Re: [Mtgvenue] Last Call: <draft-ietf-mtgvenue-meeting-policy-04.txt> (High level guidance for the meeting policy of the IETF) to Best Current Practice

[Mark Nottingham <[e-mail]>]

[ It must be bad -- I'm posting to ietf@ietf ]

On 22 Apr 2018, at 1:56 am, Cullen Jennings <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> When we went to a 1-1-1 policy, we agreed the locations should roughly match participants location to be fair. The argument was made that if we had more meetings outside north america, the participation would come to match approximately 1/3 , 1/3 , 1/3. That has clearly not happened so I think we need set the rotation of where we do meeting to something we agree is fair to our participants. 
> 
> I do not support the 1-1-1 policy as it is based on a false premise that this mirrors our participation. 

I don't support it on that basis either, as it's a pretty bad reason.

I do support it because, if the IETF is going to be taken even remotely seriously as an organisation that builds and maintains the internet for the whole planet, we need to meet in a fashion that doesn't appear (and isn't) biased to North America (or any other locality). Especially given the current state of the Internet and the world, we ignore this perception at our peril. 

I do support it because it's very hard to untangle correlation from causation regarding meeting location and participation. 

I do support it because it's evident that some people here have a built-in assumption that a flight longer than 10-12 hours from the continental US is "too long", without considering the experiences of others.

I also think that dividing the world into just Asia, Europe and North America has a huge amount of bias built into it, but won't pick that fight now.

Regards. 

P.S. Apologies if I don't respond immediately to replies, as I'll be in transit to the IAB/IESG retreat for about 27 hours, starting (my) tomorrow.

--
Mark Nottingham   https://www.mnot.net/