Re: [Recentattendees] IETF 100, Singapore -- proposed path forward and request for input

[Melinda Shore <[e-mail]>]

On 5/22/16 7:18 AM, Eliot Lear wrote:
> What I find worrying is that we may end up foreclosing participation to
> new members because of their governments' laws.  They need to be
> considered in this discussion, and thus far it feels as though they have
> not been, and often aren't.

You know, I've been arguing for a long time that we would
benefit a lot from making the organization less dependent on
meetings, and the feedback I've gotten from you and others
taking the position that it's okay to meet in locations
like Singapore is that no, we really need face-to-face discussions
and hallway conversations.  Early in this discussion everybody
agreed that yes, our top priority is getting work done, but
here you are suggesting that maybe getting work done can take
a backseat to making sure that people who are not currently
involved and not doing any IETF work can attend.  Then there's
the notion that we do our work on mailing list being chucked
aside to be replaced by the flat statement that if someone
cannot attend a meeting we are foreclosing participation by
them (with the implied suggestion that the requirements of
people who are not yet involved trump the requirements of
some long-time participants).

I am not a fan of process documents and meta documents and all
the other sorts of documents that, along with our problematic
position(s) on diversity, make us look and function like the
traditional telecomm standards bodies but I think that in this
case we'd clearly benefit from a normative statement about what
the actual goal of meetings is, along with trying to develop
some understanding of what the cost of missing a meeting is
(or should be).

Melinda