Re: Fix the Friday attendance bug: make the technical plenary the last I

John,

You'd like to make the meeting shorter.  Obviously, other things being  
equal, it'd be great -- it'd be easier not to miss sessions, and it'd  
be fewer days of travel.  I don't have a plan of what 30 track-hours  
(~20 WG sessions) to slash or how to expand hotels to have higher  
concurrency.  Realistically, I don't expect that the Friday creep can  
be reversed, but it'd be great.
Meeting duration is not what I am proposing to change one way or the  
other.  Personally, I'm OK with it ending either day, as long as  
everyone knows what day it is.
Currently we have a fuzzy end and bad WG slots during it.  We can fix  
this by moving the technical plenary to the end of the IETF meeting,  
where it was before.  My guess is it's easiest to make the end at  
about the same time as now.  If it can be Thursday night, fantastic,  
but the problem I would like to see addressed is not duration, but the  
damaged goods at the end of the schedule.  And, unlike the duration,  
which is a complicated balancing act, making the end sharp is  
straightforward.
If we have WG meetings on Friday, technical plenary should be Friday  
afternoon.  If Friday is not good enough for technical plenary, it's  
not good enough for WGs.
[If you're right about the duration being unbearable, one outcome  
might be low attendance of the technical plenary.  That would cost us  
one poorly attended technical plenary and would put to rest the idea  
that Friday is a normal day.  A poorly attended technical plenary  
would cost us roughly triple the damage we get from poorly attended  
WGs on Friday and would thus be recouped within a year.]
-- Stas

--
Stanislav Shalunov
BitTorrent Inc
shalunov(_at_)bittorrent(_dot_)com

personal: http://shlang.com

On Nov 11, 2009, at 2:43 AM, John C Klensin wrote:

> --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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