On 30 May 2016, at 2:31 AM, John C Klensin <john-ietf(_at_)jck(_dot_)com> wrote:
--On Saturday, May 28, 2016 2:34 PM -0400 "Joel M. Halpern"
<jmh(_at_)joelhalpern(_dot_)com> wrote:
Fernando,
Your response assumes that it is proven that moving to
less-participating locations increases long term participation
from those locales. There are also indications from other
data that it is not particularly effective. Thus, while your
view is a reasonable hypothesis, it will take time and
measurements to confirm it.
Let me take Joel's observation about the particular BA
experiment a bit further. If, independent of who showed up at
that meeting, it isn't followed by a significant spike in
long-term IETF participation and contributions from the region,
I think people who say "go there in spite of the fact that there
hasn't been a lot of participation from the region because
participation will increase" are going to have a very hard time
making that case... for either a return to Latin America or for
any other region.
We have run this experiment before. The IETF met in Korea in 2004. I’ve just
counted, and in IETF 93, 94, and 95 there were 32, 41, and 17 participants from
Korea respectively. Whether this can be attributed to our meeting or to the
ascendance of the Korean high-tech industry or to the greater involvement of
Korean universities is debatable, and I have no idea how we can ever determine
this. It does show the effect of geographic distance and cost. Going from Korea
to Prague is difficult enough. Going to Buenos Aires halved the participation
compared to Prague.
I do note that many of our regular participants found BA
to be simply too much (by whatever measures they use) and
chose not to come. That is an observed cost that also must be
factored in.
That drop in attendance, and overall lower attendance, are
significant for other reasons, but, at least to me, further
raise the bar for "going to this new place will help the IETF"
arguments.
It seems that in general the European meetings have the highest attendance,
mostly because obtaining a visa is more straightforward for people from India
and Africa compared to obtaining a visa for the US. US meetings are a close
second. Other regions have relatively poor attendance, although Yokohama was
surprisingly well-attended.
Also note that we did chose to conduct the experiment.
So I think your comparison is quite a ways off the mark.
Indeed.
I think we’ll need to wait for at least two years before we can declare this
experiment a success or a failure.
Yoav