new venues every time.  This guarantees 
problems, because the varied population means that there is a complex set of 
requirements.  No, all of the issues cannot be anticipated, nevermind resolved. 
  However a resource-rich venue that is visited repeatedly means that the 
choices are much greater and that a learning curve can develop.


> If we want to have these discussions on the IETF list, I would strongly
> suggest that they be moderated for tone.

+1.

Does that include expressions of irritation...?


> People need to find a way to discuss
> an issue without making statements about a person or set of persons.

+1

d/

-- 

   Dave Crocker
   Brandenburg InternetWorking
   bbiw.net