On 31 Jan 2017, at 11:56, JORDI PALET MARTINEZ
<jordi(_dot_)palet(_at_)consulintel(_dot_)es> wrote:
I was referring in general, not a specific meeting.
For the 2018 SF meeting, I will buy my ticket around July-August 2017. I
always do one year in advance, same for the hotel if I can book a cheaper
nearby (to the venue) hotel.
I’m pretty sure you’re in a minority doing that. I can’t even get the OK for
making the trip more than 4 months in advance.
Most of the airlines, according to my experience, sell lower price
non-refundable tickets 11-12 months ahead.
Buying non-refundable tickets is your choice. I don’t see why it needs to
become a cost for the IETF (whether through refunding or through insurance). My
employer (and I’m sure many others) only buys refundable tickets so they are
free to cancel my trip on short notice.
So, we should rule something in the line that an IETF cancellation insurance
must cover the expenses of bookings for that. If we can’t cover that, we MUST
NOT cancel a meeting,
“MUST NOT”? What if Earth’s youngest volcano is standing where the venue used
to be? Still MUST NOT? San Francisco is always at risk of an earthquake. It
doesn’t even have to be “the big one” to make it impossible to meet. Still MUST
NOT? And the eastern US has hurricanes, Europe has frosts and Japan has Kaiju.
Do we still meet?
otherwise, the participants that made that expense, have the legal right to
claim to the ISOC/IETF the associated expenses, and I’m sure they will get
it, if a court is involved.
Meeting fee? Probably. Travel expenses? I doubt it.
This brings to the idea that, when we select countries for hosting the IETF,
we should consider, political changes that may affect participants. Of
course, we don’t have the crystal ball, but in the case of actual US
situation, I think the chances were so high, that we made a mistake going to
Chicago. As it may affect a significant % of participants.
I don’t think this was at all predictable.
Now, we have, depending on the contract signed for SF, the chance to move
that meeting, but only if we do it right now, not in 6 months from now, as
that will impact people that may have already booked flights and hotels.
I don’t think our meetings committee should be constrained like that. There
might be some guidance to be given by mtgvenue for this, but I don’t think that
this should be a considerations if changes are made at least 6 months in
advance.
Yoav