Re: [Manycouches] Robert Wilton's No Objection on draft-ietf-shmoo-remote-fee-08: (with COMMENT)

["Rob Wilton (rwilton)" <[e-mail]>]

Hi Mirja,

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mirja Kuehlewind <[e-mail]>
> Sent: 21 August 2023 15:56
> To: Rob Wilton (rwilton) <[e-mail]>; The IESG <[e-mail]>
> Cc: [e-mail]; [e-mail];
> [e-mail]; [e-mail]
> Subject: Re: Robert Wilton's No Objection on draft-ietf-shmoo-remote-fee-08:
> (with COMMENT)
> 
> Hi Rob,
> 
> thanks for you review. Please see below.
> 
> On 21.08.23, 11:15, "Robert Wilton via Datatracker" <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
>     Robert Wilton has entered the following ballot position for
>     draft-ietf-shmoo-remote-fee-08: No Objection
> 
>     When responding, please keep the subject line intact and reply to all
>     email addresses included in the To and CC lines. (Feel free to cut this
>     introductory paragraph, however.)
> 
> 
>     Please refer to https://www.ietf.org/about/groups/iesg/statements/handling-
> ballot-positions/
>     for more information about how to handle DISCUSS and COMMENT
> positions.
> 
> 
>     The document, along with other ballot positions, can be found here:
>     https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-shmoo-remote-fee/
> 
> 
> 
>     ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>     COMMENT:
>     ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
>     Re:
> 
>        With the move to fully online meetings in 2020 and 2021, however,
>        there was no longer a distinction between remote and on-site
>        participants for those meetings.  Since IETF meeting costs and other
>        costs still had to be covered, a meeting fee was charged for remote
>        participants, eliminating the free remote participation option at
>        that time.
> 
>     Is this factually correct?  Did the IESG/LLC have the option for remote fee
>     waivers at the point that the Vancouver IETF meeting moved online at the
> last
>     minute (if that is deemed to be an acceptable implementation policy)?  If
> not,
>     then when was the fee-waiver option introduced for remote participation?
> 
> [MK] For the Vancouver meeting we actually refunded everybody or covered
> the registration to a remote registration which was free at that time; but also
> because this was not a normal and full meeting. For the next meeting
> afterwards the LLC introduced the remote fee. Yes, the fee waiver what then
> introduced just before the meeting started after some community discussion.
> However the whole point of this sentence was to say remote participation was
> simply free for everybody and now it's not anymore; also because this was
> simply not feasible for fully online meetings. Maybe a small rephrasing helps?
> 
> OLD
>        Since IETF meeting costs and other
>        costs still had to be covered, a meeting fee was charged for remote
>        participants, eliminating the free remote participation option at
>        that time.
> 
> NEW
>        Since IETF meeting costs and other
>        costs still had to be covered, a meeting fee was charged for remote
>        participants, eliminating general free participation for remote attendees.
> 
> Any better?
> 
Ah, now I get what you are trying to say, and yes what you have is better, or perhaps something like:

       Since IETF meeting costs and other
       costs still had to be covered, a meeting fee was introduced for remote
       participants, replacing the free participation that was previously available for all remote attendees.

> 
> 
>     I still think that this document has ended up being longer than it needs to be,
>     e.g., sections 3 and 4 don't feel that helpful, and hence they somewhat read
>     like they are stating they they are not telling the LLC how to do their job and
>     at the same time proscribing how the LLC should do their job.
> 
> [MK] I agree the document is longer than it needs to be but things were added
> during the wg process. If we remove those section I think the "policy" part of
> the document would stay the same but the reader (as well as the LLC) would be
> left with questions that actually have been discussed in the wg. Afterall the
> important point is that all policy documents that we have community consensus
> on are after all never fully binding for the LLC as there are always financial and
> legal matters that have to be considered as well (and those, at least the
> financial ones, are changing over time). This is also true for e.g. venue
> selection: we can wish whatever we want for but if such a hotel doesn't exists
> or it's not financially feasible, the LLC might not always be able to address all
> requirements fully.
> 
[Rob Wilton (rwilton)] 

Yes, okay.  I guess that I feel that it is better to only document the requirements of what should be achieved and to devolve responsibility (and hence give flexibility) to the organization on how they best manage/meet (potentially conflicting) requirements.  But then I have long held a general sentiment that it would be better for far less of the IETF process to be codified into RFCs and BCPs, and hence leave more flexibility to the leadership bodies to react to change without having to go through the community consensus process.  RFC 2026 is quite good in this regard in that it generally covers broad brush strokes without dictating too many of the details.  For the rest, consistently documenting it on webpages might be more participant friendly.

But also to be clear, I have balloted no objection ... as someone (perhaps Stephen) said at some point, this document is good enough.

Regards,
Rob


> Mirja
> 
> 
> 
>     Regards,
>     Rob
> 
>