Re: [Ietf108planning] Assessment criteria for decision on in-person/virtual IETF 108

[Vittorio Bertola <[e-mail]>]

Hello,

thanks a lot for this - it is a remarkably rational approach amidst a new situation which is often being managed irrationally. I only have a few comments:

> Il 17/04/2020 01:55 IETF Executive Director <[e-mail]> ha scritto:
> 
> Unacceptable travel barriers that would preclude an in-person meeting are:
> 
> * Spanish borders closed to visitors
> * Any form of quarantine on arrival in Spain
> * Any form of self-isolation requirement on arrival of more than 24 hours

There is a possibility that the three above will not be applied to everyone, but just to travellers from certain countries (it was like this in the early stages of the epidemy in Europe). In that case, the three above should be counted on a per-country basis.

> * Any new form of health-related travel restriction imposed by Spain or the EU that is inherently discriminatory in nature (e.g. not based on science).

This also could be applied on a per-country basis, so, as a general suggestion, I think that you should merge the two lists of travel barriers and just add a clause so that they will be counted per country, or will be counted 100% if they are applied to every foreign traveller.

Additionally, this last point is IMHO quite contentious - how do you establish if a travel restriction clause is "based on science"? There is no fully established result or even scientific consensus on basic things like "infected people will become immune". Do we really need this additional bullet? I don't think it is something that can be objectively assessed, so you should just strike it out; either people can come to the meeting, or they cannot, independently from how sensible the restrictions are.

> Unacceptable travel barriers that will be counted on a per-country basis are:
> 
> * Any form of quarantine on return.
> * Any form of self-isolation requirement on return of more than 24 hours unless consistent with general self-isolation requirements
> * Government travel bans
> 
> A requirement to prove COVID-19 immunity, vaccination or similar will be acceptable provided it is not inherently discriminatory, though calculating the impact of that is likely to be problematic.
> 
> In order to assess this criteria, in particular the “overwhelming majority” requirement, and the criteria below, we will use a similar methodology.  Using our records of attendance at recent European IETF meetings we will develop an expected distribution of participants by country (i.e. how many participants we would typically expect from each country).  If we judge that more than 20% of expected participants cannot attend, based on this country distribution, then the in-person meeting will not go ahead.

I would prefer a relatively higher percentage, e.g. 30 or 40 per cent, on the basis that workable remote attendance is possible for anyone that cannot travel, and that the physical meeting would be a significant improvement over a virtual meeting for the share of people that can travel. It's unfair to discriminate the people that cannot meet in person, but also preventing the people that could meet in person from doing so damages them while not creating any significant advantage for the others.

(It would be another matter if this affected the economic viability of the meeting - that's a different set of considerations. Also, if there are concerns about Nomcom eligibility etc, they can be dealt with separately so that people who cannot attend in person will not be damaged.)

> Using the definitions above of unacceptable travel barriers, we will sum the percentages derived above from each country that is judged as having unacceptable barriers and if that figure is greater than 20% then the in-person meeting will not go ahead.
> 
> 3. “Travel to the Venue is acceptable based on cost, time, and burden for participants traveling from multiple regions.  It is anticipated that the burden borne will generally be shared over the course of multiple years.”
> 
> Using the same basic methodology as the criteria above, for this criteria we will aim to assess flight availability for each country to get to Madrid and if less than 50% of normal flights/routes between the two countries are available or the fares are significantly above normal

I would simply judge on the availability of a sufficient number of seats at reasonable prices (e.g. 5x the number of expected participants in a range of 3 days before and after the meeting). I don't see how can you practically measure whether "less than 50% of normal routes are available" for each country of departure: what is "normal"? How do you ascertain how much the "normal 100%" would be?

I am also concerned that an assessment done in early May will not be representative of how the situation at the end of July will actually be, as all airlines have now grounded their planes but stay ready to resume flights as soon as possible. Also, people would anyway wait until almost the last minute before buying flights, so an actual assessment should be done much later - though I understand that you need to take a decision well in advance. So I'm wondering whether this criterion makes sense at all - it's nice in theory but very hard to assess in practice in a meaningful way.

Regards,
-- 
 
Vittorio Bertola | Head of Policy & Innovation, Open-Xchange
[e-mail] 
Office @ Via Treviso 12, 10144 Torino, Italy