On Fri, Oct 3, 2014 at 6:22 PM, Mark Nottingham <mnot(_at_)mnot(_dot_)net>
wrote:
* Finalising the agenda (far) before it currently is, so that people
can make firm (and economic) travel plans without blocking out an entire
week
The agenda of a session is supposed to be finalized at least two weeks
before. As you are a working group chair you already know how it goes.
:-) Instead of arguing about why it is difficult to finalise an agenda
I don’t see anyone arguing about *why* it’s difficult to finalise the
agenda — that seems to be well-understood.
I'll ask you how much notice would the developers and implementers
require for travel scheduling.
At least two months for the draft agenda; preferably three. Long-distance
airfares generally start rising in that period of time, and most people who
don’t do this for a living need to request and obtain permission to travel,
which can add weeks of delay.
The obvious tension here is that the chairs might not know how much face
time the WG will need three months ahead of time. Especially in area WGs,
big things can come up suddenly or be resolved just as suddenly. Putting
the deadline out that far might have more of us asking for 2.5 hour slots
just-in-case, followed by a lot of last minute reductions or cancellations,
and the agenda remains fluid (or there's lots of wasted room time).
I don't have a good solution to that; I'm just trying to describe the other
extreme for us to consider.
-MSK