Subject: Consultation on IETF Meeting venue assessment

From: IETF Executive Director <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 01 Feb 2021 19:04:39 -0800

The IETF Administration LLC recently consulted on changes to the process it uses to identify and select venues for IETF meetings [1] and is now implementing the changes.  We are now consulting on the specifics of the assessment step of the new process.

This venue assessment step is based around a proposed new venue asessment report [2] which records whether or not a proposed venue satisfies the following criteria, following the guidelines in RFC 8718 [3]:

* City includes one or more venues able to accommodate an IETF meeting
* The level of Internet freedom is acceptable
* An overwhelming majority of participants who wish to do so can attend
* Travel risks associated with holding an IETF meeting are acceptable
* Health risks associated with holding an IETF meeting are acceptable
* Human rights risks associated with holding an IETF meeting are acceptable
 
To assess each criterion there are a number of formal tests as set out in the report.  The tests apply at either the country, city or venue level and for some tests exceptions are possible as documented. For example, one formal test is that Internet Freedom score for the country from Freedom House is “Free” (70/100 or above) though city or venue exceptions may override that.  If a venue fails any of the tests then it is deemed to have failed the assessment.

This report is used in the initial assessment step, as follows:

> Once a recommendation has been accepted, the IETF LLC carries out an initial assessment by remotely researching the city and any potential venues in that city.  The output of this step is a draft report that assesses if the city is likely to meet or not meet the requirements and a recommendation on whether or not to consider the city any further.

The draft report is then consulted on, as follows:

> We then seek community feedback on the assessment report and recommendation.  This feedback is assessed and published in a public repository [4].  Depending on the feedback received, we may advance the city to the next step, or return to step 2 and conduct further remote research, or we may reject the city and update the Meeting Location Assessment table [5].

You can provide feedback on the proposed new venue asessment report in one of the following ways:

* Email to [email-masked]
* By raising an issue on the GitHub repository [6]
* Direct to me [email-masked]

Please provide any feedback before Sunday 21 February 2021.

[1]  https://github.com/ietf-llc/venue-identification-and-selection-process-consultation  
[2]  https://github.com/ietf-llc/venue-assessment-consultation/blob/main/IETF%20Venue%20Assessment%20Report.pdf  
[3]  https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8718  
[4]  https://trello.com/b/whq8I098/venue-selection-input  
[5]  https://www.ietf.org/how/meetings/planning/meeting-location-input/  
[6]  https://github.com/ietf-llc/venue-assessment-consultation  

-- 
Jay Daley
IETF Executive Director
[email-masked]