RE: Excellent choice for summer meeting location!

Couple of questions:

-What kind of city with a population of 75,000 has hotel accommodations for
2000 people unless it's a tourist Mecca and likely expensive and overbooked?
-What kind of mass transit does your typical city of that size have? On that
note, what kind of car rental capacity is it going to have? Even though I'm
from San Diego, certainly being able to go places on the subway/bus like we
could in DC makes it a MUCH better location than a place like SD where it is
VERY spread out, everyone has a car, and public transport is scarce relative
to a lot of other places in the world.
-If you can only just ADSL do you think a remote location will have the
bandwidth to host 2000 IETFers sucking up bandwidth with their laptops and
trying to broadcast meetings out to distant locations?
-What kind of small city of such population has a large corporation willing
to sponsor an IETF event?
-How does making a big event take place in a small town help attendance?

As for a couple of your propositions:

-People usually get paid less outside of large cities because the cost of
living is less so I don't see how that has any bearing, other than forcing
everyone, including people living in other small towns to travel extra, and
certainly guaranteeing that more people have to travel rather than less.
-When you say "connections out in regional areas are often less than optimal
for most people so this has an impact on online participation" I'm curious
how putting a meeting outside a city would do ANYTHING for that situation,
other than make travel more difficult and connectivity more limited.
Certainly the people who live out of the range of high speed connectivity
will not be helped by this maneuver.
-You say "I'm sure there would be benefits in holding meetings at cities
with populations ....." but don't state any

So, I'm not trying to be ruthless. Certainly moving out of a major
metropolis does reduce many headaches/problems such as:
-local costs: food/lodging etc.
-less traffic and hassles associated with big cities 

But really these are convenience issues whereas the benefits of large venues
address direct issues that relate to having a major conference:
-lodging: big hotels with adequate facilities for such an event, as well as
a reasonable number of more inexpensive lodgings for people on a budget
-transport infrastructure: planes/trains/busses/subway/taxi
-Entertainment: Yes people would like to have something to do in a place
they go for a conference rather than being stuck with a hotel and a
restaurant(reminds me of a couple trips to IBM in Burlington Vermont).
Especially for those of us who pay for our trips to IETF meetings, they end
up being pseudo-vacations to be able to justify.
-Communications infrastructure: High bandwidth for IETF participants and
multicast sessions.
-Proximity: At our last meeting in DC there was an FTC summit on spam that
many folks attended, and I personally attended a satellite meeting at UMD.
Certainly being in a small town precludes the event from being near other
large meetings, as well as organizations such as universities and larger
corporations that provide local attendees, sponsorship, and other
possibilities for people who are attending.

Personally I'd LOVE to see more meetings in other parts of the world, as it
adds a lot to a meeting, but I really don't see any far-reaching benefits to
moving away from major city/metropolis areas, and can see a lot of reasons
why it would be a problem.

Just my thoughts.......

-Tom

thomasgal(_at_)lumenvox(_dot_)com  

> Hello John
>
> I was being a little tongue in cheek but the suggestion of 
> regional centers being used is one I pursue for a lot of 
> groups.  Living in the country in a smallish city, a lot of 
> meetings occur in the capitals that I and others just don't 
> get a chance to attend.  I'm sure it would be the same in a 
> lot of areas.  I can understand the issues but the benefits 
> all round may overcome them.  For instance where I live is 
> only an hour flight from Sydney, you ask, why don't you fly 
> there for meetings and I have to explain, being in a regional 
> area, the finances available for travel are limited.  We tend 
> to get paid less than equilivant workers in the capitals and 
> companies out here are less likely to approve spending on 
> non-essential travel.  It is also a fact that connections out 
> in regional areas are often less than optimal for most people 
> so this has an impact for online participation.  It is only 
> recently I was able to get ADSL at home for instance and 
> operated for years with a dialup that meant long hours for 
> participation online and I missed a lot of broadcasts due to 
> downloading constraints.
>
> My suggestion is the IETF considers moving some meetings out 
> to regional centres within reasonable travel of the major 
> ingress airports in an effort to promote awareness and 
> participation.  Within the States and other countries, I'm 
> sure there would be some benefits in holding meetings at 
> cities with populations of 30,000 - 100,000 or so rather than 
> the capitals and other major cities with populations into the 
> millions.
>
> There are issues with such locations and they may be 
> insurmountable but I would like to see the idea considered.  
> Given more people making lifestyle changes that involve 
> moving away from major cities, it may become more important 
> in the future.
>
> Darryl (Dassa) Lynch
>
>
>
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