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Re: IETF Meeting in South America

2013-05-26 20:12:22
I support the ietf-meeting in new regions, and reply as below,

On 5/26/13, Dave Crocker <dhc(_at_)dcrocker(_dot_)net> wrote:
The IAOC has put forward two reasons for having an IETF meeting in South
America:

Encouraging growing participation will help strengthen the Internet,
further encourage participation from those areas that will see the
most growth in the coming years, and will help advance the IETF in
political and international circles which is becoming more of an
imperative.

Yes I agree, but think that managment SHOULD work with ALL
participants (usually majority from North America) to make this
successful. We will not do that only if we work together, otherwise
not possible if only management work alone.


That is:

1. Promoting regional participation from Latin America

    There certainly are under-represented constituencies that we should
find ways to bring to the IETF in greater numbers.  Residents of Latin
America certainly qualify.

    However a number of comments on the ietf list have observed that our
conducting a single meeting in South America is unlikely to effect
greater Latin participation in the IETF.

If you analyse results for short term, you are right, but these things
are long term plans for future participants. We need to give South
America more time to see the result,

I agree, it won't, and frankly
I think it shouldn't, because it's a expensive and possibly risky Grand
Gesture rather than a substantive change.

Not sure what is expensive, do you mean expensive for IETF or for the
participants. If it is for regular participants, then they may become
remote for some time, for the best of IETF, which they will gain as
will.

    If we want great regional participation, let's look for ways to
achieve that -- for /all/ under-represented constituencies.  I suspect
that what's needed will be similar for all of them.

So you ask to other way other than reducing the majority of meetings
in North America. Do you mean that if we go for the way you are
disagreeing it will result to reduce number of majority participants?
I don't think so, as long as ALL have the IETF vesion.


2. Counteracting some type of IETF 'deficiency' in political and
international circles.

    As stated, that's a pretty vague concern, although yes, we sometimes
hear criticisms around the IETF's regional choices. However the nature
of exchanges like these are -- as correctly characterized by the IAOC --
political, and they are rarely assuaged by letting the critics dictate
organizational decision-making, such as where to send 1200 participants
for a mission-critical meeting.

No one sending any participants, it is a volunteering meetings, and
can be remotely attended. New communities are still need more face to
face meetings than experts of IETF.

    Put simply: we shouldn't let political critics set the agenda for
IETF strategic planning.  They'll just find something else to hassle us
about, since their political goal is criticizing the IETF, not improving
it.  Again as others have noted, one meeting in the region won't be
enough, and then there are the other regions we don't go to, and there
will be something else, and something more after that.

Yes, that is the beauty of IETF, it always changes for the best, we
need to get use to change, many organisations face their staff
resistance of change. Usually memebrs of organisation like things to
go the way it was before.

    But wait. There's a bigger issue being missed: The basis of the
criticism is fundamentally specious!  The /reality/ is that the IETF is
dramatically /more/ open in its participation and its documents than
nearly any other international standards group, most of whom have
nation- or vendor-based membership fees and restrictions, with little or
no participation via email or remote attendance.

We will get more remote participants when the meetings are expensive
for majority of participants. However, the number of attendance will
increase, because we got remote attendance and face to face new
attendance with lower costs per individuals :)

    Again, don't let political exercises determine the IETF's public
message. The solid reality of extreme IETF global inclusiveness is real
and basic. Those who want to hear that message will.  Those who don't
won't be quieted by a stray meeting in the southern half of South America.

     Of course we need to do more and better at being inclusive.  The
nascent diversity effort speaks to the IETF's own concern about that.



As for some other points in the IAOC message...


On 5/23/2013 9:07 AM, Bob Hinden wrote:
There has been a consistent level of IETF participation from South and
Central
America, and it has been growing since IETF82.  The data on this is posted
at

   http://iaoc.ietf.org/documents/IETF-Regional-Attendance-00.pdf.

 From the cited table, we see that Latin American meeting attendance
grew from <1% to 2%, over a bit more than one year.  However note that
it showed a marked /decrease/ in the preceding year.

As statistical analyses goes, making a business claim of increased
attendance, based on percentages that small and with a pattern that
contradictory, is extremely risky.

It also means 98% of attendees at the venue will /not/ be from the
region, rather than the usual 1/3 - 2/3 for our usual meeting venues.
That is, this meeting will be disproportionately out of the way for
attendees.

You assume that they all will attend not remotely. The usual meeting
venues has majority from same region, do you think that is a good
achievment, IMHO, it is better to have 50% attendance not from the
region and 50% remotely, than having 90% from same region. The 90%
attendance from same region sound like politics in my understandning,
I don't understand what you mean by *political excersies determining
IETF*.



 IETF standards are also made more robust when all perspectives
are represented during their development.

The IETF's primary working venue is mailing lists.  Are participants
from that region having singular difficulties participating in mailing
lists?

That is good that ALL should get use to participate remotely,
including the 98% of IETF participants. For new regions they need to
start face to face, then after that they will be well trained to have
no difficultues on mailing lists. Please note that I am a remote
participant and attending meetings remotely, but still there are
difficulties facing me because of other issues (may be ietf politics)
you may never experienced.

There were a few notes about this on the ietf list.

I'd summarize it as suggesting that we need more effort at making
mailing list participation easier for non-native English speakers, for
those new to IETF culture, and for those having an upbringing that is a
poor match against the IETF's gruff, aggressive debating style.  But, of
course, these are general issues about the IETF that also have come up
before.  And these are what we need to address.

I may understood that you define IETF culture as it is the North
America Culture, I disagree. The IETF culture is the world community
culture that are using the Internet standards. I know that 98%
participants from same region make a region-culture but that is not
the 98% IETF culture.


Things to consider are that it will be a long trip for the majority of
IETFers and the
air fares are more expensive (about 10% to 20% higher than average),
though
restaurants are less expensive.  This would be a case where most IETFers
would
bear more travel pain and expense.

I think that is reasonable, and that will help to increase remote
participants, and increase different industries to participate.

The cost appears to be significantly worse than that.  Presumably the
referenced average is spread across current planned averages of
within-region and 'distant' region meetings, with distant regions
typically being more expensive and of course incurring longer travel
times.

that will help to increase attendance of remote participants, and
increase different industries to participate.


This one to South America will be distant for 98% of attendees. So more
attendees than usual will be spending 'distant' travel money and time.

We are not sure about that assumption, but I will say we need to give
chance to other regions to increase participation other wise this 98%
will be 100% in future, and we will never need to have other regions.
The result may be that communities decide to separate-work the IETF
into different regions that work separately, do we want that to
happen? Do you want each region to have its own IETF meetings that
have 100% of attendance (with 1% remote attendance) from same region
with lowest costs.

 From the table below, a rough guess is that the incremental per-person
cost of this meeting's air travel is arguably around, US$700(!)
Multiply that by 1175 attendees -- assuming an average total of 1200.
That's an incremental community cost of roughly one million dollars.

Not sure why you make it added to a million, they spend separately, so
we should not add them as if they go to one company. I don't think the
IETF is spending that one million. You will only add costs if ALL
participants from same region work together to pay one company for the
total costs, therefore, there is no dought that the costs per
individual will reduce and that company will still make money.

And travel times to Buenos Aires are much longer than all but the most
distant venues, probably adding 1/2 - 1 day each way.  So attendees are
likely to be away from work and family for 1-2 days longer.

And for those who answer the questionnaire, saying that they are likely
or very likely to go to a meeting in Buenos Aires, one issue to consider
carefully is the likelihood of management approval for these extra
costs, or at least the overall effect on your annual travel budget.

The costs can be reduced if we work together not separately. However,
there is no excuse as long there is possibility of remote attendance.
As you mentioned we need to get use to mailing list remotely.

Adelaide was fun, but it was not justified in terms of either of the
rationales put forward in the IAOC note.  It also was a long time ago --
the Internet has changed, the world's economies have changed, and
companies allocation of funds have changed.

Yes, all changed so we also need to change, that may be the reason why
IETF should go to other regions that had not much economic impacts.


I like visiting South America.  But IETF meetings do not have tourism as
a goal.  So yes, I'm sure those who go will "enjoy" the city; but again,
that's not stated purpose of choosing venues.

Yes tourist not a goal but IMO the goal is to meet with Internet
community and encourage its new technologies growth/use. IMO we need
to choose venues to meet with new regional
companies/vendors/users/individuals.

Again, yes we want greater IETF participation of all regions around the
globe, but this meeting venue won't change things.

Yes, It will not change only if we don't care or we don't work with
management. All 100% of participants should market the IETF standards
to the world and any/every where.

If we are serious about wanting more participation from
under-represented regions, then let's attack that issue seriously and
substantively, rather than with an expensive marketing show.

It is not expensive marketing show for the IETF, it can be expensive
per participant, but still that is volunteering not expense, still
there is a choice to volunteer to attend remotely. However, even a
meeting with minimum of 500 present-attendance is a great/enough IETF
marketing per region which will give future results.

For example, $1M/year could fund quite a lot of regional IETF outreach
-- perhaps as an extension to the existing, excellent ISOC global effort
-- and perhaps even better remote participation capabilities...

Dont forget globalisation, not a region is gaining the one million it
is companies, I suggested above a way to reduce the total amount of
1M/year (there are many ways) and dont agree to add them as the
payments are separate to separate companies,

AB

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