Re: [Diversity] 'Paywall, ' IETF self-sufficiency, increasing participation (was Re: Remote participation fees)

[Pranesh Prakash <[e-mail]>]

Dave Cridland <[e-mail]> [2015-03-02 23:20:56 +0000]:
> On 1 March 2015 at 15:26, Donald Eastlake <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
>> Your position seems to be that persons with more resources can, if
>> they choose to use those resources, have more influence than those
>> with less resources.
>
>
> I suspect it can be reworded to a simpler statement.
>
> Currently, to obtain "NomCom eligibility" (which means more than simply
> eligibility to volunteer for NomCom), it requires actual money being spent
> either by, or on behalf of, the participant. A little under $1500 needs to
> be paid to the IETF each year (based on $700 for each meeting, 3 out of 5
> meetings, and the requirement that the remaining meeting would probably
> need to be attended also making it average two meetings per year). That
> ignores the additional costs of travel and accommodation.
>
> When it's suggested this franchise should extend to remote participants,
> the conversation almost instantly starts discussing fees for remote
> participants. I'm personally entirely sure that's simply coincidental
> timing; a more cynical person might think the two were causally related.
>
> There's soft implications of being well funded (I suspect, John's comments
> notwithstanding, that it is essentially impossible to have a reasonable
> paid job and act as AD in one's "spare time" these days), but really, it
> isn't a matter of trying to solve these issues absolutely or not at all -
> it's actually acceptable to consider ways of simply reducing the gap, even
> if we admit we cannot eliminate it.
>
> Certainly, imposing remote participation fees doesn't leap out at me as a
> way to *improve* the disparity.

Thank you, Dave.  That's exactly what I was intending when I wrote, 
"That ability to participate has all manners of implications, including 
the ability to be chair of WGs, etc.", and is much better worded than I 
possibly could have managed.

-- 
Pranesh Prakash
Policy Director, Centre for Internet and Society
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