Subject: Fix the Friday attendance bug: make the technical plenary the last IETF session, like it was before

From: Stanislav Shalunov <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:05:26 +0900

[I hope to raise this issue during the administrative plenary.   
Because I obviously won't have time at the microphone to present the  
full argument and because I might not get the chance at all, I'm  
writing something down and sending it out now.]

When you participated in a WG on any Friday during the past meetings,  
you probably noticed impaired attendance.  This becomes particularly  
visible for WG chairs, few of whom are thrilled to get a slot on Friday.

Friday is declared to be a real day, but the declaration is  
disregarded (rationally, as I'll explain) by a fraction of  
participants.  This makes Friday a defective day, making it rational  
for more people not to attend, creating a positive feedback loop  
making it more defective.

The fuzzy end bug wasn't always there.  When the IETF didn't have  
sessions on Friday, the technical plenary was the last thing that  
happened during each meeting for normal participants [1].  The  
plenaries have the largest attendance, so it put a very sharp stop to  
the IETF meeting.  When Friday sessions were added, there were few to  
begin with, so the end got fuzzy and the attendance problems began.

For some participants, it is rational to skip Friday in its present  
form.  Checking this meeting's agenda, Monday currently has 124 track- 
hours [2] worth of sessions.  (Tuesday-Thursday are similar full-day  
affairs for most people, even if differently structured because of the  
social and the plenaries.)  Friday currently has 29.5 track-hours  
worth of sessions, ~4.2 times less.  For a person who is only  
interested in a few sessions, there's a good chance that none of them  
will fall on Friday.  If the person judges that the relatively small  
probability of missing an interesting session (or, more precisely, the  
relatively small expected number of interesting sessions) that fall(s)  
on Friday, multiplied by the cost of missing a session, is smaller  
than the cost of an extra day of travel, it is rational for them not  
to attend Friday.  Repeating that Friday is a normal day is not going  
to change the calculation if Friday continues to be ~4.2 less valuable.

Once these participants choose to go home on Friday, the value of  
Friday is further depleted.  Not only there are fewer sessions on  
Friday, but they are not as well attended, creating a multiplier  
through a positive feedback loop.

The bug is easy to fix: we should restore the technical plenary to  
where it was before -- namely, to the very end of the IETF meeting for  
normal participants.

Put the technical plenary on Friday afternoon.  This will make it  
natural to increase the number of track-sessions on Friday.  This will  
restore a sharp end to the IETF, fixing the Friday bug.

A side effect of the fix is that it would increase the total number of  
available track-hours by about 15%, making scheduling easier for the  
next few meetings after implementation.

Here are some immediate, but invalid, objections that this proposal is  
prone to elicit:

"But nobody will come to the technical plenary Friday afternoon!" --
1. We did come to the technical plenary when it was the last thing on  
Thursday, and it was in the evening.
2. If people won't come to the technical plenary, they won't come to  
WG meetings.  If it's an unsuitable meeting time, we should not put  
WGs there.

"Can't we just make sure it's not the same groups that get put on  
Friday?" --
Zero-sum redistribution of pain pitting WGs against one another does  
not reduce total pain.  We can fix the bug instead of making everyone  
suffer equally.

"Can't we only put unimportant sessions, like second sessions and  
maybe these two session I personally don't like, on Friday?" --
No.  Friday started out with only non-technical sessions.  The first  
was IPR, if I recall.  The IETF needed more first-class technical  
track-hours, which is why they bled into Friday.  We have no plan to  
reduce the number of sessions.  Moving technical plenary to Friday  
afternoon would, instead of reducing the number of first-class hours,  
increase it, moving Friday closer to a full day.

"Can't people just book tickets after the agenda comes out?" --
This is not the answer for two reasons:
1. Agenda changes.
2. This replaces "expected number of interesting sessions that fall on  
Friday" with "number of interesting sessions that fall on Friday".   
Because the expected number was lower, the actual number will be lower  
on average, giving a similar aggregate effect.

We shouldn't suffer from the Friday bug and repeat "normal day"  
mantra.  We should fix the bug that detached the technical plenary  
from the end of the IETF meeting by moving it to the end again.

-- Stas

PS The WG that I cochair happened to get the short straw this meeting  
with several key contributors unable to attend, which triggered my  
thinking about how to fix the Friday bug, but this message is not  
about any particular WGs.  Again, we should not redistribute the pain  
or worry if it gets distributed evenly when we can simply remove it.

[1] "Normal participants" = {all participants} - {people who come for  
a single meeting or two} - {members of IESG, IAB, etc.}

[2] track-hours = sum_slots num_sessions*duration.  This is an  
imperfect proxy for person-hours, because it does not take into  
account number of attendees of the sessions.  (I don't have data on  
person-hours by day of the week.)  To partially mitigate, I avoided  
picking Tuesday-Thursday with the huge social event and the plenaries  
as baseline.

-- 
Stanislav Shalunov
BitTorrent Inc
[email-masked]

personal: http://shlang.com

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:43:27 -0500

--On Tuesday, 10 November, 2009 17:05 +0900 Stanislav Shalunov
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>...
> Here are some immediate, but invalid, objections that this
> proposal is prone to elicit:
> 
> 1. We did come to the technical plenary when it was the last
> thing on Thursday, and it was in the evening.

But, depending on location, attendance at the Thursday Plenary
was often lower than that at the Wednesday one as people try to
leave town.  Also note that, for people trying to get home to
families before the weekend (see below for more on that
subject), there is a huge difference between leaving Thursday
night or Friday morning (or for some location pairs, Friday
afternoon) and trying to make people travel Saturday, especially
after we have wiped out the prior weekend with Sunday meetings
of various sorts, a Sunday evening reception, and sessions first
thing Monday.   For some participants, travel Saturday just
isn't going to happen if they see any alternative, no matter
what scheduling tricks we perform to provide incentives.

> 2. If people won't come to the technical plenary, they won't
> come to WG meetings.  If it's an unsuitable meeting time, we
> should not put WGs there.

But, if people are trying to lose as little as the weekend as
possible, there are large differences as one goes down the curve
from "leave Thursday night after the plenary" to "leave early
Friday" to "leave early Friday afternoon" to "leave Friday
night" to "leave Saturday". 

> "Can't we just make sure it's not the same groups that get put
> on Friday?" --
> Zero-sum redistribution of pain pitting WGs against one
> another does not reduce total pain.  We can fix the bug
> instead of making everyone suffer equally.

You can't fix the bug except by doing away with Friday sessions
except for special meetings and groups that want them.  We need
to keep in mind that the IETF can't fire someone for not
attending that that, in many countries, companies are prohibited
by law from firing someone who refuses to work on weekends.
The only thing that surprises me about the Friday situation is
that more people haven't voted with their feet.

>...
> We shouldn't suffer from the Friday bug and repeat "normal
> day" mantra.  We should fix the bug that detached the
> technical plenary from the end of the IETF meeting by moving
> it to the end again.

Also keep in mind that, as the IETF becomes more international,
Friday is part of the (religious as well as secular) weekend for
some cultures and that the religious weekend starts late Friday
afternoon for others.   I think there are reasonable odds that
the problems with Friday meetings --especially those that run
into the afternoon -- are going to get worse over time, no
matter what the IETF does.

Disclosure: I don't buy the theory that we solve the demand for
more slots by making the meetings longer.  I think it ultimately
would take us to two weeks off meetings or demand for
late-afternoon Friday meeting slots at least.  I've proposed in
the past that areas be limited in the number of WGs that they
are permitted to have by the number they can manage effectively.
The latter should include putting a ceiling on the total number
of meeting slots, allocated among areas as the IESG chooses.  If
there is demand for more meeting times than that limit permits,
the ADs will have to prioritize... which would probably be a
good thing.

I'd even like to see the Nomcom ask IESG candidates whether they
consider unbounded meeting-length creep acceptable and what they
intend to do about it.

    john

---

From: "Randy Presuhn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:59:46 -0800

Hi -

> From: "John C Klensin" <[email-masked]>
> To: "Stanislav Shalunov" <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>
> Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 9:43 AM
> Subject: Re: Fix the Friday attendance bug: make the technicalplenary the last IETF session, like it was before
...
...

<rant> I'm soooo tired of this line of argumentation.  Sunday is
part of the (religious as well as secular) weekend for some cultures,
too.  We've dealt with (or ignored) this reality for decades.  If we're
going to trample on sensitivities, we may as well be equal-opportunity
about it. </rant>

Randy

---

From: Stanislav Shalunov <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:03:51 +0900

John,

You'd like to make the meeting shorter.  Obviously, other things being  
equal, it'd be great -- it'd be easier not to miss sessions, and it'd  
be fewer days of travel.  I don't have a plan of what 30 track-hours  
(~20 WG sessions) to slash or how to expand hotels to have higher  
concurrency.  Realistically, I don't expect that the Friday creep can  
be reversed, but it'd be great.

Meeting duration is not what I am proposing to change one way or the  
other.  Personally, I'm OK with it ending either day, as long as  
everyone knows what day it is.

Currently we have a fuzzy end and bad WG slots during it.  We can fix  
this by moving the technical plenary to the end of the IETF meeting,  
where it was before.  My guess is it's easiest to make the end at  
about the same time as now.  If it can be Thursday night, fantastic,  
but the problem I would like to see addressed is not duration, but the  
damaged goods at the end of the schedule.  And, unlike the duration,  
which is a complicated balancing act, making the end sharp is  
straightforward.

If we have WG meetings on Friday, technical plenary should be Friday  
afternoon.  If Friday is not good enough for technical plenary, it's  
not good enough for WGs.

[If you're right about the duration being unbearable, one outcome  
might be low attendance of the technical plenary.  That would cost us  
one poorly attended technical plenary and would put to rest the idea  
that Friday is a normal day.  A poorly attended technical plenary  
would cost us roughly triple the damage we get from poorly attended  
WGs on Friday and would thus be recouped within a year.]

-- Stas

-- 
Stanislav Shalunov
BitTorrent Inc
[email-masked]

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:55:42 -0500

On Wed, Nov 11, 2009 at 03:03:51AM +0900, Stanislav Shalunov wrote:
> afternoon.  If Friday is not good enough for technical plenary, it's not 
> good enough for WGs.

I can agree with that claim.

> [If you're right about the duration being unbearable, one outcome might 
> be low attendance of the technical plenary.  That would cost us one 
> poorly attended technical plenary and would put to rest the idea that 
> Friday is a normal day.  A poorly attended technical plenary would cost 
> us roughly triple the damage we get from poorly attended WGs on Friday 
> and would thus be recouped within a year.]

That sounds like the proposal to have a trial, and see what happens.
Such a proposal doesn't sound like a terrible idea to me.  The
conclusion of such a poorly-attended plenary should, of course, be
that Friday afternoons are not a good meeting time, and that therefore
the large meetings need to be reduced in size.

Alternatively, of course, we could reduce them in number.  Perhaps the
One Giant Meeting of Everybody doesn't need to happen three times a
year.  Some WGs are already using the virtual interim rules to
schedule a lot of virtual interim meetings.  If we did more of that,
perhaps the larger meetings could be reduced in number, and the number
of sessions WGs take in the large meetings could also be reduced in
number or duration or both.  I might be willing to give up two entire
weekends if I could be confident I wouldn't have to do it three times
a year.

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]
Shinkuro, Inc.

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:04:07 -0500

Dear Stanislav;

RRG always had good attendance on Friday. It was, I think, viewed by  
the people interested
as a session to schedule for.

So, one possible solution would be to see if there were WG or RG that  
wanted permanent Friday status.
That way, people who wanted to attend these sessions would know that  
they had to be there on Friday.

This implies that there would be people that would only come for that  
day, or for the end of the week, but we have some of that already.

Marshall

On Nov 10, 2009, at 3:05 AM, Stanislav Shalunov wrote:

> When you participated in a WG on any Friday during the past  
> meetings, you probably noticed impaired attendance.  This becomes  
> particularly visible for WG chairs, few of whom are thrilled to get  
> a slot on Friday.
>
> plenaries have the largest attendance, so it put a very sharp stop  
> to the IETF meeting.  When Friday sessions were added, there were  
> few to begin with, so the end got fuzzy and the attendance problems  
> began.
>
> form.  Checking this meeting's agenda, Monday currently has 124  
> track-hours [2] worth of sessions.  (Tuesday-Thursday are similar  
> full-day affairs for most people, even if differently structured  
> because of the social and the plenaries.)  Friday currently has 29.5  
> track-hours worth of sessions, ~4.2 times less.  For a person who is  
> only interested in a few sessions, there's a good chance that none  
> of them will fall on Friday.  If the person judges that the  
> relatively small probability of missing an interesting session (or,  
> more precisely, the relatively small expected number of interesting  
> sessions) that fall(s) on Friday, multiplied by the cost of missing  
> a session, is smaller than the cost of an extra day of travel, it is  
> rational for them not to attend Friday.  Repeating that Friday is a  
> normal day is not going to change the calculation if Friday  
> continues to be ~4.2 less valuable.
>
> where it was before -- namely, to the very end of the IETF meeting  
> for normal participants.
>
> natural to increase the number of track-sessions on Friday.  This  
> will restore a sharp end to the IETF, fixing the Friday bug.
>
> A side effect of the fix is that it would increase the total number  
> of available track-hours by about 15%, making scheduling easier for  
> the next few meetings after implementation.
>
> Here are some immediate, but invalid, objections that this proposal  
> is prone to elicit:
>
> 1. We did come to the technical plenary when it was the last thing  
> on Thursday, and it was in the evening.

+1

Marshall

> not reduce total pain.  We can fix the bug instead of making  
> everyone suffer equally.
>
> afternoon would, instead of reducing the number of first-class  
> hours, increase it, moving Friday closer to a full day.
>
> 2. This replaces "expected number of interesting sessions that fall  
> on Friday" with "number of interesting sessions that fall on  
> Friday".  Because the expected number was lower, the actual number  
> will be lower on average, giving a similar aggregate effect.
>
> PS The WG that I cochair happened to get the short straw this  
> meeting with several key contributors unable to attend, which  
> triggered my thinking about how to fix the Friday bug, but this  
> message is not about any particular WGs.  Again, we should not  
> redistribute the pain or worry if it gets distributed evenly when we  
> can simply remove it.
>
> [1] "Normal participants" = {all participants} - {people who come  
> for a single meeting or two} - {members of IESG, IAB, etc.}
>
> picking Tuesday-Thursday with the huge social event and the  
> plenaries as baseline.
>
> -- 
> Stanislav Shalunov
> BitTorrent Inc
> [email-masked]
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ietf mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
>

---

From: Stanislav Shalunov <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:06:14 +0900

This would recognize that Friday is not a "normal day" and so would be  
an improvement.

First, I appreciate you stepping forward.  This would redistribute ~5%  
of the existing Friday pain to RRG.  Regardless of other outcomes of  
this discussion, RRG should always from now on be scheduled on Friday  
as long as we have a Friday.

Second, do we have ~19 more WGs that would trade off having the Friday  
pain for having a consistent meeting day on Friday?

-- 
Stanislav Shalunov
BitTorrent Inc
[email-masked]

On Nov 11, 2009, at 4:04 AM, Marshall Eubanks wrote:

> So, one possible solution would be to see if there were WG or RG  
> that wanted permanent Friday status.
> This implies that there would be people that would only come for  
> that day, or for the end of the week, but we have some of that  
> already.
>
> Marshall
>
>
>> Because I obviously won't have time at the microphone to present  
>> the full argument and because I might not get the chance at all,  
>> I'm writing something down and sending it out now.]
>>
>> participants.  This makes Friday a defective day, making it  
>> rational for more people not to attend, creating a positive  
>> feedback loop making it more defective.
>>
>> because of the social and the plenaries.)  Friday currently has  
>> 29.5 track-hours worth of sessions, ~4.2 times less.  For a person  
>> who is only interested in a few sessions, there's a good chance  
>> that none of them will fall on Friday.  If the person judges that  
>> the relatively small probability of missing an interesting session  
>> (or, more precisely, the relatively small expected number of  
>> interesting sessions) that fall(s) on Friday, multiplied by the  
>> cost of missing a session, is smaller than the cost of an extra day  
>> of travel, it is rational for them not to attend Friday.  Repeating  
>> that Friday is a normal day is not going to change the calculation  
>> if Friday continues to be ~4.2 less valuable.
>>
>> 2. If people won't come to the technical plenary, they won't come  
>> to WG meetings.  If it's an unsuitable meeting time, we should not  
>> put WGs there.
>>
>
> +1
>
> Marshall
>
>> Zero-sum redistribution of pain pitting WGs against one another  
>> does not reduce total pain.  We can fix the bug instead of making  
>> everyone suffer equally.
>>
>> No.  Friday started out with only non-technical sessions.  The  
>> first was IPR, if I recall.  The IETF needed more first-class  
>> technical track-hours, which is why they bled into Friday.  We have  
>> no plan to reduce the number of sessions.  Moving technical plenary  
>> to Friday afternoon would, instead of reducing the number of first- 
>> class hours, increase it, moving Friday closer to a full day.
>>
>> redistribute the pain or worry if it gets distributed evenly when  
>> we can simply remove it.
>>

---

From: Fred Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:31:00 +0900

On Nov 10, 2009, at 5:05 PM, Stanislav Shalunov wrote:

> happened during each meeting for normal participants [1].

well, yes, and many people left on Thursday evening or afternoon after  
their last session instead of waiting for the plenary. Not sure your  
proposed solution fixes the problem that people would rather spend  
their weekends at home.

---

From: Stanislav Shalunov <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:33:34 +0900

If it's not good enough for the technical plenary, if that's what  
you're saying, let's not put WGs there.

-- 
Stanislav Shalunov
BitTorrent Inc
[email-masked]

On Nov 11, 2009, at 12:31 PM, Fred Baker wrote:

> well, yes, and many people left on Thursday evening or afternoon  
> after their last session instead of waiting for the plenary. Not  
> sure your proposed solution fixes the problem that people would  
> rather spend their weekends at home.

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:35:16 -0500

On Nov 10, 2009, at 10:06 PM, Stanislav Shalunov wrote:

> This would recognize that Friday is not a "normal day" and so would  
> be an improvement.
>
> First, I appreciate you stepping forward.  This would redistribute  
> ~5% of the existing Friday pain to RRG.  Regardless of other  
> outcomes of this discussion, RRG should always from now on be  
> scheduled on Friday as long as we have a Friday.

For the record, I just attend the RRG (when I can), Lixia Zhang and  
Tony Li are the chairs. And, it's meeting on Friday this week as well.

Regards
Marshall

>
> Second, do we have ~19 more WGs that would trade off having the  
> Friday pain for having a consistent meeting day on Friday?
>
> -- 
> Stanislav Shalunov
> BitTorrent Inc
> [email-masked]
>
>> RRG always had good attendance on Friday. It was, I think, viewed  
>> by the people interested
>> That way, people who wanted to attend these sessions would know  
>> that they had to be there on Friday.
>>
>>> particularly visible for WG chairs, few of whom are thrilled to  
>>> get a slot on Friday.
>>>
>>> few to begin with, so the end got fuzzy and the attendance  
>>> problems began.
>>>
>>> For some participants, it is rational to skip Friday in its  
>>> present form.  Checking this meeting's agenda, Monday currently  
>>> has 124 track-hours [2] worth of sessions.  (Tuesday-Thursday are  
>>> similar full-day affairs for most people, even if differently  
>>> structured because of the social and the plenaries.)  Friday  
>>> currently has 29.5 track-hours worth of sessions, ~4.2 times  
>>> less.  For a person who is only interested in a few sessions,  
>>> there's a good chance that none of them will fall on Friday.  If  
>>> the person judges that the relatively small probability of missing  
>>> an interesting session (or, more precisely, the relatively small  
>>> expected number of interesting sessions) that fall(s) on Friday,  
>>> multiplied by the cost of missing a session, is smaller than the  
>>> cost of an extra day of travel, it is rational for them not to  
>>> attend Friday.  Repeating that Friday is a normal day is not going  
>>> A side effect of the fix is that it would increase the total  
>>> number of available track-hours by about 15%, making scheduling  
>>> easier for the next few meetings after implementation.
>>>
>>> technical track-hours, which is why they bled into Friday.  We  
>>> have no plan to reduce the number of sessions.  Moving technical  
>>> plenary to Friday afternoon would, instead of reducing the number  
>>> of first-class hours, increase it, moving Friday closer to a full  
>>> day.
>>>
>>> 2. This replaces "expected number of interesting sessions that  
>>> fall on Friday" with "number of interesting sessions that fall on  
>>> account number of attendees of the sessions.  (I don't have data  
>>> on person-hours by day of the week.)  To partially mitigate, I  
>>> avoided picking Tuesday-Thursday with the huge social event and  
>>> the plenaries as baseline.
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Stanislav Shalunov
>>> BitTorrent Inc
>>> [email-masked]
>>>

---

From: Fred Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:39:24 +0900

> consider unbounded meeting-length creep acceptable and what they

To be very honest, the number of things we can do is pretty limited.

The number of meeting slots is a more-or-less-fixed number; we can  
change the number of them in a few ways, but once we have picked a  
number of days and rented a set of meeting rooms, this is largely  
about deciding how we will use a fixed resource. We can talk about  
having more one-hour slots and less two-hour slots, putting more slots  
into a day by staying later into the evening, putting more slots into  
the day by running more of them in parallel (more meeting rooms), or  
extend the duration of the meeting. Or, we can tell working groups  
that they can't have as many meetings as they would like.

I'm not sure I agree that Friday is a "problem"; the problem is that  
we have N working groups asking for M meetings and N*M needs to be <=  
that fixed number. Friday is a solution, one that has certain  
downsides. Stanislaus doesn't like the solution and IMHO has not  
proposed a solution that tells us how to better manage the demands on  
the resource.

---

From: Dave CROCKER <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:45:16 +0900

Fred Baker wrote:
> I'm not sure I agree that Friday is a "problem"; the problem is that we 
> have N working groups asking for M meetings and N*M needs to be <= that 
> fixed number. Friday is a solution, one that has certain downsides. 
> Stanislaus doesn't like the solution and IMHO has not proposed a 
> solution that tells us how to better manage the demands on the resource.

Establish authorization criteria for meeting slots that are based on 
demonstrated progress and meeting milestones, along with an agenda that is 
designed to achieve more progress.

Enforce the criteria rigorously.

We will then need far fewer meeting slots.

d/
-- 

   Dave Crocker
   Brandenburg InternetWorking
   bbiw.net

---

From: "Andrew G. Malis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:58:12 +0900

The IETF meetings have evolved over time. There are now more
activities on Sunday than there used to be. There used to be an
opening plenary on Monday. We used to have WG sessions in the evening
after dinner. There used to be one long plenary on Wednesday evening,
starting at 7:30 PM. When we split the plenary into two, we initially
flip-flopped the two plenaries between Wednesday and Thursday from one
meeting to the next. We used to have more one-hour meetings than we
have now (or at least it seems that way).

My point is that nothing is set in stone, and the meetings can and
should evolve over time to meet the changing needs of the IETF.

Personally, I would like to see more one-hour sessions than we have
now - that would force presentations and discussions to be shorter and
more focused. And only allow one WG session per meeting. As has been
noted elsewhere, work tends to expand to fill the time alloted to it.
Perhaps this will allow us to get back to a model where most people
can plan to fly home on Friday, and Friday will be reserved for
specific activities, such as the RRG and WGs that specifically want
more time and are willing to meet on Friday, so that people can plan
their travel well in advance to be able to take advantage of
discounted fares.

Cheers,
Andy

On Wed, Nov 11, 2009 at 12:39 PM, Fred Baker <[email-masked]> wrote:
> The number of meeting slots is a more-or-less-fixed number; we can change
> the number of them in a few ways, but once we have picked a number of days
> and rented a set of meeting rooms, this is largely about deciding how we
> will use a fixed resource. We can talk about having more one-hour slots and
> less two-hour slots, putting more slots into a day by staying later into the
> evening, putting more slots into the day by running more of them in parallel
> (more meeting rooms), or extend the duration of the meeting. Or, we can tell
> working groups that they can't have as many meetings as they would like.
>
> I'm not sure I agree that Friday is a "problem"; the problem is that we have
> N working groups asking for M meetings and N*M needs to be <= that fixed
> number. Friday is a solution, one that has certain downsides. Stanislaus
> doesn't like the solution and IMHO has not proposed a solution that tells us
> how to better manage the demands on the resource.

---

From: Arnt Gulbrandsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:08:17 +0100

> proposed a solution that tells us how to better manage the demands on 

The hotel has X meeting rooms, and X is known when the location is 
announced. If N*M/X<=4 and the increased density doesn't lead to more 
problems than Friday does, then Friday is unnecessary for that 
particular meeting.

Right now, the agenda is based on the chairs' perceptions of conflicts. 
It could be based on registrants' wishes, instead, which I think will 
permit a higher degree of parallelism without an increase in conflicts. 
That is, when you register, you click which WGs you really want to 
attend and which ones are also interesting, and the agenda is computed 
from that.

Arnt

---

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:13:18 +0900

> problems than Friday does, then Friday is unnecessary for that

Even a full Friday isn't enough to remove the conflicts.  In fact I'm
triple-booked on Friday itself.  There is no chance the IETF will fit in
4 days.  That hasn't been possible for years.

---

From: Arnt Gulbrandsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:23:26 +0100

> 4 days.  That hasn't been possible for years.

Why do so many people in WG meetings read mail, look bored and hardly 
say a word, then?

Arnt

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:38:51 +1300

I read mail and listen and look at the slides, when I'm
in a session that is secondary to my main interests.
That doesn't mean I'm bored (maybe I always look bored),
but I don't see that it affects the question whether we
can fit all the parallel sessions into 4.5 days.

    Brian

---

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:40:45 +0900

> Why do so many people in WG meetings read mail, look bored and hardly

Because Stanislav is at the mike :-) ... Seriously, are you suggesting
that it might be possible to cluster WGs together so that people can
stay for parts of the week?

---

From: Arnt Gulbrandsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:01:37 +0100

Scott Brim writes:
> Seriously, are you suggesting that it might be possible to cluster WGs 
> together so that people can stay for parts of the week?

I hadn't thought of that...

No, I was suggesting that if registrants explicitly say which WGs are 
really interesting ("conflicts in that set spoil my trip") and which 
are less interesting ("I'll attend those since I'm there anyway"), then 
it may be possible to use more meeting rooms for a shorter period, 
without spoiling people's trips.

It really depends on how many people would include forty WGs in the 
"really important for me" set.

Arnt

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:08:44 -0500

On Nov 11, 2009, at 5:01 AM, Arnt Gulbrandsen wrote:

> Scott Brim writes:
>> Seriously, are you suggesting that it might be possible to cluster  
>> WGs together so that people can stay for parts of the week?
>

Of course it might be possible - in fact, I would assert that it is  
highly likely to be possible.
Many organizations do this. With the RFID "blue sheet" data it would be
pretty straightforward to do a cluster analysis and see if (say) RAI and
Routing area attendees are disjoint enough that you could have
RAI at the beginning of the week, RA at the end, and spread the load  
out.

I would personally be surprised if a cluster analysis or principal  
component
analysis of the RFID data didn't reveal some means of separating the  
meeting sessions like this.

Whether this is a good idea is another matter.

Regards
Marshall

> No, I was suggesting that if registrants explicitly say which WGs  
> are really interesting ("conflicts in that set spoil my trip") and  
> which are less interesting ("I'll attend those since I'm there  
> anyway"), then it may be possible to use more meeting rooms for a  
> shorter period, without spoiling people's trips.
>

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:25:03 -0500

> Whether this is a good idea is another matter.

Indeed, I thought the primary argument for the Big Giant Meeting was
supposed to be that cross-pollination of areas and WGs was beneficial.
If we then try to schedule things so that people can conveniently come
for just a few days (and, presumably, use the day passes that have
just been invented), then that purported benefit goes away.  In that
case, I predict we'd quickly move to WG- or area-specific meetings
with no or fewer Big Giant Meetings.  (I am agnostic on whether that's
a good idea, but it might be.)

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]
Shinkuro, Inc.

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:27:57 -0500

>>>>> "Dave" == Dave CROCKER <[email-masked]> writes:
    >> I'm not sure I agree that Friday is a "problem"; the problem is
    >> that we have N working groups asking for M meetings and N*M needs
    >> to be <= that fixed number. Friday is a solution, one that has
    >> certain downsides. Stanislaus doesn't like the solution and IMHO
    >> has not proposed a solution that tells us how to better manage
    >> the demands on the resource.

    Dave> Establish authorization criteria for meeting slots that are
    Dave> based on demonstrated progress and meeting milestones, along
    Dave> with an agenda that is designed to achieve more progress.

    Dave> Enforce the criteria rigorously.

    Dave> We will then need far fewer meeting slots.

+1
What he said.

- -- 
]       He who is tired of Weird Al is tired of life!           |  firewalls  [
]   Michael Richardson, Sandelman Software Works, Ottawa, ON    |net architect[
] [email-masked] http://www.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca/ |device driver[
   Kyoto Plus: watch the video <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzx1ycLXQSE>
	               then sign the petition.

---

From: Pekka Savola <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:32:44 +0200 (EET)

On Tue, 10 Nov 2009, Stanislav Shalunov wrote:
> 2. If people won't come to the technical plenary, they won't come to WG 
> meetings.  If it's an unsuitable meeting time, we should not put WGs there.

I tend to sympathize with this argument.  I suppose WG meetings are, 
from some POV, more important than a plenary.  So what if out of 1100 
participants we get only 600 at the plenary?  Maybe if the attendance 
drops low enough we could drop the whole plenary.

Even better would be putting the administrative plenary there ;-)

-- 
Pekka Savola                 "You each name yourselves king, yet the
Netcore Oy                    kingdom bleeds."
Systems. Networks. Security. -- George R.R. Martin: A Clash of Kings

---

From: "Dan Wing" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:30:57 -0800

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On 
> Behalf Of Andrew G. Malis
> Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 9:58 PM
> To: Fred Baker
> Cc: John C Klensin; [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: Fix the Friday attendance bug: make the 
> technical plenary the last IETF session, like it was before
> 
> more focused.

That would be great.  It would allow real BoFs, as well, where we 
can quickly gauge community interest.

But until we reduce the 6 hours spent on the two Plenaries, we're 
being silly.

-d

> And only allow one WG session per meeting. As has been

---

From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:39:03 -0500

The problem is that there will inevitably be falloff in attendance on
the last day

The solution is obvious, extend the meeting to cover Saturday so that
is the last day but schedule no WG meetings for that day so that
everybody can miss the last day.