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

[Nico Williams <[e-mail]>]

On Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 09:12:20PM -0800, Abdussalam Baryun wrote:
> Thanks. IMHO participants  in IETF are in two categories: individuals and
> companies, both needs to have diversity. I think IETF has shortage in

It may seem like a fiction, but all IETF participants are individuals.

Many a participant's participation is funded by their employer, and in
the process faithfully represent the employer's interests.  But the
participants are individual persons.

> remote participants and in diversity, so the strategy is that no fees
> because IETF needs more diversity.

I doubt it, though I don't know.  Remote *meeting* participation tools
have to improve in order to be able to charge much at all for *meeting*
participation.  But we'd pay if the tools were good enough and the IETF
charged for it, or even just if the IETF chaged for it.

Participation on mailing lists should continue to be without charge for
all.  No one is proposing otherwise.

> However, the issue in my thoughts is not remote or non-remote or ability to
> pay or not (diversity items), but the issue can be about benefits, cost and
> payment return/outcome. For example, usually remote participants attend but
> the outcome is less than others. In business and organisation what matters
> is utilization of time, money, and attendance. People in business meet for
> many reasons and different methods. All IETF participants attending meeting
> physically have different utilization but pay the same fee. I think that
> makes limited attendance. Now days Internet services changing to you pay
> for what you use only, so could IETF offer that?

Fees are the least of the *meeting* participation costs.  Flights and
hotels are the large majority of the cost (ignoring cost of opportunity,
which may or may not be positive, though I'd assume it's negative in
general, else there would be very few meetings indeed).

> Let us focus on participant outcome (individual or organisation) from the
> [...]

We measure IETF effectiveness and meeting quality in many ways, but we
don't rate *meeting* *outcomes* for *individual* participants.  (E.g.,
if I don't get my way on a consensus call, that may [or may not!] be a
negative outcome for me, but no one is going to cry me a river for it,
or even take much notice, and I don't expect any different, nor should
anyone.)

Nico
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