Subject: [Mtgvenue] Merging in ideas from draft-sullivan-mtgvenue-decisions

From: Alissa Cooper <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2016 10:20:24 -0500

With an eye towards trying to bridge some of the differences of opinion expressed in the room in Seoul, Andrew and I have worked up a version of draft-ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process that incorporates the ideas from draft-sullivan-mtgvenue-decisions-00, using draft-ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process-03 as the base: 
Draft: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/coopdanger/mtgvenue/master/draft-ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process-04.txt <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/coopdanger/mtgvenue/master/draft-ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process-04.txt>
Diff: https://tools.ietf.org/rfcdiff?difftype=--hwdiff&url1=draft-ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process-03.txt&url2=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/coopdanger/mtgvenue/master/draft-ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process-04.txt <https://tools.ietf.org/rfcdiff?difftype=--hwdiff&url1=draft-ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process-03.txt&url2=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/coopdanger/mtgvenue/master/draft-ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process-04.txt>

We thought about publishing this as a separate individual draft, but it retains so much content from draft-ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process-03 that we thought it better to try it this way first since it will make doing a rev to -04 of the WG draft easier if people want to go that route.

What we did was to insert the requirements from draft-sullivan-mtgvenue-decisions-00 that did not appear in draft-ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process-03 and then group the requirements into the three buckets discussed in Seoul. The explanation of the requirements level for items in Section 3.1.2 also provides more detail than the definition of “Important” in the -03. In some cases the two drafts were treating similar requirements differently, and here is what we did with those:

- “Travel barriers to entry … acceptable to the IETF community” became a trade-off-able requirement in 3.1.2.
- “Economic, safety, and health risks … acceptable to the IETF community” became a mandatory requirement in 3.1.1 using language from draft-sullivan.
- The wheelchair accessibility requirements were dropped and the accessibility-for-people-with-disabilities requirements were made mandatory.

The “Available travel issue assessments” text from the WG draft was also dropped since it’s not a criterion.

We grouped these according to the requirements level rather than the meeting aspect (lodging, food, etc.) so that the criteria that can be traded off against each other can be viewed side-by-side.

Would appreciate people’s thoughts on this.

Thanks,
Alissa

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2016 09:12:45 -0800

On 12/7/2016 7:20 AM, Alissa Cooper wrote:
> With an eye towards trying to bridge some of the differences of
> opinion expressed in the room in Seoul, Andrew and I have worked up a
> version of draft-ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process that

The latest Sullivan draft continues to combine reorganization along with 
the addition of a number of items.  This creates a juggling act when 
trying to evaluate the additions.

We should consider these discrete changes independently...

-03, "1.3.  Requirements Language":
 > Important:
 >   Does not qualify as Mandatory, but is still highly significant;	
 >   can possibly be traded off against other Important considerations.

Proposed:
 >  3.1.2.  Requirements That May Be Traded Off Within a Single Venue	
 >          Selection or Between Multiple Venue Selections	
 >		
 > Items in this section do not qualify as mandatory, but are still	
 > highly significant.  They may be traded against one another such that	
 > a Venue that meets more of these criteria is on the whole more	
 > preferable than another that meets less of these criteria.  These	
 > requirements may also be balanced across Venue selections for	
 > multiple meetings.

I suspect that, in actual practice, the additional text would not 
produce significant differences.  That said, the text seems compatible 
with the intent of Important and leaves less room for ambiguity for the 
average reader.  So I suggest incorporating this text, independent of 
other possible changes to the document.

I see this as an editorial change, rather than substantive, and so will 
add it for the next version, absent objections.

-03, "2.1 Core Values" section:
 >   2.  Avoid meeting in countries with laws that effectively exclude
 >   people on the basis of race, religion, gender, sexual
 >   orientation, national origin, or gender identity.

Proposed:
 > o  Informal but widely-experienced (or widely-announced) persistent	
 >   discrimination by authorities on the basis of age, gender or	
 >   gender identity, sexuality, marital status, political views,	
 >   racial background, nationality, countries previously visited,	
 >   religious belief or practice, or any other category of irrelevant	
 >   discrimination, particularly at the point of immigration, should	
 >   be treated as an extremely negative consideration.	

The existing text pertains to restrictions that are objectively and 
reliably evaluated, since they tie to explicit, formal requirements at 
the candidate city/country.  The actual example I know about was for 
Malaysia and both the process of obtaining the information and of 
garnering a Meeting Committee (or was it IAOC?  I forget) decision was 
relatively straightforward.

The proposed text requires an essentially open-ended process, full of 
debate, because there are no clear, reliable and fair ways to satisfy 
the requirement, that I'm aware of.  So a long list of concerns is 
provided, with no obvious way to measure things for each candidate city.

In practical terms, the method of making these assessments, for the -03 
model, is the generic community query about a city.  This avoids having 
to specify these kinds of criteria and it avoids having to measure them 
in a way that would satisfy a requirement.  Rather, whatever the 
community decides is acceptable, during the city query, is what holds 
sway.  (And anyone in the community can raise concerns about a city at 
any time later.)

Given the nature of these issues and the vagaries of community 
preferences, I see the approach documented in the existing text as 
considerably more practical.  In fact, after quite a few years of 
working on IETF venue selection, I don't know how to reliably and 
accurately apply the proposed text.

-03, "3.1.  Venue City Criteria" has the closest approximation:
 >| Travel barriers to entry, e.g., visa requirements| "Mandatory |
 >| that can limit participation, are acceptable to the  | "  |
 >| IETF community.  ||

Proposed:
 >o  Visa requirements that can limit participation are minimized or	
 >   the cost and difficulty associated with such requirements is	
 >   spread among active participants.	

This item has essentially the same problems as the one before.  Note 
that the existing text explicitly ties the issue to community 
assessment.  By contrast the proposed text again provides no method of 
obtaining the information nor of making the evaluation.

Visa issues, in particular, are challenging due to the remarkable 
variance in actual behavior, independent of whatever the formal, 
published rules are.  We see very different acceptance and rejection (or 
delay) outcomes over time and across visa-issue offices for the same 
country.

I strongly urge retaining the existing text.

-03, "3.1.  Venue City Criteria"
 >| Travel to the Venue is acceptable based on cost, | "Mandatory |
 >| time, and burden for participants traveling from | "  |
 >| multiple regions. It is anticipated that the burden  ||
 >| borne will be generally shared over the course of||
 >| multiple years.

Proposed:
 >o  The cost and difficulty of travel globally is spread among active	
 >   participants.	

The proposed text seems considerably less informative and useful to me.

-03, "3.5.  Food and Beverage Criteria"
 >| The Venue environs include grocery shopping that| "Important" |
 >| will accommodate a wide range of dietary| |
 >| requirements, within a reasonable walking distance, | |
 >| or conveniently accessible by a short taxi, bus, or | |
 >| subway ride.| |

Proposed:
 >o  The Venue includes grocery shopping that will accommodate a wide	
 >   range of dietary requirements, within a reasonable walking	
 >   distance, or conveniently accessible by a short taxi, bus, or	
 >   subway ride of the Facility and IETF Hotels.	

The proposed text adds "of the Facility and IETF Hotels", which seems a 
useful editorial enhancement to me.  I'll add it to the next version, 
absent objections.

d/

-- 

   Dave Crocker
   Brandenburg InternetWorking
   bbiw.net

---

From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 Dec 2016 11:17:51 -0800 (PST)

Hi,

I am confused about the difference between core values, mandatory 
requirements and items that can be traded off.

Specifically:

2.1 Core Values

Avoid meeting in countries with laws that effectively exclude
people on the basis of race, religion, gender, sexual
orientation, national origin, or gender identity.

3.1.1.  Mandatory Requirements for Every Meeting

Authorities within the Venue's jurisdiction do not engage in
formal legal exclusions or differential treatment....

3.1.2 Requirements That May Be Traded Off...

Informal but widely-experienced (or widely-announced) persistent
discrimination by authorities....

I see that the language is different in all 3 cases, but fundamentally
I think they refer to the same kind of problem, right?

I think of the core values as general principles that should be in
the mind of anyone making a venue selection, but I would suggest that
the practical requirements (meeting rooms, network, hotels, 
enviroment) form the main basis for selection/recommendation.

(I missed the working group meeting in Seoul, so apologies if I
am not reading this correctly).

Ole

Ole J. Jacobsen
Editor and Publisher
The Internet Protocol Journal
Office:  +1 415-550-9433
Cell:    +1 415-370-4628
Docomo:  090 3337-9311
Web: protocoljournal.org
E-mail: [email-masked]

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2016 15:30:52 -0500

Hi,

The core values bit we just didn't cut because it seemed to be
statements of principle, but for my part I'd be prepared to cut it.  However,

> discrimination by authorities....

These two are different.  One of them is an absolute requirement that
we will not go to a place that explicitly discriminates against a
class of people as an official policy.  So, for instance, were there a
country that had an official policy that people of a particular
religious background could not enter the country, we would not go
there, period, and if such a restriction came on after we'd agreed to
go there we'd walk away.

But the trade-off case is different: these are the _informal_ cases,
and one has to make a decision about whether the problem is bad
enough.

I should note that under this description, Singapore would not be
allowed under 3.1.1 because it has an official, on-the-books policy
about the treatment of people in same sex relationships; whereas the
occasional outbreak of quite apparent foot-dragging about visas from
some country to another country would be a consideration under 3.1.2.

I agree with Dave Crocker that the effective way to get such feedback
is the "ask about possible issues with a site", but there is a
difference in the way the IAOC needs to handle the input.  If the IAOC
hears a claim that there is a legal problem, it needs to confirm what
the actual legal situation in the target venue is.  If the IAOC cannot
confirm the claim, then it needs to do some research to see about the
prevalence of the claimed issue and how one might trade that against
all the other issues.

That's the reason we make the distinction.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2016 12:52:36 -0800

On 12/7/2016 12:30 PM, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> So, for instance, were there a

Malaysia does not have a restriction concerning entry according to 
religion.  But they /do/ have special treatment for those with an 
Israeli passport.  Your language misses this point.  And note that 
many/most countries have differential handling of folk with one passport 
or another.

The problem with simple rules seeking to distinguish venues according to 
such issues is that simple rules don't work very well.

>> discrimination by authorities....

How is this to be assessed reliably, accurately and with reasonable 
effort/cost?

d/

-- 

   Dave Crocker

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2016 16:18:03 -0500

Hi,

On Wed, Dec 07, 2016 at 09:12:45AM -0800, Dave Crocker wrote:
> The latest Sullivan draft continues to combine reorganization along with the
> addition of a number of items.  This creates a juggling act when trying to
> evaluate the additions.

Note that the draft is a straight edit of the -03 (all the -03 stuff
is commented out in the source XML), because we were trying to
minimise the effort to put any of this stuff together.

> This item has essentially the same problems as the one before.  Note that
> the existing text explicitly ties the issue to community assessment.

The trouble with the "acceptable to the IETF community" text, to my
mind, is that it puts the IAOC in the position of needing to evaluate
community consensus.  I don't actually think that is consistent with
the IAOC's job under BCP 101.

Instead, I think the IASA generally is supposed to be delegated to do
this work.  Our shared cultural values, however, means that IASA (and
therefore the IAOC) needs to be attentive to the views of the
community, because it's supposed to be working in harmony with those
views.  That's quite different than the question of something being
"acceptable to the community", which really does seem to me to imply a
judgement of community consensus that I don't believe the IAOC is in a
position to evaluate.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]

---

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2016 12:19:18 -0900

> many/most countries have differential handling of folk with one passport

If it's not handled through the visa process that would seem to go to
the text in 3.1.2: "Informal but widely-experienced (or widely-
announced) persistent discrimination by authorities...."

Melinda

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 10:57:27 +1300

On 08/12/2016 10:18, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
...
> the IAOC's job under BCP 101.

That's an important point. We seem to need some language like "judgments
of what is acceptable to the community MUST be subject to IETF consensus",
implying that an AD (very likely the General Area AD) makes a consensus call.

    Brian

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2016 17:11:15 -0500

> implying that an AD (very likely the General Area AD) makes a consensus call.

Really?  That sounds like you're suggesting that meeting venue
selection is an IETF LC process.  If so, I cheerfully predict we'll
never meet again.

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]

---

From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 Dec 2016 14:25:19 -0800 (PST)

> selection is an IETF LC process.  If so, I cheerfully predict we'll

Let's take a few steps back and look at how we got here.

1. We got here because the IAOC (through its Meetings Committee) made 
   a venue choice that some parts of the community objected to. The 
   IAOC agreed that the process was not transparent enough and 
   chartered a working group to document in some detail what steps are 
   currently taken to pick a venue. By making this process explicit 
   and transparent, the idea was to get more refined requirements 
   through community input and to have an open discussion about these 
   matters in terms of what is practical and acceptable to everyone 
   involved.

2. The IAOC further agreed to publish a list of cities under 
   consideration for future meetings with the explicit goal of 
   indentifying "anything the IAOC might have missed."

Venue selection has now been going on for 97 meetings. Some venues
have been better than others and the list of "things to consider"
has evolved over time, but I agree that "Last Call" and "Consensus"
isn't going to work for this particular process unless this is
an interpretation of 1 and 2 above.

Ole

Ole J. Jacobsen
Editor and Publisher

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2016 14:32:34 -0800

Andrew,

> minimise the effort to put any of this stuff together.

Sorry I wasn't clear enough.  The issue isn't the source code.  It's 
readability.

Combining a collection of proposed, specific additions to an overall 
document reorganization, requires extra effort to discern the specific 
additions and then pursue discussion of them separately.  (And I eagerly 
await the detailed responses to the detailed questions I raised, about 
those distinct additions...)

> the IAOC's job under BCP 101.

1.  Oh?  Offhand, I'd guess that would require an explicit stricture 
against including such a process tool for doing IAOC work.  I'm not 
finding that in BCP 101, nor other language that leads towards the 
restriction you are asserting.  Please clarify.

2.  There is already a track-record of seeking community comment on a 
variety of venue issues, and making decisions based on that.  Are you 
saying that those were procedural errors?

3.  The document being produced is expected to be published with IETF 
rough consensus.  As such, it's not at all obvious why another, older 
RFC should hold sway over this more recent IETF consensus document.

4.  Apparently you are objecting at least to the second paragraph of 
Section 4.1 in the current draft?

5.  Note that the specific places in the current draft, that have to do 
with community assessment, say "acceptable to the IETF community" rather 
than "IETF consensus".  I'm pretty sure that that wording difference 
wasn't an accident...

> this work.

Huh?  The IAOC is part of IASA.  So I've no idea what you are meaning. 
Perhaps you meant IAD? AMS (staff)?

As for 'delegated', what exactly and by whom?

In any event, there is an established, overall process for doing venue 
selection and it's been pretty stable for a number of years.  And, IMO, 
it has worked pretty well; certainly far better than, say, 10-15 years 
ago.  (That's not meant to imply that the recent problem, which 
triggered the current effort, wasn't serious, but rather than we used to 
have such problems regularly and now we don't...)

As someone who has participated in that selection process for almost six 
years, I see the current effort as refining a portion of the overall 
process, and IMO fitting in quite naturally to that existing process.

You appear to have in mind larger changes to the overall process, so it 
would be helpful to hear them explicated.

> Our shared cultural values, however, means that IASA (and

You a appear to be asserting that a detached (passive, static, 
non-real-time) evaluation by the IAOC[*] based on something called 
'shared cultural values' is easier and more reliable and more accurate 
than an active, real-time process of querying whether a site is 
'acceptable to the community'.   This probably requires full 
documentation of those shared cultural model, with enough detail to 
permit community and IAOC comfort that results will reliably be 
acceptable.  Where is that text?

Arguably, what you appear to be proposing in your above assertion is 
actually what has been existing practice, and we have some pretty clear 
existence proofs of serious divergence in the assessments of that 
supposedly shared model of cultural values.  So I'm back to asking you 
to explain the pragmatics, in enough detail to make clear to the folk 
who will have to apply this for actual venue selection.

d/

[*] Just for clarity:  The actual work of selecting venues is done 
through a collaboration of staff, IAD and the IAOC's meeting committee. 
The result is a specific proposal to the IAOC, which is the only body 
having actual authority in this process.  It therefore makes the final 
determination.  I don't recall their reversing a recommendation of the 
Meetings Committee, though they certainly can, and perhaps my memory is 
poor and they have.

-- 

   Dave Crocker

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2016 18:23:00 -0500

On Wed, Dec 07, 2016 at 02:32:34PM -0800, Dave Crocker wrote:

> await the detailed responses to the detailed questions I raised, about those
> distinct additions...)

I was attempting to get to the large disagreements I think we have
first before we start arguing about the details.

The point I have been making for some time now is that I think the
large, laundry list approach of the WG document doesn't actually give
the IAOC, who are on the pointy end of these decisions, the right
guidance with which to make decisions.  In the past, you complained
that such proposals were not specific proposed changes to the text you
were editing.  So, this is a direct set of changes to the very last
version of that text you uploaded.  I find it pretty vexing that your
complaint now is that it depends too much on a large reorganization
you just did.  I can't satisfy both of your demands at once, Dave.

> 1.  Oh?  Offhand, I'd guess that would require an explicit stricture against
> including such a process tool for doing IAOC work.  I'm not finding that in
> BCP 101, nor other language that leads towards the restriction you are
> asserting.  Please clarify.

Traditionally in the IETF, decisions about IETF consensus are made by
the IESG.  If you're now suggesting that there's a second body that
gets to make such consensus calls, I think you have the burden of
proof wrong.

> variety of venue issues, and making decisions based on that.  Are you saying
> that those were procedural errors?

No.  What I think is happening there is that the IAOC as a committee
is seeking input, but then it makes a decision.  That's not the same
thing as seeking "acceptance", "consnsus", "agreement", or anything
beyond input from the community.  
 
> 3.  The document being produced is expected to be published with IETF rough
> consensus.  As such, it's not at all obvious why another, older RFC should
> hold sway over this more recent IETF consensus document.

I agree that if the IETF decides that the IAOC has to make such
consensus calls, then the resulting procedure could well update or
replace the previous state of affairs.  What I am arguing is that the
WG should _not_ do that because I think introducing a second body that
can do IETF consensus calls is an extremely bad idea.  

> 4.  Apparently you are objecting at least to the second paragraph of Section
> 4.1 in the current draft?

Yeah, we didn't actually remove that text, but mostly because I don't
actually understand it.  If that text actually means (as Brian seems
to suggest) that we do consensus calls on every meeting venue in the
IETF, then I think it ought to be removed.

> 5.  Note that the specific places in the current draft, that have to do with
> community assessment, say "acceptable to the IETF community" rather than
> "IETF consensus".  I'm pretty sure that that wording difference wasn't an
> accident...

Right.  And I have never understood how the IAOC is supposed to
determine whether things are "acceptable to the IETF community".  One
way is consensus, but you state here that's not what you mean.  How
else _would_ the IAOC do it?

> Perhaps you meant IAD? AMS (staff)?

No, I mean that the IETF delegated this task to the IASA, which has a
bunch of parts which includes the IAOC.  The IAOC is the part of IASA
that is nomcom responsible and therefore is the body stuck with the
results, but it's not the only part of IASA that's active in these
decisions (as the draft notes).

> selection and it's been pretty stable for a number of years.  And, IMO, it
> has worked pretty well; certainly far better than, say, 10-15 years ago.

Saying, "This could be better in terms of everyone understanding how
the decisions are to be made," neither suggests that the existing
approach is mostly broken nor that it isn't an improvement on previous
approaches.  But the IETF didn't charter this WG because everything was fine.

I think that the IAOC needs a set of principles to which the IETF has
agreed that it can point to and say, "We applied these principles."
With my experience of having to defend my decisions in mind, I don't
know how I'd do that using the -03 document.  Hence why I worked on
this alternative with Alissa.

> would be helpful to hear them explicated.

I don't think I do.

> non-real-time) evaluation by the IAOC[*] based on something called 'shared
> cultural values' is easier and more reliable and more accurate than an
> active, real-time process of querying whether a site is 'acceptable to the
> community'.

When I hear, "Active, real-time process of querying whether a site is
'acceptable to the community'," what I imagine is the IAOC stopping at
the point where it thinks it has a venue, a facility, and so on, and
consulting with the community.  I think that won't work.  And I think
that people who object to a venue or facility or even a hotel would be
able to use the -03 to complain that the selection was not acceptable,
or that the acceptability was not demonstrable, or so on.  Whereas

> This probably requires full documentation of those shared
> cultural model, with enough detail to permit community and IAOC comfort that
> results will reliably be acceptable.  Where is that text?

the approach that I prefer does not in fact require these things you
suggest, because this shared view is determined by IAOC appointment:
most of the IAOC is either appointed by nomcom, appointed by people
who are appointed by nomcom, or appointed ex officio in a job where
they were appointed by nomcom.  That's how shared cultures work.  If
the culture breaks down such that we can't share values that way, we
will not be able to use this way to select venues, because we won't
actually have a shared culture any more.

> existence proofs of serious divergence in the assessments of that supposedly
> shared model of cultural values.

I think what the alternative Alissa and I are proposing gives the
people who are thus appointed three sets of priorities, and some
guidance about how to apply those priorities.  Speaking as someone who
has had to make these choices recently and defend them in public
(especially, speaking as someone who made the wrong choice in, IMO, at
least one case), I think that this approach would be helpful to me.

>   I
> don't recall their reversing a recommendation of the Meetings Committee,

I do.

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2016 15:53:17 -0800

On 12/7/2016 3:23 PM, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> consulting with the community.  I think that won't work.

I don't either, which is why that isn't what it means.

We have now put in place a community query about possible venues.  And 
it is documented in the existing draft.  That's an up-front process, far 
in advance of actually choosing a city.  That's what active and 
real-time mean.

There is no proposed text that refers to querying at the time of venue 
selection; so I'm not clear why it is being referenced.

In any event, I have no idea what practical, reliable process you have 
in mind, using your postulated "shared cultural values", nor how it 
differs from what we've been doing for years, nor where it is 
documented.  Those questions remain.

d/

-- 

   Dave Crocker

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2016 15:59:08 -0800

On 12/7/2016 3:23 PM, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
>  In the past, you complained

Andrew, there have been multiple requests that proposals be for specific 
text changes.  And most haven't come from me.  But requesting specific 
changes doesn't mean that it is helpful to put all the requests into a 
single, massive draft change.

Arguably, my extracting the distinct, additional items and posting them 
separately was doing your work for you, in terms of normal working group 
revision processes, so folk can consider discrete changes separately.

As for my previous 'complaints', you seem to have taken a request for 
pragmatic specifics as somehow encouraging conflating organizational 
changes with specific item additions.  That certainly wasn't my intent. 
In fact, they are quite unrelated, semantically.

d/
-- 

   Dave Crocker

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 15:21:58 +1300

> selection is an IETF LC process.  If so, I cheerfully predict we'll

No, that wasn't my intention. I thought we were talking about the question
whether in general terms, meeting in Elbonia would be acceptable, given
Elbonia's reputation for discriminating against people whose names begin
with D.

Obviously, the exact choice of meeting at the Grand Hotel in Mudville, Elbonia
for IETF 123 is not a consensus decision; we delegated that choice to the IAOC
ten years ago.

    Brian

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2016 22:01:26 -0500

I don't think that even choice of country or city is a consensus
decision.   The point of "checking with the community" is to find out
if the IAOC has missed something important _before_ we sign a
contract, and ideally before we even go looking in that country/city.

On Wed, Dec 7, 2016 at 9:21 PM, Brian E Carpenter
<[email-masked]> wrote:
> _______________________________________________
> Mtgvenue mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/mtgvenue

---

From: Alissa Cooper <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 09:24:40 -0500

Hi Dave,

> On Dec 7, 2016, at 12:12 PM, Dave Crocker <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Rather, whatever the community decides is acceptable, during the city query, is what holds sway.

The excerpt above encapsulates the core of where we disagree, I think. The term “acceptable” is used in the -03, rather than consensus. But the phrase “acceptable to the community” still implies that the IAOC will make some judgment about the collective opinion of the community as a whole, although without a definition of what community acceptability means. That is what is implied by the sentence above. The IAOC will have to pass this judgment based on some set of analyses — how many people commented? how many people didn’t comment? or the strength of their arguments? or the judgment of individual IAOC members about whether community commenters' arguments are valid or significant? or something else? — that isn’t specified in the document. If we go down the path of specifying it, I suspect we would end up with something that looks like the process of judging rough consensus. And whether we specify it or not, setting community acceptability as the standard judged by the IAOC invites a process of broad community debate about every potential venue. In this way making community acceptability a mandatory requirement is quite different from inviting community input and saying that the IAOC will factor the input into the rest of its decisionmaking.

I don’t think it is the best use of the community’s time to be having a wide ranging debate about each potential venue selection. I’d rather see people spending that time on engineering.

The community acceptability formulation also leaves the IAOC on the hook for interpreting the results of such community debate and choosing a “side” in situations where there is no agreement or uniform opinion across the community about a venue, which seems like a likely situation. This was well demonstrated with the Singapore discussion. My sense is that if each IAOC member was asked individually, today, whether the travel barriers to entry and economic, health, and safety risks in Singapore are acceptable to the community, we’re liable to get three or four different answers, with differently qualified yesses and nos. And that was after hundreds of emails from members of the community about the venue. 

A better approach, in my opinion, is for the IAOC to agree ahead of time to use specific criteria to make venue selections, to be clear about which of those criteria are fungible and which are not, and to specify the process that it will use to gather information to help it pass judgment about whether and how well a particular venue meets the criteria. So, let’s take the safety criterion as an example. The proposal in the draft -04 is that the IAOC establishes ahead of time a mandatory requirement that each venue must be assessed to be safe for individuals, accounting for known health risks and levels of violence and crime. The IAOC explains that it will take as input information from official advisory sources (which hopefully include crime statistics and official health reports), specialty travel services, frequent travelers, local contacts, and input from the IETF community to assess the safety of a venue. For Venue X, it reviews all of this input. The input for the first six sources looks good —Venue X doesn’t have a lot of reported crime and the air and water have been deemed relatively safe by health authorities. Input from the IETF community is mixed —a few folks comment in support of the venue, while a larger group explain that they’ve visited Venue X before and the laws about firearms in that jurisdiction make them feel unsafe. Based on this input, the IAOC decides to proceed with the venue, and provides an explanation to the community for its rationale, noting that the sum of the information gathered leads the IAOC to believe that the venue is generally safe for individuals, while acknowledging that some individuals may disagree with this assessment.

By contrast, if the venue selection process includes a requirement that the health and safety risks associated with a venue must be acceptable to the community, then the input gathered by the IAOC other than the IETF community feedback would not be relevant to the decisionmaking process, and the IAOC would have to make a decision solely on the basis of the community input received. When that decision is made, the IAOC would have to explain why it decided that Venue X is or is not acceptable to the community (not why it is generally safe or not), even though opinion in the community as reflected by commenters is divided.

As we all know, venue selection can be contentious. For most venues there will be parts of the community that have reasons to argue against going there. The premise that the community as a whole can be expected to accept each venue is false and makes the IAOC into an arbiter of community opinion rather than an administrative engine for synthesizing input from multiple sources, including the community, and producing a decision about a venue (not about the community’s view of the venue) on that basis.

Alissa

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 10:28:31 -0500

What you are saying makes sense to me.   If I were to try to boil it down
into a much smaller collection of words, the way I would put it is:

   - IETF consensus determines the criteria that are communicated by the
   IETF to the IAOC (e.g. in this document).
   - The IAOC acquires input from many sources, including participants on
   the IETF mailing list.
   - Information from each of these sources is evaluated based on the
   consensus criteria established in by the IETF.
   - The IAOC does not call consensus.
   - Site selection does not require IETF consensus, but follows a process
   defined by IETF consensus.

On Thu, Dec 8, 2016 at 9:24 AM, Alissa Cooper <[email-masked]> wrote:

> The excerpt above encapsulates the core of where we disagree, I think. The
> term “acceptable” is used in the -03, rather than consensus. But the phrase
> “acceptable to the community” still implies that the IAOC will make some
> judgment about the collective opinion of the community as a whole, although
> without a definition of what community acceptability means. That is what is
> implied by the sentence above. The IAOC will have to pass this judgment
> based on some set of analyses — how many people commented? how many people
> didn’t comment? or the strength of their arguments? or the judgment of
> individual IAOC members about whether community commenters' arguments are
> valid or significant? or something else? — that isn’t specified in the
> document. If we go down the path of specifying it, I suspect we would end
> up with something that looks like the process of judging rough consensus.
> And whether we specify it or not, setting community acceptability as the
> standard judged by the IAOC invites a process of broad community debate
> about every potential venue. In this way making community acceptability a
> mandatory requirement is quite different from inviting community input and
> saying that the IAOC will factor the input into the rest of its
> decisionmaking.
>
> I don’t think it is the best use of the community’s time to be having a
> wide ranging debate about each potential venue selection. I’d rather see
> people spending that time on engineering.
>
> The community acceptability formulation also leaves the IAOC on the hook
> for interpreting the results of such community debate and choosing a “side”
> in situations where there is no agreement or uniform opinion across the
> community about a venue, which seems like a likely situation. This was well
> demonstrated with the Singapore discussion. My sense is that if each IAOC
> member was asked individually, today, whether the travel barriers to entry
> and economic, health, and safety risks in Singapore are acceptable to the
> community, we’re liable to get three or four different answers, with
> differently qualified yesses and nos. And that was after hundreds of emails
> from members of the community about the venue.
>
> A better approach, in my opinion, is for the IAOC to agree ahead of time
> to use specific criteria to make venue selections, to be clear about which
> of those criteria are fungible and which are not, and to specify the
> process that it will use to gather information to help it pass judgment
> about whether and how well a particular venue meets the criteria. So, let’s
> take the safety criterion as an example. The proposal in the draft -04 is
> that the IAOC establishes ahead of time a mandatory requirement that each
> venue must be assessed to be safe for individuals, accounting for known
> health risks and levels of violence and crime. The IAOC explains that it
> will take as input information from official advisory sources (which
> hopefully include crime statistics and official health reports),
> specialty travel services, frequent travelers, local contacts, and input
> from the IETF community to assess the safety of a venue. For Venue X, it
> reviews all of this input. The input for the first six sources looks good
> —Venue X doesn’t have a lot of reported crime and the air and water have
> been deemed relatively safe by health authorities. Input from the IETF
> community is mixed —a few folks comment in support of the venue, while a
> larger group explain that they’ve visited Venue X before and the laws about
> firearms in that jurisdiction make them feel unsafe. Based on this input,
> the IAOC decides to proceed with the venue, and provides an explanation to
> the community for its rationale, noting that the sum of the information
> gathered leads the IAOC to believe that the venue is generally safe for
> individuals, while acknowledging that some individuals may disagree with
> this assessment.
>
> By contrast, if the venue selection process includes a requirement that
> the health and safety risks associated with a venue must be acceptable to
> the community, then the input gathered by the IAOC other than the IETF
> community feedback would not be relevant to the decisionmaking process, and
> the IAOC would have to make a decision solely on the basis of the community
> input received. When that decision is made, the IAOC would have to explain
> why it decided that Venue X is or is not acceptable to the community (not
> why it is generally safe or not), even though opinion in the community as
> reflected by commenters is divided.
>
> As we all know, venue selection can be contentious. For most venues there
> will be parts of the community that have reasons to argue against going
> there. The premise that the community as a whole can be expected to accept
> each venue is false and makes the IAOC into an arbiter of community opinion
> rather than an administrative engine for synthesizing input from multiple
> sources, including the community, and producing a decision about a venue
> (not about the community’s view of the venue) on that basis.
>
> Alissa
>
>
>
>
>

---

From: Lou Berger <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 10:42:11 -0500

Ted,

    Really well said.

All,

Any objections to the following change to
draft-ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process?

OLD

1.1.  Background

   Following IETF 94 and at IETF 95 there was a discussion on the IETF
   list of the selection process and criteria for IETF meetings.  In
   response to that discussion, the IAOC and the IAOC Meetings Committee
   took it upon themselves to more publicly document its process and
   refine it, based on community input.

NEW

1.1.  Background

     The context for this document is as follows:

  * IETF consensus determines the criteria that are communicated by the
    IETF to the IAOC (e.g. in this document).
  * The IAOC acquires input from many sources, including participants on
    the IETF mailing list.
  * Information from each of these sources is evaluated based on the
    consensus criteria established in by the IETF.
  * The IAOC does not call consensus.
  * Site selection does not require IETF consensus, but follows a
    process defined by IETF consensus.

Thanks,

Lou

On 12/8/2016 10:28 AM, Ted Lemon wrote:
> What you are saying makes sense to me.   If I were to try to boil it
> down into a much smaller collection of words, the way I would put it is:
>
>   * IETF consensus determines the criteria that are communicated by
>     the IETF to the IAOC (e.g. in this document).
>   * The IAOC acquires input from many sources, including participants
>     on the IETF mailing list.
>   * Information from each of these sources is evaluated based on the
>   * The IAOC does not call consensus.
>   * Site selection does not require IETF consensus, but follows a
>     process defined by IETF consensus.
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 8, 2016 at 9:24 AM, Alissa Cooper <[email-masked]
> <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
>
>     Hi Dave,
>
>>     On Dec 7, 2016, at 12:12 PM, Dave Crocker <[email-masked]
>>     <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
>>
>     The excerpt above encapsulates the core of where we disagree, I
>     think. The term “acceptable” is used in the -03, rather than
>     consensus. But the phrase “acceptable to the community” still
>     implies that the IAOC will make some judgment about the collective
>     opinion of the community as a whole, although without a definition
>     of what community acceptability means. That is what is implied by
>     the sentence above. The IAOC will have to pass this judgment based
>     on some set of analyses — how many people commented? how many
>     people didn’t comment? or the strength of their arguments? or the
>     judgment of individual IAOC members about whether community
>     commenters' arguments are valid or significant? or something else?
>     — that isn’t specified in the document. If we go down the path of
>     specifying it, I suspect we would end up with something that looks
>     like the process of judging rough consensus. And whether we
>     specify it or not, setting community acceptability as the standard
>     judged by the IAOC invites a process of broad community debate
>     about every potential venue. In this way making community
>     acceptability a mandatory requirement is quite different from
>     inviting community input and saying that the IAOC will factor the
>     input into the rest of its decisionmaking.
>
>     I don’t think it is the best use of the community’s time to be
>     having a wide ranging debate about each potential venue selection.
>     I’d rather see people spending that time on engineering.
>
>     The community acceptability formulation also leaves the IAOC on
>     the hook for interpreting the results of such community debate and
>     choosing a “side” in situations where there is no agreement or
>     uniform opinion across the community about a venue, which seems
>     like a likely situation. This was well demonstrated with the
>     Singapore discussion. My sense is that if each IAOC member was
>     asked individually, today, whether the travel barriers to entry
>     and economic, health, and safety risks in Singapore are acceptable
>     to the community, we’re liable to get three or four different
>     answers, with differently qualified yesses and nos. And that was
>     after hundreds of emails from members of the community about the
>     venue. 
>
>     A better approach, in my opinion, is for the IAOC to agree ahead
>     of time to use specific criteria to make venue selections, to be
>     clear about which of those criteria are fungible and which are
>     not, and to specify the process that it will use to gather
>     information to help it pass judgment about whether and how well a
>     particular venue meets the criteria. So, let’s take the safety
>     criterion as an example. The proposal in the draft -04 is that the
>     IAOC establishes ahead of time a mandatory requirement that each
>     venue must beassessed to be safe for individuals, accounting for
>     known health risks and levels of violence and crime. The IAOC
>     explains that it will take as input information fromofficial
>     advisory sources (which hopefully include crime statistics and
>     official health reports), specialty travel services, frequent
>     travelers, local contacts, and input from the IETF community to
>     assess the safety of a venue. For Venue X, it reviews all of this
>     input. The input for the first six sources looks good —Venue X
>     doesn’t have a lot of reported crime and the air and water have
>     been deemed relatively safe by health authorities. Input from the
>     IETF community is mixed —a few folks comment in support of the
>     venue, while a larger group explain that they’ve visited Venue X
>     before and the laws about firearms in that jurisdiction make them
>     feel unsafe. Based on this input, the IAOC decides to proceed with
>     the venue, and provides an explanation to the community for its
>     rationale, noting that the sum of the information gathered leads
>     the IAOC to believe that the venue is generally safe for
>     individuals, while acknowledging that some individuals may
>     disagree with this assessment.
>     By contrast, if the venue selection process includes a requirement
>     that the health and safety risks associated with a venue must be
>     acceptable to the community, then the input gathered by the IAOC
>     other than the IETF community feedback would not be relevant to
>     the decisionmaking process, and the IAOC would have to make a
>     decision solely on the basis of the community input received. When
>     that decision is made, the IAOC would have to explain why it
>     decided that Venue X is or is not acceptable to the community (not
>     why it is generally safe or not), even though opinion in the
>     community as reflected by commenters is divided.
>
>     As we all know, venue selection can be contentious. For most
>     venues there will be parts of the community that have reasons to
>     argue against going there. The premise that the community as a
>     whole can be expected to accept each venue is false and makes the
>     IAOC into an arbiter of community opinion rather than an
>     administrative engine for synthesizing input from multiple
>     sources, including the community, and producing a decision about a
>     venue (not about the community’s view of the venue) on that basis.
>
>     Alissa
>
>
>      
>
>
>     [email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>
>     <https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/mtgvenue>
>
>
>
>

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 11:16:38 -0500

Dear colleagues,

> draft-ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process?

I have one.  I don't think that's background at all, and I think it'd
be mystifying for a reader coming to the topic fresh.  

What I'm finding enormously challenging in this discussion is that the
authors and editors of the WG document seem to be insisting on
around-the-edges changes to the draft as though the basic
disagreements are settled.  I don't understand why we are doing that.
I get it that some people think that the basic disagreements are
settled, but I claim they are not.  I think we need to agree in some
way about the direction we are going before we write down how we're
going to get there.  (See my exchanges with Dave for more evidence, if
you like.)

Perhaps the chairs could give some indication of the extent to which
they think these fundamental issues are settled.  I am prepared, as
ever, to be in the rough, but in my opinion the wall is still too
bumpy to be covered by wall paper.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 11:38:57 -0500

Andrew, first, I agree that the text Lou proposes adding to the
introduction doesn't work there, for the reason you stated.

Second, while it may be the case that there are basic disagreements, it's
difficult for someone with limited time to parse that out of the voluminous
messages that have been passing back and forth.   I have done my best, but
I can't keep up.   Can we discuss one basic issue at a time, or do you feel
that the holistic approach you have been taking to date is the only option
because the issues are too deeply intertwined to tease out into individual
issues?

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 12:00:25 -0500

> because the issues are too deeply intertwined to tease out into individual

My view -- the one I have tried to get engagement about repeatedly
only to be drawn into narrow discussions of how to edit the document
-- is that there are three basic issues we need to address.  They're
all intertwined, I think, but I'd be prepared to discuss them
separately if people think that'd help:

1.  What exactly is this output for?  I think the point of it is to
capture in a document a consensus of the community about how the IAOC
is to prioritise issues when deciding about a venue.  I don't know
what others think, but I also know that (thinking about advice I'd
have liked while on the IAOC) that the current -03 draft isn't
something I could have used for that.

2.  What is the way by which that prioritisation is effective?  I
think it is that the IAOC uses the consensus document from (1) and
whatever input it gets and then uses its judgement.  I clearly don't
understand how Dave thinks this ought to work, but it somehow involves
the result being "acceptable to the community".

3.  What is the level of detail required to achieve (1)?  I think that
a very large number of considerations is not helpful, and that what we
need is a shortish list of absolute requirements, a shortish list of
really important things that can be traded off against one another
with a goal of maximising the set over time, and "everything else".  I
_think_ this is something we have now agreed to, but I don't know how
to use the categories in -03 to get a result (particuarly in the
two-dimensional way it's currently laid out -- are Important room
things more Important than immigration things, for instance?  Dunno).

I hope that helps.  I too would like to make progress without a
thousand messages, but I don't think these three issues will be sorted
by suggested diffs to the existing text.

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 09:11:24 -0800

> the result being "acceptable to the community".

Details are such a nuisance.

Since you cite me explicitly (almost as if I'm the only one who has been 
working on, or agreeing to, the content of this formal document of the 
working group) I'll note that the above appears to use "acceptable to 
the community" in a far more general way than the draft does.

So as a small point of clarification:  The existing working group draft 
applies that language for only these two, very-constrained points:

> 3.1.  Venue City Criteria
...
>    | Travel barriers to entry, e.g., visa requirements    | "Mandatory |
>    | IETF community.                                      |            |

and

>    | Economic, safety, and health risks associated with   | "Mandatory |
>    | this Venue are acceptable to the IETF community.     | "          |

d/
-- 

   Dave Crocker

---

From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 08 Dec 2016 09:42:04 -0800 (PST)

Inline.

> something I could have used for that.

***OLE: I do not see the document as an attempt to "priorities issues 
when deciding about a venue," I see it as listing the items that must
be considered (and is being currently considered) for such a task.
Perhaps this is where we disagree. The current approach takes many
practical issues into account and uses a common sense evaluation to
look at the sum of those practical considerations.

> the result being "acceptable to the community".

***OLE: I think the term "acceptable to the community" originated from
the observation that no venue is perfect and, for example, visa issues
will never affect everyone the same way (negatively or positively),
which is why having meetings in different regions is supposed to
distribute this burden more or less equally.

> things more Important than immigration things, for instance?  Dunno).

***OLE: Room things may be more important than immigration things in
some cases, I don't see any benefit from giving more weight to one
over the other, but clearly if we don't have enough meeting (or 
sleeping) rooms we should not meet in city X, and if a large majority
cannot gain entry to city X we shouldn't meet there either. The more
typical situation is a consideration of "can we make this work?"
which involves some juggling and creativity, such as what happened
for the Bits and Bites in Seoul.

> by suggested diffs to the existing text.

***OLE: Your draft seems to suggest that there are "higher level"
principles that should be applied before making a detailed list
of requirements. I was fine with such an approach until I read your
conclusion that we could not have gone to Singapore. Without wishing
to re-open the debate about that, we seemed to have rough consensus
in the committee and in the IAOC that the onerous laws had little
or no probability of affecting any IETF attendee, which made that
a practical consideration rather than a higher-level principle.

Ole

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 14:10:41 -0500

>>   | this Venue are acceptable to the IETF community.     | "          |

I think you are illustrating Andrew's point for him.   I have no idea what this means.   I don’t think it falls into the set of points I outlined earlier: if it were to be a community consensus, it would have to be stated explicitly in this document or some other consensus document, and if it’s just the IAOC checking with the community for input, "acceptable to the community" doesn’t seem to mean that.

Furthermore, there’s no trivial word change that would fix this—we would actually have to have clear criteria that the community agreed to here in order to provide the IAOC with any guidance.   That’s why this is hard.

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2016 08:24:27 +1300

Separating out the issue that puzzles me most:
...
> distribute this burden more or less equally.

And I am now confused as to who various people think will decide what
is "acceptable to the community". If that isn't equivalent to declaring
a community consensus, I don't know what it is. Either we give the IAOC
criteria and trust them to apply those criteria, or we don't.

    Brian

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 11:30:13 -0800

On 12/8/2016 11:10 AM, Ted Lemon wrote:
> On Dec 8, 2016, at 12:11 PM, Dave Crocker <[email-masked]
> I think you are illustrating Andrew's point for him.   I have no idea
> what this means.   I don’t think it falls into the set of points I
> outlined earlier: if it were to be a community consensus, it would have
> to be stated explicitly in this document or some other consensus
> document, and if it’s just the IAOC checking with the community for
> input, "acceptable to the community" doesn’t seem to mean that.
>
> Furthermore, there’s no trivial word change that would fix this—we would
> actually have to have clear criteria that the community agreed to here
> in order to provide the IAOC with any guidance.   That’s why this is hard.

Ted,

It simply says that these two sets of things always have to be 
acceptable to the community.  The process of choosing a venue has to 
attend to community acceptance along these lines.  Always.

That's exactly what the newly-instituted query to the community, about 
possible venues, is designed to satisfy, in a manner that is convenient 
and sufficient.

If there is significant concern about a venue, among the IETF community, 
not much else matters.  If there isn't much concern, the selection 
process is still free to consider additional information.

As has been commented before, this avoids having to detail the 
underlying criteria that go into community acceptance, which are 
actually quite difficult to list and obtain reliably and accurately and 
conveniently.

But maybe I'm missing the point and what you are primarily concerned 
about is how to measure 'acceptable to the community'?  This seems a 
more mechanical point and I'll ask what level of detail is needed to 
answer this and why that level is needed?  That is, what actually is 
inadequate about using the existing language?

d/
-- 

   Dave Crocker

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 14:42:40 -0500

Yes, that's my point.   We don't know what "acceptable to the community"
means.   I think that you are right that we can't come up with complete
criteria for what that is, but we have to provide sufficient guidance that
we don't have another Singapore Surprise, with all the woe that caused for
both the IAOC and the people who objected, to say nothing of the actual
issue that was raised.

I do not know how what is stated in this document would have changed the
flow of that discussion.   I suspect that the only sense in which it would
have changed it is that we could have had the discussion before the die was
cast, rather than on an emergency basis.   But we have provided no guidance
as to what "acceptable to the community" would mean even in this particular
case.   So we still have a community discussion based on opinion, rather
than simply a call for input, and that, I think, will result in the same
unpalatable decision-making process that the IAOC had the misfortune to
follow for Singapore, albeit with somewhat lower stakes.

Perhaps the lowering of the stakes is sufficient, though.   If that's the
case, then it should be "any objections from the community were deemed by
the IAOC to be insufficient to classify the location as unacceptable by
this criterion."

On Thu, Dec 8, 2016 at 2:30 PM, Dave Crocker <[email-masked]> wrote:

>> what this means.   I don’t think it falls into the set of points I outlined
>> earlier: if it were to be a community consensus, it would have to be stated
>> explicitly in this document or some other consensus document, and if it’s
>> just the IAOC checking with the community for input, "acceptable to the
>> community" doesn’t seem to mean that.
>>
>> actually have to have clear criteria that the community agreed to here in
>> order to provide the IAOC with any guidance.   That’s why this is hard.
>>
>>
>>
> It simply says that these two sets of things always have to be acceptable
> to the community.  The process of choosing a venue has to attend to
> community acceptance along these lines.  Always.
>
> possible venues, is designed to satisfy, in a manner that is convenient and
> sufficient.
>
> not much else matters.  If there isn't much concern, the selection process
> is still free to consider additional information.
>
> As has been commented before, this avoids having to detail the underlying
> criteria that go into community acceptance, which are actually quite
> difficult to list and obtain reliably and accurately and conveniently.
>
>
> But maybe I'm missing the point and what you are primarily concerned about
> is how to measure 'acceptable to the community'?  This seems a more
> mechanical point and I'll ask what level of detail is needed to answer this
> and why that level is needed?  That is, what actually is inadequate about
> using the existing language?
>
>
>
> d/
> --
>
>   Dave Crocker

---

From: Bob Hinden <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 11:46:00 -0800

Brian,

> On Dec 8, 2016, at 11:24 AM, Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> criteria and trust them to apply those criteria, or we don’t

I agree.

I think this is where the IETF process and way of working meets the real world.  What we do to produce protocol specifications, doesn’t work for selecting and negotiating with venues (or other service contracts for that matter).  For example, we can’t do IETF last calls on a contract for a venue.  We would loose all leverage to negotiate reasonable costs, and I suspect future venues would not want to do business with us.

My take on this is that we will eventually reach an IETF consensus on this document, and the IAOC will use it when selecting and negotiating with venues for future IETF meetings.  This is, in my view, the way BCP101 was set up the IASA to operate.  If we don’t trust the IAOC to do this, we have a much bigger problem.

Bob

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 12:03:40 -0800

On 12/8/2016 11:42 AM, Ted Lemon wrote:
>  we have to provide sufficient guidance that
> flow of that discussion.

This would have fundamentally changed that situation:

Existing draft:
> 5.2.  Consultation
>
>    Preliminary question:
>
>    a.  The IAOC asks the community whether there are any barriers to
>        holding a successful meeting in any of the target cities.
>        Community responses are reviewed and concerns investigated.
>
>    b.  On a public web page, the IAOC lists all candidate cities, when
>        community input was solicited, and a summarization of the review
>        results.
>
>    c.  The IAOC then provides a list of vetted cities to the Meetings
>        Committee to pursue as potential meeting locations.

Awaiting addition is Lou's enhanced text, which I believe doesn't affect 
the answer to the above question:

> 5.2.  Consultation
>
>    Preliminary question:
>
>    a.  The IAOC asks the community whether there are any barriers to
>        holding a successful meeting in any of the target cities.
>
>    b.  Community responses are reviewed and concerns investigated by the
>        Meetings Committee.  The results together with a recommendation
>        of whether a city should or shouod not be considered as a potential
          meeting location is provided to the IAOC.
>
>    c. The IAOC identifies which cities are to be considered as a potential
>        meeting location.
>
>    d.  On a public web page, the IAOC lists all candidate cities, when
>        community input was solicited, and if a city is to be considered
>        as a potential meeting location.
>
>    e.  The Meetings Committee to pursues potential meeting locations
>        based on the posted list of cities that have been identified for as
 >        a potential meeting locations.

-- 

   Dave Crocker

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 15:08:38 -0500

Okay, so what you are saying is that "acceptable to the community" is this
process.   But what is not stated here is what the criteria are, and how
the decision is made.   There's some wisdom to this--I don't think it's
really possible to state this in clear and unambiguous terms.   But if
that's the case, I think "acceptable to the community" is the wrong
wording.   To me, acceptable to the community would mean that there was
consensus, in the sense that every objection raised had been addressed in a
way that the IESG considered sufficient.

---

From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 08 Dec 2016 12:16:03 -0800 (PST)

Brian,

Right. The document is supposed to be a list of the criteria. You can 
view that as a combination of a wish list and a "must have" list. 
The IAOC gets to decide if a venue fits the lists, that is to say, 
will be acceptable to the community. There is no last call, no 
consensus call on the decision, but the document is supposed reflect
what is required (for various levels of "required") and has community
input (rough consensus).

What I honestly don't understand is why there should be a higher-level
list of principles in priority order that must first be "passed" 
before the pragmatics are considered.

Let me give you an example:

Should the IETF hold its meeting(s) in a country which actively blocks
part of the Internet? The answer can be one of principle, taking a 
political stance if you will. But in considering such a country for
a meeting, the more pressing question is "will this affect our ability
to get work done?" If you cannot get your email and if your VPN tunnel
is broken by the authorities, I would certainly say "no, let's not 
meet there!" I think we already agreed that we're not in the business
as an organization to take political positions.

Ole

---

From: Lou Berger <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 16:15:34 -0500

Andrew,

> be mystifying for a reader coming to the topic fresh.  

Well it certainly is a lot more valuable than the text it replaces don't
you think?  I'm also fine with expanding it to provide a better 
overview of the objectives of the document.

> disagreements are settled.  

Are you suggesting that no progress / changes can be made on the
document while there are more general discussions going on?  This seems
like a really unusual approach and one I've personally never followed in
the IETF - ever.

> I don't understand why we are doing that.

Because we don't stop improving a document, just because there is
disagreement on a portion of the work.

> settled, but I claim they are not.  

> I think we need to agree in some

I think this is an excellent point -- we certainly should agree on and
document what this document is trying to accomplish as well as say how
it does it.  Your subsequent message on this thread is actually quite
helpful, particularly as you are focusing on the "what" and not the "how".

The "what" of this has changed now a couple of times along the way, and
I think you are suggesting expanding (at least at the detail level) what
this document should accomplish.  And I agree, that having you spell out
what you're after is much more helpful then diving into language --
although when we end the discussion we have to come up with and *agree
to* specific language changes for the discussion to have lasting effect.

> they think these fundamental issues are settled. 
Keep in mind that the document's scope covers more than just the list
you mentioned.

Thanks,
Lou
>  I am prepared, as

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 16:49:31 -0500

> way that the IESG considered sufficient.

Yes, this is the point I think I've tried to make more than once:
"acceptable to the community" in the document is either trivially
true, or it's empty, or it's false.

In the trivially true sense, it's acceptable in so far as people show
up and the meeting happens.  Similarly, "We posted on a web site and
nobody complained," is "acceptable" in the sense that whoever shows up
accepts it.

In the empty sense, there's no test of what it means to be acceptable,
because that appears to imply a positive sense that "the community"
(who can't, we should recall, be enumerated) accepts the decision.  If
we don't test that and don't have an operational definition of the
community, then it's not a meaningful addition to the document.

In the false sense, it suggests that the decision actually rests with
the community, in so far as the IAOC or someone does a consensus call
(or uses some new mechanism we haven't tried) to evaluate whether
people can live with the selection.

And none of this addresses the other point that Alissa made upthread,
which is that "acceptable to the community" seems an inadequate
guidance for the IAOC (her example of evaluating a safe place was, I
thought, a good one).

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]

---

From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 08 Dec 2016 13:58:04 -0800 (PST)

Andrew,

But if the community has contributed to the document and we
have rough consensus about the set of requirements, and we
follow that list, the IAOC should be able to make a judgement
call about whether or not a given choice is "acceptable to
the community". I am happy to find a better term, but I think
I know what is implied by it.

Ole

Ole J. Jacobsen
Editor and Publisher

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 17:07:30 -0500

Hi,

On Thu, Dec 08, 2016 at 01:58:04PM -0800, Ole Jacobsen wrote:
> the community".

Ok, but that formulation of it adds exactly nothing to "the IAOC
decides", which is I think the point Alissa and I keep trying to make.
And as Alissa quite correctly pointed out earlier in this thread,
claiming that "acceptable to the community" is the bar naturally leads
to perverse results whereas simply saying that the IAOC will consult
widely and then decide does not have that problem.

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]

---

From: Bob Hinden <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 14:29:53 -0800

Andrew,

> On Dec 8, 2016, at 2:07 PM, Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 

Aren’t we really trying to say:

  The IESG decides based on the criteria defined in <draft-ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process>

What am I missing here?

Bob

---

From: Bob Hinden <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 15:39:12 -0800

> On Dec 8, 2016, at 2:29 PM, Bob Hinden <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Andrew,
> 

That should have been “The IAOC decides. . . . .”

Bob

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2016 13:45:00 +1300

> That should have been “The IAOC decides. . . . .”

Right. Another slant is
s/acceptable to the community/meets the criteria laid down by the community/
which is clearly putting the responsibility on the IAOC.

   Brian

---

From: Alissa Cooper <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 20:05:40 -0500

> On Dec 8, 2016, at 7:45 PM, Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 

But there aren’t any other criteria in the -03 that address economic, health, and safety risks or travel barriers to entry. So if we say we’re going to delete the two instances of “acceptable to the community” in the -03 — which only occur in the context of those two requirements — and replace them with some generic process statement about how the IAOC’s job is to decide if a venue meets the criteria, then the criteria will be silent about safety and travel barriers to entry. I think those would be significant omissions.

That is why Andrew and I proposed reformulating those two requirements so that they contain actual criteria for the IAOC to pass judgment against:

For safety:

"The Venue is assessed to be safe for individuals, accounting for known health risks and levels of violence and crime.” (mandatory for every meeting)

For travel barriers to entry:

"Visa requirements that can limit participation are minimized or the cost and difficulty associated with such requirements is spread among active participants.” (can be traded off, and there are the two requirements about legal exclusions or differential treatment that are also relevant)

Alissa

---

From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 08 Dec 2016 17:38:46 -0800 (PST)

On Thu, 8 Dec 2016, Alissa Cooper wrote:

> But there aren’t any other criteria in the -03 that address 
> economic, health, and safety risks or travel barriers to entry. So 
> if we say we’re going to delete the two instances of “acceptable to 
> the community” in the -03 — which only occur in the context of those 
> two requirements — and replace them with some generic process 
> statement about how the IAOC’s job is to decide if a venue meets the 
> criteria, then the criteria will be silent about safety and travel 
> barriers to entry. I think those would be significant omissions.
> 
> That is why Andrew and I proposed reformulating those two 
> requirements so that they contain actual criteria for the IAOC to 
> pass judgment against:
> 
> For safety:
> 
> "The Venue is assessed to be safe for individuals, accounting for 
> known health risks and levels of violence and crime.” (mandatory for 
> every meeting)
> 
> "Visa requirements that can limit participation are minimized or the 
> cost and difficulty associated with such requirements is spread 
> among active participants.” (can be traded off, and there are the 
> two requirements about legal exclusions or differential treatment 
> that are also relevant)
> 
> Alissa
> 

No, not silent, but perhaps omitting "acceptable to the community" 

I am not opposed to removing the text we seem to be getting stuck
on. I believe "acceptable to the community" was intended to capture
the fact that there are SOME risks that we can perhaps quantify
and list, such as, oh, say Zika in Argentina (when we probably should
have focused more on general safety, fake bank notes, etc).

I am fine with using either the text in -03 or your text, since
I believe either captures the general idea.

Ole

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2016 09:30:21 +0100

Hi,

Forgive me for zooming into a narrow point...

> "The Venue is assessed to be safe for individuals, accounting for known health risks and levels of violence and crime.” (mandatory for every meeting)

I would prefer that we not state things in quite so absolute a fashion. 
I would propose a the following instead:

"Health and safety risks to individuals are assessed to be acceptable."

It is not necessary to mention violent crime and we can avoid pedantic
debates about what if something isn't a crime in a given locality.  Zika
or the likelihood of a coup d'etat or the risk of a woman being beaten
for wearing shorts are all things that we would expect the IAOC to worry
about, as well as risks we haven't even thought of.  The above proposed
text future proofs the document.

Eliot

---

From: Alissa Cooper <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2016 07:49:56 -0500

> On Dec 9, 2016, at 3:30 AM, Eliot Lear <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> "Health and safety risks to individuals are assessed to be acceptable.”

WFM
Alissa

---

From: Bob Hinden <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2016 11:31:52 -0800

Hi,

I like the approach in the -04 version, specifically the way it organizes the requirements into Mandatory, tradeoffs, and desirable.  I think it will make it easier for the IAOC to use this.  The down side of this approach is that it is critical we get the Mandatory text correct, otherwise we won’t be be able to have any meetings.  Similar the introduction in Section 3 makes it clear that even the Mandatory requires can be traded-off and subjective.  “Mandatory” might not be the right word to describe this class.

Are we going to go forward with the -04 version?

I have some specific comments on the text is Section 3.1.1. "Mandatory Requirements for Every Meeting” below.

Bob

>    Items in this section are all mandatory.  If a requirement cannot be
>    met, a location under consideration is unacceptable.  We walk away.
> 
>    o  The Venue is assessed as favorable for obtaining a host and
>       sponsors.  That is, the Meeting is in a location and at a price
>       that it is possible and probable to find a host and sponsors.

I think this is problematic.  Picking a venue three years out makes this a challenge.  Hosts usefully won’t commit that far out.  Other than we hope we can find a local host or get a multiple host sponsor to sign up, I don’t see how this can be evaluated.  Is the point that we shouldn’t go to a venue where we know we won’t be able to find a host/sponsor?

> 
>    o  The economics of the Venue allow the meeting to be net cash
>       positive.

How does this get evaluated?  It depends a lot on attendance and this is hard to determine in advance.  I suppose we can look at our experience with other meetings in the city/country/region.  I am not sure we are doing that now.

It is certainly a goal that we not loose money on any meeting.  Has that happened?  We have not meet the budget for several meetings, but have we lost money?

>    o  The cost of guest rooms, meeting space, and meeting food and
>       beverage are affordable and within the norms of business travel.

OK.

> 
>    o  Authorities within the Venue's jurisdiction do not engage in
>       formal legal exclusions or differential treatment on the basis of
>       age, gender or gender identity, sexuality, marital status,
>       political views, racial background, nationality, countries
>       previously visited, religious belief or practice, or any other
>       category of irrelevant discrimination.

I hate to ask, but would “Singapore” meet this?  Is this about entering the country, or if people of a particular persuasion are arrested?

“irrelevant discrimination”?

> 
>    o  The Venue is assessed to be safe for individuals, accounting for
>       known health risks and levels of violence and crime.

I like Eliot's text ""Health and safety risks to individuals are assessed to be acceptable.”

> 
>    o  The Facility is adequate in size and layout to accommodate the
>       meeting and foster participant interaction.
> 
>    o  The Facility is accessible by people with disabilities.

Good, I think is about all we can say here.

> 
>    o  The Facility's support technologies and services -- network,
>       audio-video, etc. -- are sufficient for the anticipated activities
>       at the meeting, or the Venue is willing to add such infrastructure
>       or these support technologies and services might be provided by a
>       third party, all at no -- or at an acceptable -- cost to the IETF.

There is a network requirements document https://iaoc.ietf.org/ietf-network-requirements.html

Should this reference this?

> 
>    o  The Facility directly provides, or permits and facilitates, the
>       delivery of a high performance, robust, unfiltered and unmodified
>       IETF Network.

This is included as well above.  Also, like the above it might incur costs.

> 
>    o  The IETF Hotel(s) directly provide, or else permit and facilitate,
>       the delivery of a high performance, robust, unfiltered and
>       unmodified Internet service for the public areas and guest rooms;
>       this service is typically included in the cost of the room.

I wonder if this should be mandatory, as opposed to very desirable.

> 
>    o  The IETF Hotel(s) are within close proximity to each other and the
>       Facility.

Close as in distance, commute time, etc.?

> 
>    o  The IETF Hotel(s) are accessible by people with disabilities.

Suggest putting this right after the similar facility requirement.

> 
>    o  The guest rooms at the IETF Hotel(s) are sufficient in number to
>       house 1/3 or more of projected meeting attendees.
> 
>    o  Overflow hotels can be placed under contract, within convenient
>       travel time of the Facility and at a variety of guest room rates.
> 
>    o  The Venue includes budget hotels within convenient travel time,
>       cost, and effort of the Facility.
> 
>    o  The Facility environs, including the site itself as well as areas
>       within a reasonable walking distance or conveniently accessible by
>       a short taxi, bus, or subway ride, have convenient and inexpensive
>       choices for meals that can accommodate a wide range of dietary
>       requirements.
> 
>    o  A range of attendee's health-related and religion-related dietary
>       requirements can be satisfied with robust and flexible onsite
>       service or through access to an adequate grocery.

We currently try to identify grocery stores nearby to allow flexability, but I don’t think we have looked for religion related requirements like Kosher and Halal.  I suspect most of our past meeting venues and probably future ones will not meet that.  This needs more specific discussion and I think should be moved to the Desirable section.  We do have some IETF participants who can provide some practical experience with this topic.

---

From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 09 Dec 2016 12:35:21 -0800 (PST)

With respect to your "Mandatory" comment:

I raised the same issue and it turns out that what is meant is
a "mandatory examination" of each issue. It does NOT imply that
the outcome always has to be positive. I think this could be
made clearer in the document.

With respect to your Singapore comment:

It is my understanding that the authors of 04 believe that Singapore 
would not qualify due to its infamous law about male homosexuality.
As a practical consideration, I've seen more comments in favor of
Singapore in spite of this law than against it. I am not sure what
the overall community consensus is on something that might fall into
the category of "political" (IMO).

Ole

Ole J. Jacobsen
Editor and Publisher

On Fri, 9 Dec 2016, Bob Hinden wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I like the approach in the -04 version, specifically the way it 
> organizes the requirements into Mandatory, tradeoffs, and desirable.  
> I think it will make it easier for the IAOC to use this.  The down 
> side of this approach is that it is critical we get the Mandatory 
> text correct, otherwise we won’t be be able to have any meetings.  
> Similar the introduction in Section 3 makes it clear that even the 
> Mandatory requires can be traded-off and subjective.  “Mandatory” 
> might not be the right word to describe this class.
> 
> I have some specific comments on the text is Section 3.1.1. 
> "Mandatory Requirements for Every Meeting” below.
> 
> Bob
> 
> I think this is problematic.  Picking a venue three years out makes 
> this a challenge.  Hosts usefully won’t commit that far out.  Other 
> than we hope we can find a local host or get a multiple host sponsor 
> to sign up, I don’t see how this can be evaluated.  Is the point 
> that we shouldn’t go to a venue where we know we won’t be able to 
> find a host/sponsor?
> 
> > 
> How does this get evaluated?  It depends a lot on attendance and 
> this is hard to determine in advance.  I suppose we can look at our 
> experience with other meetings in the city/country/region.  I am not 
> sure we are doing that now.
> 
> It is certainly a goal that we not loose money on any meeting.  Has 
> that happened?  We have not meet the budget for several meetings, 
> but have we lost money?
> 
> 
> I hate to ask, but would “Singapore” meet this?  Is this about 
> entering the country, or if people of a particular persuasion are 
> arrested?
> 
> There is a network requirements document 
> https://iaoc.ietf.org/ietf-network-requirements.html
> 
> We currently try to identify grocery stores nearby to allow 
> flexability, but I don’t think we have looked for religion related 
> requirements like Kosher and Halal.  I suspect most of our past 
> meeting venues and probably future ones will not meet that.  This 
> needs more specific discussion and I think should be moved to the 
> Desirable section.  We do have some IETF participants who can 
> provide some practical experience with this topic.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
>

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2016 22:29:48 +0100

Hi,

> I hate to ask, but would “Singapore” meet this?  Is this about entering the country, or if people of a particular persuasion are arrested?

When someone in the U.S. can get thrown off of a plane by authorities
for speaking Arabic, I would propose an alternative:

"The risk to a well behaved participant or family member of being
arrested or harassed by local authorities or by anyone else is assessed
to be negligible."

Again, we simply can't eliminate risk, and we should not claim that we
can.  With the above text we also get away from legalisms and the
laundry list.  I will admit my own bias toward both less text and
trusting those we ask to do the job until and unless they violate that
trust.  It is thus left to the community to appoint people to the IAOC
who have a good understanding of what "well behaved" means.[*] [**]

Eliot

[*]  Those of us who have been around a while can remember violations of
that phrase by just about any standard.  This may come as a surprise to
some, but this organization HAS made progress.
[**] With or without any of this text, I very much doubt that the IAOC
would fail a due diligence test along these lines in the future.  The BA
plenary was both memorable and quite uncomfortable.

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2016 23:34:31 -0500

Hi,

> made clearer in the document.

I haven't consulted with Alissa on this, but I can say that at least
when I was editing the proffered alternative ("04", but really
"alt-future" since it's not an -04 in the repo) I did not understand
"mandatory" to mean "must be examined".  I understood it to mean that
the venue must meet that requirement.  I believe Alissa and I tried
pretty hard to cleave to the chart in -03, and the result is a rather
long list of Mandatory requirements.  I am not sure I, at least, am
wedded to the classes.  I am currently more focussed on the framework.

> would not qualify due to its infamous law about male homosexuality.

I would put this differently.  As written, the "alt-future" or 04
draft Alissa and I offered presented a position as Mandatory.  I
posted an opinion -- it's only mine -- that the Singapore laws meant
that Singapore would necessarily be disqualified under the text as
written.  That was not a position about whether Singapore _should_
ever be a venue.  I was merely pointing out that the draft contained a
position that had certain consequences.

It is useful to separate the contents of each category -- which are
subject to the WG and IETF consensus -- from the style, which presents
clear limits on IAOC decision making.  I think the latter is a goal.
At the same time, …

> Singapore in spite of this law than against it.

… I have very grave reservations about this line of thinking.  In my
opinion, the whole _point_ of this WG is to come up with some
principles.  Some conversations about site selection (and it's not
just Singapore) have been contentious because the site selection
"rules" appear not to have a principled basis.  Any claim about the
balance of people in favour of this or that outcome seems like the
very thing we're trying to avoid.  I'm more than a little worried that
anyone might think appeal to numbers is a good basis for establishing
such principles.

None of that is to say that I think the categories in the
alternative-future -04 are perfect.  Maybe the IETF evaluates the
overall importance of explicit, state-sanctioned discrimination as
less important than Alissa and I have rated it; maybe it's only
Important.  Figuring that out is an IETF consensus job, though, and
it's not the same problem as figuring out this framework.

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]

---

From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 09 Dec 2016 21:09:47 -0800 (PST)

Inline.

> wedded to the classes.  I am currently more focussed on the framework.

***OLE: I really need Dave to chime in here, because he worked with 
the AMS folks on the wording. As Bob Hinden pointed out, it's hard to
make "cash positive meeting" and "hostable" a hard requirement several
years in advance, but that doesn't mean that an analysis should not
be mandatory.

> anyone might think appeal to numbers is a good basis for establishing

***OLE: At the risk of re-opening the debate about Singapore, the 
reason I made the above comment is that as far as the IAOC Meetings
Committee could determine, Singapore is neither LGTBT hostile nor
is there any history of the infamous law being applied to any visitor,
in which case it would seem to me at least to be a matter of principle
rather than one of "will this law in any way affect our ability to
hold a meeting there?"  This is very much analogous to the "filtering
and censorship" laws that apply in certain countries, which we could
certainly avoid on principle, but that's very different from our
ability to get work done, having our VPNs broken etc. One is a 
principle (political) consideration, the other is a very practical
issue.

The use of numbers comes into play if we are discussing whether or
not the IETF should be in the business of taking a political stance
or not, that's what I meant. We most likely disagree about whether
or not this is a political issue or not, but that's the nature of
politics :-)

> it's not the same problem as figuring out this framework.

***OLE: I would think the key question is what actual practical
impact such "state-sanctioned discrimination" has on any category
of our attendee. We already know that visa processing is highly
differential which is one reason to not keep meeting in one location.

---

From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2016 01:55:39 -0800 (PST)

You said:

"I'm more than a little worried that anyone might think appeal to 
numbers is a good basis for establishing such principles."

How else do you propose we establish consensus on the principles?

If the answer is "in the usual WG way," I'd submit that is exactly
what happened in the case in question. Objections were raised,
but (in my reading) support for the proposed venue was very strong.

I think the real question is what are the principles that can be
so clearly separated from practical considerations. I am not sure
I know and I almost certain you and I won't agree on such a list.

Ole

Ole J. Jacobsen
Editor and Publisher

---

From: Bob Hinden <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2016 08:22:32 -0800

Ole,

> On Dec 9, 2016, at 12:35 PM, Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> 
> 

The -04 draft currently says:

Sounds pretty “mandatory” to me.

> the category of "political" (IMO).

The main point I was trying to make here, is that we need to be very clear about what these paragraphs mean.  At least it wasn’t clear to me.

Bob

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2016 11:27:53 -0500

> years in advance, but that doesn't mean that an analysis should not

I was sort of imagining that an analysis for everything mentioned in
the document was mandatory.  The language in -03 is pretty clear that
if a mandatory requirement can't be met, "we walk away".  By
definition, we can _always_ do an analysis, so this would mean that
the negative result could never happen.

> hold a meeting there?"

You are arguing from what the committee did to what it _ought_ to do.
I am prepared to accept that IETF consensus might be that we do not
have a mandatory requirement about discriminatory laws rather than
their application.  But those who might object to going somewhere that
has a law infrequently used but that targets the objector have
available to them the argument that such a law _could_ be used, and
that they're unwilling to accept that risk.  I believe that the
provision as written in the candidate text Alissa and I provided is
aimed at making such a condition impermissable for IETF meetings.

What you appear to be arguing for is the provision in "Important",
instead.  Maybe that's all anyone wants.

> principle (political) consideration, the other is a very practical

I don't think this analogy holds, because we have an explicit
requirement that such filtering and censorship is not allowed on the
IETF network.  If we could get a similar waiver for all IETF
participants of a law that is on the books in a target venue, then
your analogy would work.
 
> of our attendee.

I think the problem with that position for this variety of law is that
"actual practical impact … on any category" turns out to depend on the
threat analysis done by each individual attendee.

>> I'm more than a little worried that anyone might think appeal to

> but (in my reading) support for the proposed venue was very strong.

You seem to be conflating the principles with what people are willing
to do in any particular case.  My point is that we should not appeal
to the majority's willingness to go to a place as evidence that the
place does not violate some principle.  It's a different question
whether that principle is one we want to select.  Clearly the
selection of the principles has to follow the usual IETF procedures,
which of course doesn't rely only on numbers either.

I do _not_ think, actually, that the decision about any given site can
possibly happen "in the usual WG way", because of a difference between
standards work and site selection.  Site selection requires some
action: unless we are not to meet at all, we have to choose among some
limited menu of possible sites, and on a deadlin.  Standards work
always has the option of determining that no consensus was reached and
so nothing gets published; it also has the option of continuing debate
in an effort to reach consensus.  Indeed, this concern is precisely
why I dislike the "acceptable to the community" language in -03.

Best regards,

A
-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]

---

From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2016 09:50:24 -0800 (PST)

You said:

"My point is that we should not appeal to the majority's willingness 
to go to a place as evidence that the place does not violate some 
principle."

I agree, I was talking about how to reach consensus on what 
principles to include, not consensus on a given venue. I understand
that "numbers" isn't the metric in the strict sense, but rough
consensus still involves people speaking for or against a given
set of issues and some measure of hum level or whatever.

I also agree that the "acceptable to the community" language is
causing confusing even if I think I know what it was intended
to convey

As for my analogy, I think it holds in the case where we would
walk away based on our objection to some national policy. You will
recall that this happened (for some individuals) for our Beijing
meeting and I was raising it in that context. The selection of
the general principles is not a simple task IMO.

Ole

Ole J. Jacobsen
Editor and Publisher

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2016 20:29:12 +0100

Hi Andrew,

I recognize that this is a repeat argument, and I want to note that we
are not (yet) in agreement on the point below:

> instead.  Maybe that's all anyone wants.

And again, this goes to intent of the rule.  If this is an absolute
stricture, and if the intent of the rule is to support or protect at
least one case that was previously discuss- a same sex union in which
someone (perhaps a child) gets sick, then as written, the rule
eliminates nearly ALL of Asia and Africa as well as parts of Europe. 
Furthermore, the lack of a such law may not mitigate risk to individuals
as a practical matter in a great many locales.  The IAOC is in a
position to substantially mitigate the sorts of risks raised by your
paragraph, but nobody here is in a position to eliminate them, and the
stricture comes at a cost.

Eliot

---

From: Yoav Nir <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 15:10:09 +0200

> I hate to ask, but would “Singapore” meet this?  Is this about entering the country, or if people of a particular persuasion are arrested?

I’d go a step further. I don’t think *any* country does not practice differential treatment of people based on age, gender, marital status, and nationality. Remember that this is not concerned with that country’s own citizens, but with how they treat foreigners either seeking entry or already in-country.  

For pretty much any country, foreigners of some nationalities need a visa while others do not. As a 45-year-old married man with a steady job, it is far easier for me to get a visa than it is for a 20-year-old single man “between jobs". Even if such discrimination is illegal within the country for its own citizens, this does not always apply to foreigners in-country, and hardly ever to foreigners seeking entry.

Yoav

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 15:27:18 -0800

Andrew,

Folks who object to one thing or another are of course always free to 
raise their concerns.  By itself, someone raising a concern isn't a 
particularly unusual or interesting process issue in the IETF.

So, how does the current working group draft enable the problematic 
/outcome/ you are worried about?

Further, how does your alternative draft prevent it?

d/

-- 

   Dave Crocker

---

From: Alissa Cooper <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2016 10:21:11 -0500

Hi Yoav,

> On Dec 11, 2016, at 8:10 AM, Yoav Nir <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> 

One thing I was wondering when we wrote this is whether this would be more useful if it focused on treatment of individuals in-country. There is already a separate, generic requirement about travel barriers to entry. So we could deal with the issue of entry there, and just have this focus on the practice of discrimination against individuals within the jurisdiction. Do you think that would help?

Alissa

---

From: Yoav Nir <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 18:30:04 +0200

> On 13 Dec 2016, at 17:21, Alissa Cooper <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Hi Yoav,
> 

I think so. Perhaps focus it even further to discrimination that has any chance of affecting our participants during a short stay. I don’t think issues related to tax laws, marriage, adoption and land ownership should figure into these decisions.

Yoav

---

From: Alissa Cooper <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 09:55:14 -0500

> On Dec 14, 2016, at 11:30 AM, Yoav Nir <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> On 13 Dec 2016, at 17:21, Alissa Cooper <[email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
>> 

Here is a stab at re-writing the relevant mandatory requirement from the alt-04:

o  Authorities within the Venue's jurisdiction do not engage in formal legal exclusions or differential treatment on the basis of age, gender or gender identity, sexuality, marital status, political views, racial background, or religious belief or practice such that individuals in-country for a meeting may be affected.

And the two trade-off-able or “Important” requirements (adding back in the generic “travel barriers to entry” language since barriers could come in forms other than visa requirements and the requirement around discrimination has been narrowed not to include entry into the country):

o  Informal but widely-experienced (or widely-announced) persistent discrimination by authorities on the basis of age, gender or gender identity, sexuality, marital status, political views, racial background, or religious belief or practice such that individuals in-country for a meeting may be affected should be treated as an extremely negative consideration.

o  Travel barriers to entry, including visa requirements that can limit participation, are minimized or the cost and difficulty associated with such requirements is spread among active participants.

Alissa

---

From: Bob Hinden <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2016 14:03:37 -0800

Alissa,

> On Dec 23, 2016, at 6:55 AM, Alissa Cooper <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> 

I have read this over a few times and think I support this approach, but could you cite some examples of what places would or would not be OK for meetings.

Thanks,
Bob