The discussion about the Singapore meeting has been difficult for us. The IETF
needs a meeting that we are generally happy with. Various past mistakes and new
learnings aside, we are now in a situation where no decision in this space will
be perfect. We knew that no matter what choice is made, there will be groups of
people who feel they are unfairly impacted.
But perhaps the most important things are that, long-term, the community gets
to carefully weigh what they expect from meeting locations, that we all learn
from more about the various challenges discussed, we are an open organisation
for everybody including minorities, and that we improve our processes going
forward. It is also crucial that the IETF remains an organisation that can do
its technical work, and be open to all of our global participants in a fair
manner. And obviously be capable of arranging our operations in the real world,
in areas that our participants come from.
What follows is what we are proposing as additional onward work to address the
issues highlighted in this discussion:
o The IAOC as well as members of the community have asked me to charter a
working group to continue the discussion of the detailed meeting criteria
document (draft-baker-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process). All criteria are
on the table for discussion. The working group proposal is being reviewed by
the IESG, and will be out for community review shortly. A WG meeting in Berlin
is planned.
o Develop a BCP that defines the community-backed, official policy for the
overall strategy of geographic meeting distribution (our current strategy is
referred to as 1-1-1*). An initial draft for this is in the works.
o Arrange a special session in Berlin to discuss the role of human rights,
visas, and other aspects of international meeting arrangements. We have begun
to work to find outside experts in this space who can join a conversation. (If
you have suggestions, let us know.)
o Continue the new practice of informing the community of potential future
meeting destinations, and collecting “crowd-sourced” input on their suitability.
o Commit to a proper, informed process to identify issues that any subgroup
(including but not only the LGBTQ community) has with our site selections.
o Commit to returning to the 1-1-1* meeting model — or what the eventual BCP
policy is -- for Asia for the remainder of the decade. For the last decade,
we’ve only met there 4 times.
o Commit to holding all other currently planned meetings as they are, and
focusing on making the most appropriate decisions about future meetings, as
informed by community input.
o While we do not believe that we should respond to the current discussions
merely with a suggestion of conducting our meeting virtually, it is a clear
direction that IETF and other organisations will be using more virtual
collaboration tools in the future. The IESG has discussed taking initial steps
with regards to bigger virtual meetings. Experiences from this could drive
further efforts.
Jari Arkko, IETF Chair