On Thu, 7 Jan 2016, John C Klensin wrote:
Ray,
However, with regard to setting the policies and priorities
(other than at least breaking even) that determine meeting
locations, my understanding of how the IETF works is that the
IAOC is supposed to be interpreting community views (or
proposing policies to the community and getting approval) and
instructing the Meetings Committee accordingly.
Yes.
Independent of the specific concerns, complaints, and general
whining about particular venues or choices, the thing I, and
apparently others, have heard most consistently in recent years
involves people in the community saying "we should reprioritize
so-and-so" and the IAOC or meetings committee responding "can't
do that because we are working three years out".
No, I hope not. What you have heard (or should have heard) is that
there are incompatible requirements, kind of like the "cheap, fast,
reliable, pick two!" joke. So every choice has a set of consequences
and there is no such thing as a perfect choice.
Some people have expressed the suspicion that a response of that
type is equivalent to "the tradeoffs are complicated, the community
can't possibly understand them, we understand these things better
than the community does anyway, so we aren't really interested in
input or community oversight".
I hope that isn't the case. I have certainly seen the venue selection
priorities evolve to become much broader and the IAOC reacting to
them, whereby "meeting facility works" is no longer the dominant
factor and "alternative accomodation, travel, shops, etc" is taken
more into account than, oh, say for Maastricht and Dublin, to name a
couple of less than stellar choices.
Even without believing that, if working three years ahead
effectively suppresses priority determination by the community by
making any such efforts ineffective within any reasonable time, then
5 1/2 is much worse.
What specific priority, related to this announcement, is it that you
think could, should or would change? That we start meeting at
university campuses again, radically reduce the number of paralell
sessions, have more or fewer meetings per year, radically change
remote participation options? Those are all things that COULD happen
and SHOULD happen if the community agrees, but given how slow anything
moves in the IETF, would it not make sense to at least assume things
will continue more or less as currently when making deals for
resources that are decidedly limited and time sensitive?
I do agree that a deeper analysis of the priorities should be
undertaken and discussed with the community of course.
best,
john