Re: [Mtgvenue] document status, the role of the iaoc, and enforceability

[S Moonesamy <[e-mail]>]

Hi Dave,
At 10:44 08-01-2017, Dave Crocker wrote:
>However prior to the announcement of Singapore, what record was 
>there on "the IETF discussion list and the triannual attendees 
>mailing lists" that informed the IAOC/Meetings committee about the 
>concerns that were finally raised about Singapore?

There isn't any record of the concerns.

>Any model that presumes that the IAOC/Meetings committee is going to 
>know all of the relevant concerns of the IETF community, about each 
>possible meeting city, is certain to fail eventually.  There are too 
>many possible issues and their importance to the community varies over time.

I'll put this differently; it is not possible to identify all the 
future concerns at the time when the decision about the venue is taken.

>No formalized text is going to be sufficiently accurate or complete 
>over the long term.  Stating broad principles can be helpful for 
>shared reference during discussion, but assuming that any such text 
>will provide sufficient synchrony between the committee and the 
>community will eventually fail.

Yes.

>The only way to ensure that community concerns are recognized 
>adequately is for the open, early-stage community comment process 
>that has recently been added.  And it effectively marginalizes the 
>importance of any detailed document text we might create, about 
>political/legal/social concerns.

My guess is that the open early-stage comment period can be a good 
way to capture some of the concerns.  The discussions about meetings 
and the detailed document highlighted that the IAOC may have 
overlooked basic stuff over the years, e.g. travel advisories.  If I 
am not mistaken, there has only been two occurrences of 
political/legal concerns over the years.

There are some good things in the draft, i.e. issues which should not 
be revisited on a triannual basis.  There are also some IETF policy 
questions, e.g. is the venue selection about endorsing or condemning 
the political choices of a country which is selected as a venue.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy