Cheaper, yes. Easier?
Sure, a 5-hour flight to Paris sure beats a 12-hour flight to New York plus a 4
hour flight to Minneapolis, but you end up in Paris, and if the conference
hotel is too expensive for your corporate budget (it usually is for mine), you
have to go really far away to find a hotel that fits the budget and is not a
fleabag. OTOH any city in the US except the really huge ones (NY or LA) you can
find perfectly good hotels that feature breakfast, Internet and a spacious room
for way lower than the Hilton rates, and not at all far from the conference. In
Anaheim I found a hotel at half price at 10 minutes walk time from the Hilton.
And maybe it's just me, but with US hotels, it's far easier to tell the
fleabags from the acceptable hotels than in Europe.
Asia is even tougher. Flying to Taipei will take me to Paris and Hong Kong. And
I have no idea how to tell a good hotel from a bad one. I'll have to trust the
travel agent.
On 10/23/11 6:43 PM, "Sprecher, Nurit (NSN - IL/Hod HaSharon)"
<nurit(_dot_)sprecher(_at_)nsn(_dot_)com<mailto:nurit(_dot_)sprecher(_at_)nsn(_dot_)com>>
wrote:
"Both Minneapolis and Phoenix have huge conference facilities, are easy to go
to, and can get cheap off-season discount"
For whom?
For me it is much cheaper and easier to go to Europe….:-(
From: ietf-bounces(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org<mailto:ietf-bounces(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>
[mailto:ietf-bounces(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org] On Behalf Of ext Ping Pan
Sent: Sunday, October 23, 2011 3:13 PM
To: Eric Burger
Cc: IETF list discussion
Subject: Re: Requirement to go to meetings
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<mailto: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<http://bbiw.net>
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