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High-Level Guidance for the Meeting Policy of the IETF
draft-ietf-mtgvenue-meeting-policy-07

Yes

(Alexey Melnikov)
(Alissa Cooper)
(Ben Campbell)
(Deborah Brungard)

No Objection

Warren Kumari
(Eric Rescorla)
(Ignas Bagdonas)
(Mirja Kühlewind)
(Terry Manderson)

Recuse


Note: This ballot was opened for revision 06 and is now closed.

Warren Kumari
No Objection
Adam Roach Former IESG member
Yes
Yes (2018-06-05 for -06) Unknown
Thanks for the work everyone did on this document.

Author -- please take note of
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7322#section-4.8.5
This should probably be a discuss, but I'm sure it'll be taken care of.  I
recognize that the contents will be pro-forma, but I worry about precedent.
Copying text from draft-ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process is likely
appropriate.
Alexey Melnikov Former IESG member
Yes
Yes (for -06) Unknown

                            
Alissa Cooper Former IESG member
Yes
Yes (for -06) Unknown

                            
Ben Campbell Former IESG member
Yes
Yes (for -06) Unknown

                            
Deborah Brungard Former IESG member
Yes
Yes (for -06) Unknown

                            
Martin Vigoureux Former IESG member
Yes
Yes (2018-06-05 for -06) Unknown
Hello,

I am not sure to understand what that sentence means (might simply because I'm not a native English reader):
   The exploratory meeting proposals will be initiated based on
   community consent.

If the proposals are *initiated* based on community consent, what has the community effectively consented to?

Thank you

Martin
Spencer Dawkins Former IESG member
(was No Objection) Yes
Yes (2018-06-05 for -06) Unknown
(Sorry, this is a resend. The only change is that I should have clicked on Yes, instead of No Objection)

Nice work. I know BCP process text is hard.

I share Martin's question, at least to the point where I'm guessing what that text means.

1-1-1-* is used in 

1.  Introduction

   The work of the IETF is primarily conducted on the working group
   mailing lists, while face-to-face WG meetings mainly provide a high
   bandwidth mechanism for working out unresolved issues.  The IETF
   currently strives to have a 1-1-1-* meeting policy [IETFMEET] where
   the goal is to distribute the meetings equally between North America,
   Europe, and Asia. 

but defined in Section 2, following. I don't know whether it would be better to say "meeting policy" or "meeting rotation policy", but 1-1-1-* probably isn't universally understood without scanning down to Section 2.

Are you just going to remove the prefix "BACKGROUND NOTE:"? This could be in its own section, I guess, maybe in an appendix?

In 

  While this meeting rotation caters to the current set of IETF
   participants, we need to recognize that due to the dynamic and
   evolving nature of participation, there may be significant changes to
   the regions that provide a major share of participants in the future.

perhaps we should say "we recognize"? I'm hoping we've already done that :-)

Is 

  NOTE: There have not been a large number of such exploratory meetings
   under the current 1-1-1-* policy (with IETF95 in Buenos Aires and
   IETF47 in Adelaide being the exceptional instances). 

saying 

  NOTE: There have not been a large number of meetings that would qualify 
   as exploratory meetings
   under the current 1-1-1-* policy (with IETF95 in Buenos Aires and
   IETF47 in Adelaide being the exceptional instances). 

? They weren't actually held under 1-1-1-*, which postdates IETF 27 and IETF 54 considerably …

Might 

  o  There were some logistical issues (venue availability, cost etc.).

be clearer as
  o  There were some logistical issues (venue availability on previously committed dates, cost etc.).

?
Alvaro Retana Former IESG member
No Objection
No Objection (2018-06-06 for -06) Unknown
Documenting this policy is important and useful.  Making the policy clear for future implementers is even more so.

(1) §2 (The 1-1-1-* meeting policy) talks about "exploratory meeting proposals", but the process to be followed is not clear.  Looking at the proposed text to Martin's comment [1]:

   The timing and frequency of future exploratory meetings will be based on 
   IETF consensus as determined by the IETF chair. Once a meeting proposal is 
   initiated, the IESG will make a decision in consultation with the Internet 
   Administrative Support Activity (IASA) to ensure that the proposal can be 
   realistically implemented. 

It is not clear to me what should happen if I, for example, would like the IETF to consider an exploratory meeting somewhere.  The text talks about both IETF consensus and the IESG making a decision -- it seems to me that the IESG role "to ensure that the proposal can be realistically implemented" may be a nice first step before asking the community for feedback -- but I can see how the process could also be the other way around: if there is no consensus then don't even think about implementation.  Please clarify.

To all this, should I make my proposal for an exploratory meeting to the IESG, the IETF Chair, the IASA, the community (which list?)...?


(2) §4 (Re-evaluation and changes to this policy) says that "this policy needs to be periodically evaluated and revised to ensure that the stated goals continue to be met".  Which stated goals?

The only goal (or objective/intent/criteria) explicitly mentioned as one is in this text from §1: "The IETF currently strives to have a 1-1-1-* meeting policy [IETFMEET] where the goal is to distribute the meetings equally between North America, Europe, and Asia.  These are the locations most of the IETF participants have come from in the recent past."

The text above is not clear because it says that the "goal is to distribute the meetings equally between North America, Europe, and Asia"...but [interpreting a little] I think the real intent might have been "to distribute the meetings equally between...the locations most of the IETF participants have come from".  Is that the intent?  If not, then re-evaluating with the objective to maintain the meetings in North America, Europe and Asia makes no sense.  To be clear, if that distribution is the result of the periodic evaluation, then nothing should change -- I'm not raising a point about the regions mentioned, but about the clarity of what the goal is.

(2a) Note also that the text in §4 goes on to say that "the criteria that are to be met need to be agreed upon by the community prior to initiating a revision of this document".  I think that there are two (independent) things that can be revised: the policy (should it be 1-1-1 or 3-2-1 or ??), and the criteria used to determine the distribution.  Based on the aspirational nature of the document, the policy should be able to be changed following the general guidelines ("distribute the meetings equally between...the locations most of the IETF participants have come from") without changing the criteria (which is what would most likely lead to an update of the document).  

Having statements about updating policy and criteria/document in the same paragraph, I think, confuses the evaluation needs going forward.  Separating and clarifying them should help.


(3) §3 (Implementation of the policy)

   As mentioned in [I-D.ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process], the
   IASA will also be responsible

   o  to assist the community in the development of detailed meeting
   criteria that are feasible and implementable, and

I couldn't find a place where I-D.ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process mentions that.


(4) I think the I-D.ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process reference should be Normative.

(5) Is the intent for this document and I-D.ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process to be part of the same BCP?  I would think so, but I didn't see that mentioned an the writeups.

[1] https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/mtgvenue/t1TbS4qgrz7UF9dF6VGe2M-kAEw
Benjamin Kaduk Former IESG member
No Objection
No Objection (2018-06-06 for -06) Unknown
Adam's point is valid.

In addition to that and the other comments already made, I have an editorial suggestion for
the Abstract:

   This document describes a meeting location policy for the IETF and
   the various stakeholders for realizing such a policy.

I assume this is intended to be "describes ((a location policy) and (the various stakeholders))", in
which case using "involved in" rather than "for" may be easier on the reader.
Eric Rescorla Former IESG member
No Objection
No Objection (for -06) Unknown

                            
Ignas Bagdonas Former IESG member
No Objection
No Objection (for -06) Unknown

                            
Mirja Kühlewind Former IESG member
No Objection
No Objection (for -06) Unknown

                            
Terry Manderson Former IESG member
No Objection
No Objection (for -06) Unknown

                            
Suresh Krishnan Former IESG member
Recuse
Recuse (2018-06-05 for -06) Unknown
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