Thanks so much for your efforts on both Singapore meeting and improving
future IETF meeting selections. You have done an excellent work on
respecting various opinions and making a >necessary compromise.
+1
Regarding to diversity among future IETF meeting selections, there are
actually multiple meanings of diversity. But in my opinion, the most
important task for IETF organizer should be to >get and keep high quality
and consistent contributors. Arising the awareness of IETF in wider areas,
attracting more diversity people (particularly, if these people would not
join the follow->up IETF meetings) are much less important than the
convenience for our majority consistent participants. Therefore, the most
important diversity should be geography diversity among the >current
majority consistent participants. Consequently, I strongly support 1+1+1
policy. One potential option is that we may have a set of side/secondary
IETF meetings apart from the >three main IETF meetings per years. They
could be hold out of main areas to serve the other diversity purposes.
Sheng, I find the idea of "secondary or side" meetings very intriguing.
I think this may be a path for regions who do not have a large set of
participants (yet). I would like to see this idea elaborated upon. What
are your thoughts?
Nalini
-----Original Message-----
From: ietf [mailto:ietf-bounces(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org] On Behalf Of IETF Chair
Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2016 9:58 PM
To: IETF Announcement List
Cc: recentattendees(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org; ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org Discussion
Subject: actions related to improving IETF meeting selections
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