The model which asserts that choosing meeting venues is a way to recruit
participants has no objective basis -- and that's after 30 years of
opportunity to demonstrate otherwise.
That would be the same 30 years we were never in South America? What percentage
of South American participation did we get by never going there that proves
your point?
According to https://www.ietf.org/blog/2016/04/ietf-95-summary/ we had 14%
participation from the region at IETF-96. Those are people that were new or
possibly rarely attend. I can tell you that I would have never become an active
participant in IETF if during my first meeting I hadn't had so many great face
to face talks with people who took the time to help me with my ideas and my
(lack of) knowledge and procedures. That is quite unlike the mailing lists,
where things tend to get heated, buried and somewhat unpleasant.
It frankly serves to work against the basic goal of having most work done on
mailing lists, by selling a cultural view that meetings are primary.
That argument cuts both ways. Seasoned IETFers are actually much more in a
position where they are able to miss a meeting because they already have the
face to face connections with many colleagues. It is the new people we want to
attract that are helped tremendously by meeting face to face and getting
included in our community. If that could have been done solely online IETF
meetings would have petered out instead of reaching number 100.
Anyone who wants to participate in the IETF already can.
You might not be in the best position to understand how one joins a new
community like the IETF since you were there from the beginning. It is quite
intimidating and the face to face really helps with that.
All they need is an Internet connection. It doesn't even have to be a good
one, since IETF list mail only consumes extremely low bandwidth and is an
asynchronous form of use.
This comes from a position of privilege. Imagine English is not your first
language and speaking is easier than writing.
Also, the (regular) attendees who won't be able to come to Singapore are also
the ones for whom it is easiest to make a voice or video call or send emails to
keep their work going and who should need these face to face meetings the least.
F2F meetings permit /added/ efficiency for those who are /already/
participating.
That really depends on your definition of "already". Our Sunday courses that
explain how to participate in the IETF are hugely popular. Sure, those
documents are online but that's not the same as having face to face time,
having a mentor, be able to ask questions, etc.
Moving the venue is /not/ for permitting attendance by those who otherwise
can't attend, but (is supposed to be) to share the pain among those who do
attend.
So I disagree with that statement. Being able to attend at least one meeting
every year or two because it is reasonably local to you is hugely important for
diversity, unless you want the IETF to be even more closely run by a few big
vendors that can spend lavishly to send their engineers.
Paul