It's worth mentioning, perhaps, that the fact that the a lot of the same
people get to go to IETF every time can be seen either as a bug or a
feature. It's a feature in the sense that if those people do work, work
gets done. It's a bug in the sense that it's likely that by optimizing
for that, we are excluding people who would benefit from coming to IETF
when it is in their region, but can't manage it when it is not.
Several comments in this thread have taken it as a given that making sure
the same people always get to go is a priority. In fact, if those people
felt a bit more disenfranchised they might be more eager to make sure that
the remote attendance experience was better than it currently is.
On Tue, May 31, 2016 at 9:40 AM, MH Michael Hammer (5304)
<MHammer(_at_)ag(_dot_)com>
wrote:
-----Original Message-----
From: ietf [mailto:ietf-bounces(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org] On Behalf Of John C
Klensin
Sent: Sunday, May 29, 2016 7:32 PM
To: Joel M. Halpern; Fernando Gont
Cc: recentattendees(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org; Ietf@Ietf. Org
Subject: Re: [Recentattendees] Background on Singapore go/no go for IETF
100
--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.
I think it is unreasonable to set the bar at MUST have long term
significant spike in participation from a region after a single meeting
being held there. Without taking a position on whether meetings should be
held in particular locations, if the goal is to garner participation from a
wider geographic constituency then IETF needs to plan and invest to make
that happen beyond simply holding a single meeting in the region.
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.
That is a different but related discussion.
Also note that we did chose to conduct the experiment.
So I think your comparison is quite a ways off the mark.
Indeed.
john