Subject: [Mtgvenue] Meeting Venue WG Charter

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2016 16:46:14 -0700

Hello,

I read https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/charter-ietf-mtgvenue/

   "Contributors from the IAOC meetings committee have produced an
    initial version of a document that specifies the venue selection
    process and criteria."

There was the following comment from Tim Chown during the discussions 
about IETF meetings:

   "The list of members I see at https://iaoc.ietf.org/committees.html#meetings
    doesn't *seem* to be as diverse as perhaps it could be, and perhaps if the
    committee had (say) five Asian representatives the issues with Singapore
    would have been flagged sooner.  But in general, a more diverse membership
    may be a good thing."

It is better not to set the starting point given the controversy 
about meeting venue selections.  I suggest leaving that open for the 
working group to decide.

   "Current policy explicitly intends to rotate meeting locations
    equally among the largest sources of IETF participants,
    currently North America, Europe, and Asia/ Australia, while
    reserving a possibility for exceptions, such as meetings
    outside those regions."

The word "participants" in the above is misleading.  The word used at 
https://www.ietf.org/meeting/email-list.html is "attendees".

   "The rationale is to meet in different locations globally in
    order to spread the pain and cost of travel among the
    participants."

Please see my previous comment about "participants".  I suggest 
phrasing this as "to meet in different geographic regions ...".

I suggest leaving the rationale open for discussion instead of 
constraining it to "spread the pain and cost of travel".  Jorge 
Contreras used wording similar to the following: "difficulty/cost of 
travel" to describe "spread the pain and the cost of travel".  It is 
easier to understand.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2016 12:45:30 +1200

>    reserving a possibility for exceptions, such as meetings

Hmm. "Asia/ Australia" is not acceptable IMHO. It's exclusionary.

"Asia Pacific" would align with APNIC* and is commonly used.

I don't recommend alternatives like Asia/Oceania or Asia/Australasia
because they come with more baggage than Asia Pacific.

    Brian

* https://www.apnic.net/about-APNIC/organization/apnics-region

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2016 01:13:15 -0700

Hello,
>Hmm. "Asia/ Australia" is not acceptable IMHO. It's exclusionary.

I'll comment below.

>"Asia Pacific" would align with APNIC* and is commonly used.

Yes.

The policy set in 2010 was "1 North America, 1 Europe, 1 Asia (1-1-1) 
over a one-year period".  It is also mentioned at 
http://ietf.org/proceedings/78/slides/plenaryw-3/plenaryw-3.htm  I 
could not find any reference for the "1-1-1*" even though it has been 
mentioned during mailing list discussions.  I do not have an opinion 
at the moment on whether to have the "*" in the proposed Charter.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: "Fred Baker (fred)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2016 05:34:48 +0000

> On Jun 14, 2016, at 1:13 AM, S Moonesamy <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> The policy set in 2010 was "1 North America, 1 Europe, 1 Asia (1-1-1) over a one-year period".  It is also mentioned at http://ietf.org/proceedings/78/slides/plenaryw-3/plenaryw-3.htm  I could not find any reference for the "1-1-1*" even though it has been mentioned during mailing list discussions.  I do not have an opinion at the moment on whether to have the "*" in the proposed Charter.

It also talks about meetings being held outside those regions on a discretionary basis. That has come to be known as the "*".

---

From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2016 11:38:32 +0300

Hi SM,

> There was the following comment from Tim Chown during the discussions about IETF meetings:
> 
> It is better not to set the starting point given the controversy about meeting venue selections.  I suggest leaving that open for the working group to decide.

Yes, that’s fair.

(And as a side note, the committee/IAOC is working on diversity of the committees.)

> The word "participants" in the above is misleading.  The word used at https://www.ietf.org/meeting/email-list.html is "attendees”.

OK

> Please see my previous comment about "participants".  I suggest phrasing this as "to meet in different geographic regions …"

OK

> I suggest leaving the rationale open for discussion instead of constraining it to "spread the pain and cost of travel".  Jorge Contreras used wording similar to the following: "difficulty/cost of travel" to describe "spread the pain and the cost of travel".  It is easier to understand.

OK

Jari

---

From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2016 11:48:20 +0300

> "Asia Pacific" would align with APNIC* and is commonly used.

I’ll note that the text in the charter talks about past situation. All materials from the past say actually “Asia”.

But that’s different from what the policy should be going *forward*.

I’ll clarify in the charter text.

Jari

---

From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2016 12:34:26 +0300

Here’s a new version of the charter. It is in front of the IESG today, and if they agree, will go out for formal community review.

Comments much appreciated, again.

——

The selection of meeting venues for our physical meetings is a common
area of discussion at the IETF and feedback for the IAOC and its
meeting committee.

A specification of the venue selection process and criteria would be
useful. With community discussion and agreement such a specification
will be very helpful in improving the process and ensuring that the
relevant criteria are properly identified.

The discussion itself may also be helpful. For instance, due to recent
discussions, potential future destinations are announced to the
community to help identify potential issues early.

These processes and criteria support the overall IETF meeting
strategy. The IETF complements its mostly online work with three
physical meetings each year, obviously for the purpose of the
standards development work but also for the opportunities for
high-bandwidth collaboration, cross-pollination of ideas, and focusing
on running code. Existing geographic distribution policy explicitly
calls for rotating meeting locations equally among the largest sources
of IETF attendees, previously defined as North America, Europe, and
Asia, while reserving a possibility for exceptions. The exceptions
are, for instance, meetings outside those regions. The rationale is to
meet in different geographic regions in order to spread the difficulty
and cost of travel among the attendees. The rotation policy, known as
the 1-1-1* model — with the asterisk denoting the exceptions -- was
set by the IESG, documented in
https://iaoc.ietf.org/minutes/2010-11-10-iaoc-minutes.txt.

The MTGVENUE working group is the forum where the IETF community can
discuss and agree on what should go into the policies, the selection
process, and the detailed criteria going forward. All criteria and all
other aspects of the process are open for discussion. The purpose of
the working group is to produce a community consensus document(s) that
help drive the meeting selection process in a manner that the
community is comfortable with.

The working group shall produce guidance on two areas:

1. A specification of the geographic IETF meeting policy, currently
described as the "1-1-1*" policy. The policy going forward is up to
the working group.

2. A specification that describes the detailed meeting venue selection
process and criteria, the contents of which are also up to the working
group. One possible starting point for this work is
draft-baker-iaoc-mtgvenue-selection-process.

The specification(s) are expected to be Best Current Practice (BCP)
documents. The specifications are expected to provide clear guidance
to meeting selections, be implementable in our operating environment,
and take into account the needs of the highly diverse IETF community.

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2016 03:09:20 -0700

Hi Jari and all,
At 02:34 16-06-2016, Jari Arkko wrote:
>Here’s a new version of the charter. It is in 
>front of the IESG today, and if they agree, will 
>go out for formal community review.
>

Ok.

>high-bandwidth collaboration, cross-pollination of ideas, and focusing

I suggest using "Face-to-Face" instead of 
"high-bandwidth" as it is simple to understand the English.

>https://iaoc.ietf.org/minutes/2010-11-10-iaoc-minutes.txt.

Ok.

>community is comfortable with.

Ok.

>draft-baker-iaoc-mtgvenue-selection-process.

I'll explain the reason for not setting the 
above-mentioned draft as a starting point.  It 
can be argued that one starting point is 
preferred even though the text says "one possible 
starting point".  From a process perspective, it 
does not matter whether that last sentence is 
there as I could argue for my draft (I have not 
written any draft) to be adopted by the Working Group.

>and take into account the needs of the highly diverse IETF community.

Ok.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2016 17:28:43 +0300

> I'll explain the reason for not setting the above-mentioned draft as a starting point.  It can be argued that one starting point is preferred even though the text says "one possible starting point".  From a process perspective, it does not matter whether that last sentence is there as I could argue for my draft (I have not written any draft) to be adopted by the Working Group.

We sometimes indicate one potential starting point, so I do not see this as a big problem. But I have removed the sentence in question.

The charter will be sent by the IESG to the community review now, we just processed the topic in the IESG call.

Thanks a lot for your feedback!

Jari

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2016 08:14:33 +1200

fwiw, this fixes my objection.

Regards
   Brian Carpenter

On 16/06/2016 21:34, Jari Arkko wrote:
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