RE: Last Call: <draft-george-travel-faq-03.txt> (IETF meeting attendees' Frequently Asked (travel) Questions) to Informational RFC

["George, Wes" <[e-mail]>]

> From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of SM
>
> In Section 1:
>
>    "more efficiently than waiting until someone sends an email to the
>     [e-mail] list in the days leading up to the meeting."
>
> The XX is ambiguous.
[WEG] Well, it was intended to be generic (a variable to represent multiple numbers). Are you saying ambiguous as in "this intent is unclear, use a different method to represent this generically" or "you should use a specific number as an example, e.g. [e-mail]"?
Would "the meeting-specific attendees email list" be better?

> The draft is written from am IETF perspective for an IETF audience.
[WEG] It was written by an IETF person, in the IETF's process for managing documents. Within those constraints, it was meant to assume very little about what people know about IETF such that it could be useful to a non-IETF audience. If there's a point to this comment other than to be snarky, I'm missing it.

> Does http://wikitravel.org/en/Paris provide answers to some of the
> questions in this draft?
[WEG] Probably. This draft is not about evaluating sources of information to be provided for individual and specific IETF meetings. It is meant to be generic. I'd encourage you to post that link to the Paris IETF's wiki.

>     "but that results in hundreds of people spending their time
>     searching, which is not very efficient."
>
> If hundreds of people spent their time searching, there would have
> been more information on
> http://www.ietf.org/registration/MeetingWiki/wiki/doku.php  Or is it
> not efficient for people to share the information they have found?
[WEG] no one can force those who find an answer to their question (via whatever method) to post it to the wiki. The meeting wiki is only as good as its level of contribution, and this document isn't making commentary on that problem. This is simply noting that lots of attendees need a similar set of information.

>    "no matter how good online translation is getting, some of the most
>     informative sites may be difficult for non-native speakers to"
>
> Is this about informative sites being difficult for non-native
> speakers or for people from a specific part of the world?
[WEG] I think this is pretty self-explanatory taken in the context of the preceding sentences, but I'll attempt to clarify. When one is attempting to do research about a place one is planning to visit, if the site with the best information is only available in the local language, and half of the site is flash or graphical text buttons, sending it to translate.google is not going to translate the text contained in flash or images, which may make the site difficult or impossible to use. The source and destination language/region is immaterial. This is simply defining a practical matter associated with language barriers online.

> I suggest that the author seeks feedback from people who use English as a
> second language.
[WEG] The author has sought and received feedback from the IETF list multiple times prior to last call, and again now. One might be forgiven for assuming that there are a few nonnative English speakers among the subscribers of said list who have read the document. If those who use English as a second language have text to provide, he'll gladly accept it. Otherwise, maligning the document or its author because it attempts to cover language issues but was written by an native English speaker is not particularly productive.

> Visa requirements is a one-liner whereas food considerations are
> discussed in several paragraphs.
[WEG] The main posting on the IETF site regarding the specific meeting includes a link to one or more Visa information sites. IETF has been providing links to Visa information for years, as it is far more critical to foreign attendance than any of the other items discussed in this document. Therefore I didn't spend a lot of time on it. The only part of the currently-provided visa information that I have seen complaints about is when the combination of the source and destination countries' embassies don't play nicely together and Visas take too long to be practical. That is a much different problem. However, more than one person has commented about the limited text with regards to visas, so I'll attempt to bolster the Visa discussion slightly, but suggested text is welcome.

 Section 3.3 is labelled
> International considerations.  The entire document is about
> international considerations.
[WEG] After reviewing what is in this section based on your comment, I'd argue the other way. Like the rest of the document, a large portion of it is not specific to international travel and may vary by region and municipality within the same country. I'm open to suggestions as to an alternate heading for section 3.3 that is more descriptive than "other."

Wes George

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