--On Tuesday, 10 November, 2009 17:05 +0900 Stanislav Shalunov
<shalunov(_at_)bittorrent(_dot_)com> wrote:
...
Here are some immediate, but invalid, objections that this
proposal is prone to elicit:
"But nobody will come to the technical plenary Friday
afternoon!" --
1. We did come to the technical plenary when it was the last
thing on Thursday, and it was in the evening.
But, depending on location, attendance at the Thursday Plenary
was often lower than that at the Wednesday one as people try to
leave town. Also note that, for people trying to get home to
families before the weekend (see below for more on that
subject), there is a huge difference between leaving Thursday
night or Friday morning (or for some location pairs, Friday
afternoon) and trying to make people travel Saturday, especially
after we have wiped out the prior weekend with Sunday meetings
of various sorts, a Sunday evening reception, and sessions first
thing Monday. For some participants, travel Saturday just
isn't going to happen if they see any alternative, no matter
what scheduling tricks we perform to provide incentives.
2. If people won't come to the technical plenary, they won't
come to WG meetings. If it's an unsuitable meeting time, we
should not put WGs there.
But, if people are trying to lose as little as the weekend as
possible, there are large differences as one goes down the curve
from "leave Thursday night after the plenary" to "leave early
Friday" to "leave early Friday afternoon" to "leave Friday
night" to "leave Saturday".
"Can't we just make sure it's not the same groups that get put
on Friday?" --
Zero-sum redistribution of pain pitting WGs against one
another does not reduce total pain. We can fix the bug
instead of making everyone suffer equally.
You can't fix the bug except by doing away with Friday sessions
except for special meetings and groups that want them. We need
to keep in mind that the IETF can't fire someone for not
attending that that, in many countries, companies are prohibited
by law from firing someone who refuses to work on weekends.
The only thing that surprises me about the Friday situation is
that more people haven't voted with their feet.
...
We shouldn't suffer from the Friday bug and repeat "normal
day" mantra. We should fix the bug that detached the
technical plenary from the end of the IETF meeting by moving
it to the end again.
Also keep in mind that, as the IETF becomes more international,
Friday is part of the (religious as well as secular) weekend for
some cultures and that the religious weekend starts late Friday
afternoon for others. I think there are reasonable odds that
the problems with Friday meetings --especially those that run
into the afternoon -- are going to get worse over time, no
matter what the IETF does.
Disclosure: I don't buy the theory that we solve the demand for
more slots by making the meetings longer. I think it ultimately
would take us to two weeks off meetings or demand for
late-afternoon Friday meeting slots at least. I've proposed in
the past that areas be limited in the number of WGs that they
are permitted to have by the number they can manage effectively.
The latter should include putting a ceiling on the total number
of meeting slots, allocated among areas as the IESG chooses. If
there is demand for more meeting times than that limit permits,
the ADs will have to prioritize... which would probably be a
good thing.
I'd even like to see the Nomcom ask IESG candidates whether they
consider unbounded meeting-length creep acceptable and what they
intend to do about it.
john
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