[Mtgvenue] Alvaro Retana's No Objection on draft-ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process-15: (with COMMENT)

[Alvaro Retana <[e-mail]>]

Alvaro Retana has entered the following ballot position for
draft-ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process-15: 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/iesg/statement/discuss-criteria.html
for more information about IESG DISCUSS and COMMENT positions.


The document, along with other ballot positions, can be found here:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process/



----------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMENT:
----------------------------------------------------------------------


(1) The term "participant" is used in several places, sometimes with different
modifiers; for example: active, IETF and regular.  Some of the phrases seem to
want to differentiate between them, but that distinction is not clear (for
example): "in order to spread the difficulty and cost of travel among active
participants, balancing travel time and expense across the regions in which
IETF participants are based."  What is the difference between active and IETF
participants?

Note that "attendee" is also used, in my interpretation, to also mean
"participant".  Is that the intent, or is there a difference?

Clarifying and being consistent would help.  I don't think that a terminology
section is needed -- I just want to probe whether the terms were differentiated
on purpose, and, if so, to understand what that differentiation may be.

(2) From §2.2 (Venue Selection Non-Objectives)

Maximal attendance:
     While the IETF strives to be as inclusive as possible both online
     and in person, maximal meeting attendance in and of itself is not
     a goal.  It would defeat a key goal of meeting if active
     contributors with differing points of view did not have the
     opportunity to resolve their disagreements, no matter how full the
     rooms.

Should maximal attendance by "active contributors" be listed as an objective? 
Measuring what that means will not be easy...but that seems to be corollary:
the text above sounds like it says "it doesn't matter how many people show up,
as long as active contributors are there".

BTW, following up on my first point, what's the relationship between
"contributor" and "participant"?  Is there a difference between an "active
contributor" and an "active participant"?

(3) §3.2 (Important Criteria) says that "when a particular requirement in this
section cannot be met...it may be appropriate for the IASA to assist those who,
as a result, have been inconvenienced in some way."

What does the IASA providing assistance mean?  Looking at the criteria, would
(for example) a high cost be considered an inconvenience?  Knowing that the
intent is to spread the burden "over the course of multiple years", who
determines that inconvenience?  How could the IASA assist?  Maybe there's some
other purpose for that sentence for which I'm missing context.

(4) §3.2.5 (Food and Beverage)

   It is said that an army travels on its stomach.  So too does the
   IETF.  The following criteria relate to food and beverage.

Personal opinion: unfortunate quote and comparison.

   ...
   o  A range of attendee's health-related and religion-related dietary
      requirements can be satisfied with robust and flexible onsite
      service or through access to an adequate grocery.

   o  The Facility environs include grocery shopping that will
      accommodate a wide range of dietary requirements, within a
      reasonable walking distance, or conveniently accessible by a short
      taxi, bus, or subway ride, from the Facility and IETF Hotels.

These last two bullets sound almost the same: the difference seems to be in
calling for "robust and flexible onsite service" in the first one.  Maybe they
can be merged.

(5) I think that the reference to rfc3935 should be a Normative reference given
that it defines why we meet (§2.1).

(6) Is the intent for this document and draft-ietf-mtgvenue-meeting-policy to
be part of the same BCP?  I would think so, but I didn't see that mentioned an
the writeups.