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Re: Requirement to go to meetings

2011-10-23 13:55:50
2/3rds of the IETF meetings in the USA would exacerbate visa problems
for many attendees. I don't mind some amount of regularity in meeting
site, like Minneapolis, or going where it's inexpensive (by the way,
the Boston area is really cheap in the winter) but I think you need
more variety than that.

Thanks,
Donald
=============================
 Donald E. Eastlake 3rd   +1-508-333-2270 (cell)
 155 Beaver Street, Milford, MA 01757 USA
 d3e3e3(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com

On Sun, Oct 23, 2011 at 9:12 AM, Ping Pan <ping(_at_)pingpan(_dot_)org> wrote:
In the past three IETF meetings, I have traveled to Beijing, Prague and
Quebec City to meet most who live within a few hours (air, car, walking
etc.) from me. The next two will be in Taipei (in Winter) and Paris (in
Spring). This is more like a vacation package than a get-together for
engineers to solve problems face-to-face.
Several of us have chatted about this last week. How about this as
a recommendation?
We have two meetings in fixed locations each year: Minneapolis in winter,
and Phoenix in summer. The other one can be somewhere in Europe or Asia.
Both Minneapolis and Phoenix have huge conference facilities, are easy to go
to, and can get cheap off-season discount. Most of all,
it encourages the participants who want to do work going there.
Make sense?
Ping

On Sun, Oct 23, 2011 at 7:50 AM, Eric Burger 
<eburger(_at_)standardstrack(_dot_)com>
wrote:

It gets worse.  To attend every IETF meeting costs about $10,000 per year.
 If we say one has to go to the face-to-face meetings, we limit the IETF to
participants from corporations or entities that will sponsor the individual
(pay to play?), IETF participants that have independent funds, or people
that can generate significantly more than $10,000 per year from their IETF
activities.  $10,000 per year is not within a typical individual's budget.
 This is more especially so if the individual comes from a region of the
world where the per-capita GDP is below $10,000 per year.

Where does the $10,000 figure come from? It is based on the following
assumptions:
One trip is far, so $2,000 for airfare
One trip is near, so $400 for airfare
One trip is in between, so $1,200 for airfare

Hotel: 6 nights (Sunday - Friday) at $200 average per night (including
tax).
I know, Taipei is much more than that and Vancouver, including tax, will
be exactly that. However, the numbers are nice and round at $200. I often
cannot afford to stay at the conference hotel; use your own numbers for your
own circumstances.

Meals & Misc Expenses: $50/day for 6 days

So, the calculation is:
3x ($650 registration fee + $1,200 average airfare + $1,200 average hotel
cost + $300 meals/other) = $10,050


It is critically important to note the cost is dominated by travel and
hotel. The only parameter in IETF's control is the registration fee. Even if
ISOC, sponsors, or someone else endowed the IETF so we could drop the
registration fee to zero, the annual cost for travel is over $8,000, which
is still rather expensive.

I do not believe we consciously want to prohibit individuals from
participating in the IETF. I do not believe we consciously want to prohibit
individuals from outside North America, Europe, and select (wealthy) Asian
countries. However, this is one logical result of mandating people go to the
face-to-face to get work done.


On Oct 23, 2011, at 6:26 AM, Dave CROCKER wrote:



On 10/21/2011 7:58 PM, Melinda Shore wrote:
It's increasingly the case that if you
want to do work at the IETF, you need to go to meetings. I'd have
considerable reservations about asking for the kind of money you're
suggesting.


Melinda,

I've changed the subject line because the point you raise is orthogonal
to the main thread, but since you raise it, it's worth exploring a bit
(since I happen to agree with your observation.)

The dynamics that make this true seem to have to do with changes in our
community rather than in the nature of the technical work or the online
tools.

So the question is how to move the center of gravity back to mailing
lists?

d/

--

 Dave Crocker
 Brandenburg InternetWorking
 bbiw.net
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