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

[JORDI PALET MARTINEZ <[e-mail]>]

Hi Jay,

While I fully agree in general with this assessment criteria, I've some inputs, below, in-line.

Regards,
Jordi
@jordipalet
 
 

El 17/4/20 1:55, "IETF-Announce en nombre de IETF Executive Director" <[e-mail] en nombre de [e-mail]> escribió:

    As set out in our recent email [1], we have developed an assessment framework and decision making process for the decision on whether or not the in-person IETF 108 Madrid can go ahead.  The proposed framework and process is detailed below and we welcome community feedback.

    Given the current conditions in Spain and around the world, the framework is based on the assumption that these conditions would have to significantly improve for the in-person meeting to be held.  The assessment will consider some of the venue selection criteria specified in RFC 8718, adapted to the situation we are in.


    == Assessment Framework ==

    As a matter of principle, we want an assessment framework that, as much as possible, uses independent, trusted data to enable an objective assessment.  However, as this is an entirely novel situation, high quality data sources are not yet available and so there will be, by necessity, a significant degree of subjective judgement in our assessment.

    The assessment criteria we have chosen are based on the venue selection criteria specified in RFC 8718 [2], both the mandatory criteria of section 3.1 and the important criteria of section 3.2.1 “Venue City Criteria”, which we believe make up the most relevant and recent advice from the community that can be applied in these circumstances.  If any of the mandatory venue selection criteria from section 3.1 of RFC 8178 cannot be met then the in-person meeting will not go ahead. Those criteria relate to the physical facility (space, access, network).

    The important venue selection criteria from section 3.2.1 of RFC 8718, listed below in a different order from the RFC, are more complex to assess as explained below:

    1. “Economic, safety, and health risks associated with this Venue are acceptable.”

    When considering our data sources we want to use both local sources and independent sources to ensure any possible bias is minimised. Our primary local sources will be the official Madrid Tourism COVID-19 site [3] and our local contacts and if either indicates that any form of local emergency conditions still prevail then the in-person meeting will not go ahead.

[Jordi] I've the feeling that all the countries will do a step-by-step "de-escalation" of the confinement. So, while [3] is probably a good source, there may be some delay in some of the touristic activities re-opening, that should not be part of our assessment. For example, it is clear that it is nice to participate in an IETF meeting and also have some time for fun, museums, etc., but it may happen that this is not going to be possible in many places in the world for many months. However, that should not impact our ability to hold a meeting if a) We have a "secure and healthy" hotel (and overflow hotels), b) We have places to get food, c) We have no restrictions for meetings for the expected number of participants (i.e., no restrictions on the size of the meeting).

    The selection of independent sources is more problematic and we have chosen to use the US CDC and their travel advisory for Spain [4], which must be below Warning Level 3 (avoid nonessential travel) or the in-person meeting will not go ahead.  While recognising that the choice of a single US source may be contentious, we believe this is the best choice because all of our contracts have a force majeure clause that specifically lists the US CDC.

[Jordi] I've not looked at the information of the CDC about Spain, but this seems an US government organization and I'm sorry, but if that's the case, I don't think this is a trustable source. I recall when we did the assessment of Madrid (and Spain in general), some of the sources from governments like the US and UK, were speaking about Spain as a country not to visit, because the high level of ETA terrorism, which clearly was false and greatly outdated.

[Jordi] In fact, I think very few sources are trustable. For example, the Spanish government is not counting the deaths that haven't been tested even if they had clear symptoms, and there is almost no testing, especially when people are dying at home or in elder's residences. So, the Spanish government said up to now we have slightly over 20.000 deaths (you will find this number in reports on Sunday, today officially is only 19.300 or so). But the reality is that the real figure is about 80.000, if we count everyone that had symptoms and we bias it with comparisons of what happened in the previous years. I'm sure this "dance of figures" is happening *everywhere* (including in the origin, China). Same with figures for infected people. If *all the people* is not tested, figures are plain wrong.

[Jordi] I think what we must trust is the people sitting in Spain. There is, at least a dozen of participants which live in Madrid, that can confirm what is the actual real situation, not just myself. This is the best source of information, not the Government, not other Governments or organizations (including the no-longer trustable WHO). Note that I'm very critic with the Spanish government, other Governments that are creating harm to all the world, and global organizations. I've no doubt that they are acting against many criminal and civil laws and in fact, I've published an article (in 4 parts, as it was too long, the last one will be available today), and I'm working in a trial, once all this pass. If you are interested, here they are:

Covid-19: Let's Claim the Criminal and Civil Responsibility of our rulers
Part 1: Covid-19 and the Government of China
https://jordipalet.blogspot.com/2020/04/covid-19-governments-responsibility.html#en

Part 2: WHO and declarations of war
https://jordipalet.blogspot.com/2020/04/covid-19-governments-responsibility-part2.html#en

Part 3: Rulers and serious recklessness resulting in death
https://jordipalet.blogspot.com/2020/04/covid-19-governments-responsibility-part3.html#en

Part 4: Trampling the law, our Constitution, cannot go free
(will be publish tonight/tomorrow early morning ... need to find some time for writing the English version) - this will be more critical with the Spanish Government and the Politicians that are allowing to act against our laws and Constitution.

[Jordi] The actual situation in Spain is that the confinement has been extended until 26 of April, but now is only for those that can't tele-work, and shops (except foods, pharmacies, and a few others), and of course sports, fun (cinemas, concerts, sports), schools/universities. So, there is a restriction of movement for non-essential activities and we will start a de-escalation, so we slowly go back to the "new normal" (I don't think massive sports, concerts and so on, will be back immediately) and there will be a continuous supervision of the infection numbers, in *every place* in the world. The situation is going better every day, we passed the "peak" already about 10 days ago and the R0 is already below 1, we just need to see if we can restart more and more regular activities, like re-opening hotels, restaurants, etc., and probably only the "fun" activities at the end. This is not only my opinion, but what I got from some government officials, that I trust (one of the ministries - telecom one, is the building next to the IETF108 venue), and the confirmation that I got from hotel chains, including the IETF venue. In fact, the Melia Castilla expects to restart by end of April-May (as said progressively), and they have still events NOT cancelled, happening in May and June. In July (right before our meeting dates) they have a big general assembly (they didn't tell me what company, but I believe is a big bank), they have also new events being contracted for July, August, September and so on. Furthermore, they are already getting new reservations for those dates for airline crews.

    2. “Travel barriers to entry, including visa requirements, are likely to be such that an overwhelming majority of participants who wish to do so can attend.  The term "travel barriers" is to be read broadly by the IASA in the context of whether a successful meeting can be had.”

    Assessment of this criteria has two parts to it.  The first is a definition of what are unacceptable travel barriers and the second is deciding how to apply the “overwhelming majority” test.  Unacceptable travel barriers come in two forms, those that would preclude an in-person meeting entirely and those that will be counted on a per-country basis for an “overwhelming majority” test (as explained below):

    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
    * 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).

[Jordi] Fully agree with this.

    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

[Jordi] I don't think this is acceptable at all. If a country setup restricting for returning from Spain, that's a "country" specific decision. In fact, this could be used politically by any country that has any issue with Spain (in this case, but I'm speaking in general). If country "A" decides that they are going to have people coming from country "B" confined at home for 2 weeks, this is acceptable for an organization like IETF. It is an individual decision to make the trip or not. We all know that many of us telework, or that some countries already are extending the confinement, so it may not be related *at all* to your trip, etc.

    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.

[Jordi] I'm not sure to fully understand this calculation, specially the part of "by country". If a single country like US, has restrictions, which is quite probably, this is a matter of the citizens that approve his government, the same that my government decision affect me, whether my government is right or is doing illegal acts (as it is the case), but my situation, can't affect the rest of the participants, unless we have a situation where, let's say, this is happening to more than half of the regular IETF participants for summer EU meetings. It will be a very *BAD* precedent to base our decision on a 20% and furthermore in a specific country, in fact it will be a discriminatory decision. What happens if participants of a country from Latinoamerica or Africa, even if they did all regarding Covid-19 (up to now at least) much better than EU countries, are banned? Is not that discriminatory? And again, I'm talking about the precedent, not just this situation. Our decision must not be based at all in "per country".

    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 then we will work on the assumption that the burden of travel for people from that country is not acceptable.

[Jordi] Again, I don't see here the 50% figure. We must verify if a) the cost is acceptable (in case of extremely price increase) and b) if there are sufficient flight from each country to Madrid, but a % don't make sense here. Maybe we have only 25% of regular flights to Madrid, but those are *sufficiently* and not much more expensive (I think actually will become cheaper), for the IETF participants. The way I'm proposing requires some more work, right, but is not impossible to check. It is easier to use several online flight search tools for assessing that.

    We will then sum the expected percentages of participants from each country that is judged as having unacceptable travel burdens and if that figure is greater than 20% then the in-person meeting will not go ahead.


    Finally, we note that there is the possibility that the result of this assessment is that an in-person meeting can go ahead but corporate travel bans remain in place and/or many people are unwilling to travel, in which case we will engage in a subsequent process after May 15 to establish the viability of an in-person meeting, as we did for IETF 107.

[Jordi] And again, IETF is about individuals. We can't discriminate the rest of the participants because "big company a, b and c" take a decision against. The decision must be bases in something more general such as "% of the participants" will not be able to come. I don't know what is the appropriate %, that's a different question, and may be also related to the ability to do our work balanced with the cost of cancelling the meeting. Again it will be a very *bad* precedent to take a decision based on "company a, b, or c", because some companies can get forced *at any point* to avoid traveling to a country where the IETF is being hosted because there is a commercial or political war with *that country* or because is being hosted by *that company*. We know what happened with US and Huawei (I'm not judging if that's right or not). US can take further steps and disallow US companies to have meetings were Huawei is participating (extreme case, but there are many possibilities in the middle).

[Jordi] In summary: Our criteria must be as good as possible to be not only valid (as much as we can predict) for the Covid-19 situation and the IETF108, because after we have IETF109, and later on we have Covid-21 (hopefully not), and later on we have a political or commercial war between "country a and b" or "company c and d", etc.

    == Process ==

    This process has been designed to respect the various delegated roles with the IETF leadership and ensure there are appropriate checks and balances in place.

    a. On or about 11 May 2020 the IETF Executive Director will produce a draft report using the assessment framework set out above with a recommendation on whether or not an in-person meeting can be held.  This draft report will be confidential and distribution restricted to the IESG, IRTF Chair, IAB Chair, LLC, Secretariat and meeting host primary contact.  

[Jordi] I don't understand why those reports must be confidential. This disallows since the early stage, other people that could contribute with different points of view, or have some additional relevant data, to provide that information, and only shows a lack of transparency, which should never happen in IETF. I think we need clear examples of why this can't be published (I may change my mind then, but I think if confidential information is there, can be just deleted, as we do with LLC meetings, etc.). I agree that the decision is taken by the LLC at the end (including what information or data to trust).

    b. On 12 May 2020 the IESG, IRTF Chair, IAB Chair, LLC and Secretariat will meet to discuss the draft report and any changes that need to be made. The objective will be to get consensus on the report’s recommendation among the IESG, the IRTF Chair, the IAB Chair, the LLC Board, and the IETF Executive Director.
    c. By 14 May the IETF Executive Director will produce a final report.  At this stage the final report will be confidential and distribution restricted to the IESG, IRTF Chair, IAB Chair, LLC, Secretariat and meeting host primary contact.
    d. On 14 May 2020 the LLC Board will meet and officially sign off the recommendation.  The LLC will then officially inform the IESG of its recommendation.
    e. On 15 May 2020 the decision will be announced and the final report made public.

[Jordi] I think we need to make sure that what happened in IETF107 doesn't happen again. The decision is for the LLC, the other IETF leadership bodies *must not* blackmail the IETF community which decisions such as "we cancel our WG meeting". It is absolutely disrespectful. This is NOT ACCEPTABLE and setups a *terrible* precedent. The LLC must hear all the parties, but is *only* its final decision and *not based* on "positions of strength", otherwise, we don't need an LLC board.


    We now welcome your feedback about the assessment framework. Please send your feedback to [e-mail] (which will reach the IESG, IRTF Chair, and IETF Executive Director) by April 27. As you will have seen, this is a very complex situation requiring complex analysis and so please make any feedback as practical and implementable as possible within the published time frame.


    [1]  https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf/Si153ZcOZzl83UgPfhD7zVgOkjg/
    [2]  https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8718 
    [3]  https://www.esmadrid.com/en/information-coronavirus
    [4]  https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/destinations/traveler/none/spain?s_cid=ncezid-dgmq-travel-single-001 


    Jay Daley, IETF Executive Director
    Alissa Cooper, IETF Chair
    Colin Perkins, IRTF Chair

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