--On Thursday, December 17, 2015 08:37 -0800 Dave Crocker
<dhc(_at_)dcrocker(_dot_)net> wrote:
But it wold be useful thought experiment for them all to
examine how their weeks would be different if they had a 20
minute walk each way each day.
Effort to get decision-makers to have better empathy for the
rank-and-file is certainly useful. The challenge is to make
the effort practical and sufficient. By 'sufficient' I mean it
has to cover enough of the core issues in ways that work.
In this case, hotel choice is only part of the equation.
Travel time and travel cost are two other major factors. So
are additional costs, such as food in the main venue. (We had
one main venue with reasonable hotel room rate but US$ 25
hamburgers...)
Hi. Having proposed this particular experiment, I agree with
Dave. It is only part of the issue, perhaps even the most
important part. but has the advantage that pain-sharing is
relatively easy to test and perhaps symbolically important.
Because several of the responses have been from IESG members,
let me be clear that, as a sometime IESG and IAB member, I found
it a huge advantage, one that I think improved IETF efficiency,
to be able to stagger into a 7AM meeting (especially the second
or third of the week) by getting into an elevator rather than
walking down the street, even more so if it followed an evening
meeting or bar BOF than ran past midnight.
My objection isn't really to making those "hold back"
arrangements, it is to the combination of enough regular
controversies about hotels and meeting locations with having the
decisions made out of community view and with no apparent
accountability. I think it would be entirely reasonable for
the IESG to say to the community "we need to be on-site
because... and believe that IETF efficiency would suffer if we
weren't". Personally, I'd probably support that position. But
these discussions have gone on long enough that it is probably
time for the community to decide whether the value of that
improved efficiently is worth lowering the chances of other
participants who want to be in the conference hotel doing so by
whatever part of 28% the IESG involves. I'd like to believe
that, it the community said "it is more important for you folks
to share the pain" that the IESG would respect that decision and
that, if the community believed that having the IESG in the
meeting hotel was important, some of the whining would stop.
But there is no way to know without asking and the current
system avoids asking.
I'm not certain the same argument about the importance to the
community of being in the main hotel can be made for all of the
members of the IAOC. If they need that consideration, let them
explain why to the community and then ask. Personally, I
believe that a great deal of the source of these regular
disconnects and complaints is a perception about lack of
accountability and responsiveness of the IAOC and Meetings
Committee. With "3 years" and "confidential business
arrangements" figuring prominently in the situation (whether
actually justified or not), this is not a good community to tell
things that amount to "we have your best interests in mind and
are not going to explain further". I note that some IAOC and
Meetings Committee members have tried really hard to be good
about this, but the overall record does not appear to me to be
so good and I consider it a bad sign that we keep having the
same discussions over and over again without discernable change
or real community conclusions.
Similarly, I have no doubt that having some secretariat staff in
the main hotel is absolutely necessary. My impression is that
AMS has been hyper-careful to not abuse that requirement and I
trust them to continue to exercise good judgment about it. But
a bit of explanation of who (by either role or name) needs to be
in the conference hotel and why, would, OMO, do a lot to build
general confidence.
FWIW, 28% of only 400+ rooms feels like a rather big number.
Had Ray said "5%", it wouldn't have occurred to ma to propose
that particular exercise.
best,
john