Re: All these discussions about meeting venues

[Fred Baker <[e-mail]>]

I think it is important for the IAOC to know when there are issues that they need to address, for example the issue with food appropriate to muslims that came up in Dublin. Personally, when I become aware of such issues, I send a note to [e-mail] or [e-mail], inform them of the issue, and ask them to address it.

What I find irritating with these discussions is the perennial "what idiot did this" tone. What comes across very strongly is that the people whom we trusted enough to place in positions of responsibility grew horns the instant they entered the role and are now doing their very best to make everyone's lives miserable. It becomes politically correct to respond to any response as "insensitive" while being completely insensitive to the people in question, who are (apart from AMS and the IAD) volunteers like the rest of us and put a fair bit of time and travel into getting things as close to "right" as they can get them. We don't, to my knowledge, have anyone of restrictive religious persuasions such as muslims or orthodox jews in the team that does the site visits; there are a number of women involved, however, so I would expect the team to be aware of women's issues.

If we want to have these discussions on the IETF list, I would strongly suggest that they be moderated for tone. People need to find a way to discuss an issue without making statements about a person or set of persons.

As to food issues, I think the hosts of recent meetings at least have done a pretty good job of pointing people to travel and food options in the host web sites. I find myself wondering, though, if the data should be organized in a different way. If we could get hosts to identify restaurants in the area that cater to muslim (no pork, not even in the kitchen), jewish (kosher rules), and vegetarian (which has multiple meanings), and identify grocery stores where people with medically-driven diets can find appropriate things, that might help.