Re: Future Handling of Blue Sheets

[Samuel Weiler <[e-mail]>]

On Tue, 24 Apr 2012, David Morris wrote:

> The IETF meetings are actually not totally public. You must purchase a
> 'ticket' to attend. We would not allow someone to walk in off the street
> and photograph the functions, or even sit in a meeting and take notes.

Without commenting specifically about photographs, as MSJ pointed out, 
this is not true.  It may not be socially acceptable to crash working 
group meetings, but we do not use force to prevent it.  And as Scott 
Bradner pointed out on this list some time ago:

    Back when the IETF decided to charge for meetings ($100/meeting
    sometime in the early 1990s) Steve Coya said that the IETF would
    never check badges to block people from meetings.

The Beijing meeting was a notable exception.  There were guards 
looking for badges and at least one attendee's partner was restrained 
by the guards when she attempted to enter the meeting space to find 
her partner.  Even then, it the IETF was not the party doing the 
checking.  As the IAOC chair later explained:

    The IAOC was not aware that badge checking was going to happen
    prior to this meeting. It was implemented by the meeting host in
    conjunction with the hotel.

I imagine we would respond differently to something truly disruptive. 
Happily, we tend to be a civilized enough crowd that we don't need 
bouncers.

-- Sam