Subject: Re: comments on Friday scheduling (was Plenaries at IETF 53)

From: Jeffrey Altman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 14:04:09 EST

Just to add my experience.  I find that in order to get better airline
rates I am forced to travel into town on Saturday.  So I'm in town on
Sunday with little to do other than catch up on work that really
should have been done before I arrived.  So maybe doing more on Sunday
would be a possibility.

The problem with Friday is that after having spent a week at IETF I
really want to either get back home or to my weekend destination at a
reasonable hour.  That usually means getting on a plane by 11am if not
earlier.  So regardless of how important the Friday meeting is, I
probably won't be attending it.

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 11:34:35 -0800

>should have been done before I arrived.  So maybe doing more on Sunday

This is an interesting suggestion.

The two negatives are that a) some people do not work on Sunday, and 2) 
those currently traveling to the IETF on Sunday would be forced to do it on 
Saturday.

That said, there are enough people who take advantage of the Saturday fare 
benefit to make it worth considering using Sunday for WG meetings.

d/

----------
Dave Crocker  <mailto:[email-masked]>
Brandenburg InternetWorking  <http://www.brandenburg.com>
tel +1.408.246.8253;  fax +1.408.273.6464

---

From: Michael Mealling <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 15:03:22 -0500

> benefit to make it worth considering using Sunday for WG meetings.

But most of those who do this also use Sunday to have pre-IETF meetings.
I've known several folks who have Sunday booked solid with 
business/design-team/etc meetings weeks before the actual IETF begins. 
I would personally prefer extending into Friday...

-MM

-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Mealling	|      Vote Libertarian!       | urn:pin:1
[email-masked]      |                              | http://www.neonym.net

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 16:29:44 -0500

> those currently traveling to the IETF on Sunday would be forced to do it on

One can make similar arguments for the later end of the week:
We could hold meetings until Friday afternoon (or evening) and leave
on Friday evening (or Saturday).  But some people do not work on
Saturday (or for that matter, on Friday evening).  I don't think we
should try to choose between those who don't work on Saturday and 
those who don't work on Sunday.

I actually think our scheduling is within epsilon of optimal.  Five days 
(currently Sunday evening - Friday morning) seems to be about as much 
as we can handle anyway.  No matter which day of the week we end on, 
many people are going to leave a bit early, and the last meeting slot 
is going to be unpopular.

Keith

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 14:47:39 -0800

> I would personally prefer extending into Friday...

<aol> me too </aol>

randy

---

From: Bob Hinden <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 16:05:46 -0800

>is going to be unpopular.

My conclusion as well.

Bob

---

From: Ran Atkinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 19:03:21 -0500

On Thursday, January 17, 2002, at 02:04 , Jeffrey Altman wrote:
> I find that in order to get better airline rates I am forced to travel
> into town on Saturday.  So I'm in town on Sunday ...
> So maybe doing more on Sunday would be a possibility.

I believe that (at least for US-homed travellers) the wacky airline
pricing means that many many people (not everyone, but surely a whole
lot) are travelling on Saturday.  The remainder generally arrive
some time on Sunday afternoon.  The Sunday evening social seems to
be regularly well attended.

IEPG typically holds its small meeting on the Sunday before IETF,
often 10am until 2pm.  There have occasionally been IESG or IAB
closed working meetings on either Saturday or Sunday.  I'm sure
there are business meetings on EVERY day/evening of IETF, but that
doesn't strike me as a major driver for the IETF week schedule.

Doing something on Sunday might create more options.  Quite separately,
it was true in the past that IETF would have one or more morning plenary
meetings (which could be attempted again).
	- Reception & Social might be merged together on Sunday evening.
	- Sunday's social might be followed by one of the plenary meetings.
	- Sunday's social might be followed by a short administrative
	  plenary, covering routine topics (e.g. local host/IANA/RFC-
Editor/Secretariat updates).
	- Sunday's social might be followed by one of the plenary meetings,
	  with the routine topics (e.g. IANA/RFC-Editor/local host/Secretariat)
	  covered at a (possibly shorter than usual for modern plenaries)
	  Monday morning plenary meeting.

> probably won't be attending it.

This is true for lots of folks.  In particular, US folks that have been 
forced
(by finances) to  engage in the Saturday-night-stay to get cheaper airfare 
are
worn out by Thursday evening and usually head home Friday morning.  
Domestic
tranquility at home (and concerns about Sabbath for some) cause many folks
to flood out on Friday morning so that they are home before dinner (or
Friday local sundown at home).  For folks heading out Friday morning at 
dawn,
and there are a whole lot of folks who do roughly that, evening meetings
(e.g. IAB plenary in SLC) on Thursday evening are a real problem.

In 10+ years of IETF meetings, missing a small number now and again, I've
never attended a Friday IETF meeting.  Further, I can't imagine ever doing 
so
unless that IETF happened to be local to my home.  I did attend a closed 
IRTF
meeting on one Friday after IETF, but that was local to my home.  On that 
occasion,
the halls seemed notably empty by 10am Friday.

I am afraid the bottom line is ugly.  This really really is a zero-sum 
game.
If there are two plenary meetings on different nights, then that removes a
night's worth of WG meeting slots from the calendar.  We can accept the 
loss of those
WG meeting slots, as one option.  Another option would be to re-shuffle 
some
of the other items (either WG meetings or a plenary or both plenaries or 
all
of the above) to make Sunday evening into an IETF time rather than a free 
timeslot.
One or both plenary meetings could move to Sunday evening or some daytime 
slot,
shuffling some WGs from day to night meetings if the latter were chosen.
The final option, which the sentiment here so far does not seem to favour,
  is
to put the two plenaries back to back on the same night.

I strongly suspect that there are some limits to what scheduling 
flexibility,
if any, remains for IETF/MSP in March.  I'm sure the IETF Chair and the
Secretariat will do something reasonable.

Cheers,

Ran
[email-masked]

---

From: Einar Stefferud <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 20:18:58 -0800

Responding to the total collection of this thread.

You all could save a lot of group meeting time by publishing all 
those "regular" Reports (RFC-Ed, etc, et al) on the IETF Web site or 
via EMail.  After all they are mostly cut and dried with no 
discussion, prepared long in advance.

Further, why should they be presented in person and published on the 
net for those who are not able to attend.  Besides, if they are on 
the net, people who really need to be exposed to them at the meeting 
can get their exposure by going to the Computer Room in their idle 
time, which cannot be usefully aggregated in any other way.

So, just get real about doing on the net what is best done on the 
net, and limit what is done face/face at meetings, to that which 
really needs to be done that way.

Cheers...\Stef  (Who has not been to a meeting for a long time now;-)...

---

From: "Henk Uijterwaal (RIPE-NCC)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 09:45:30 +0100 (CET)

> (at least for US-homed travellers)

Can we please keep in mind that half the attendees are not from the US?

My current IETF schedule is something like:

 * Fly on Saturday (10-15 hours, 6-9 hour time change),
 * Relatively quiet Sunday to recover,
 * Meetings Monday-Friday morning,
 * Catch a flight around noon on Friday,
 * Home on Saturday morning for breakfast.

which is pretty close to optimal.  I think this applies to most Europeans.

So: add the second plenary but otherwise keep the schedule as is.

Henk

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Henk Uijterwaal                    Email: [email-masked]
RIPE Network Coordination Centre     WWW: http://www.ripe.net/home/henk
Singel 258                         Phone: +31.20.5354414
1016 AB Amsterdam                    Fax: +31.20.5354445
The Netherlands                   Mobile: +31.6.55861746
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That problem that we weren't having yesterday, is it better? (Big ISP NOC)

---

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 10:02:27 -0500

The IESG and IAB activities have become more important to the IETF at
large recently.  They should be given more space in line with their
increased significance to the participants.  Trying to cram it all into
one after-dinner meeting doesn't feel right anymore.  I believe in 2
plenaries.

Having one of them on Sunday doesn't work because it takes a couple days
for the issues to become clear.

Combining the Social with the Reception on Sunday, and opening up
Tuesday night, is a great idea.

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 08:29:14 -0800

>for the issues to become clear.

IAB issues do not emerge over the course of a few days of IETF 
meeting.  IESG issues, however, sometimes do.

>Tuesday night, is a great idea.

Yes, that would achieve the same time benefit for the rest of the week.

Sounds good to me.

d/

----------

---

From: Jon Crowcroft <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 16:39:54 +0000

I have a feeling we are going to have t think 
VERY hard about the entire schedule for the 54th meeting oin
Yokohama given 80% of folks there wil be on severe sleep
deprivation...

 >>>Tuesday night, is a great idea.
 
i too like this idea a lot

 >>Yes, that would achieve the same time benefit for the rest of the week.

 cheers

   jon

---

From: Aaron Falk <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 09:32:57 -0800

> 	  Monday morning plenary meeting.

This list if helpful.  Personally, I would much rather either combine the
social with the reception on Sunday or have it follow later Sunday night.
The quality of the social events has been declining, IMO, and is rarely
worth the cost.  I'd rather spend $35 on a nice restaurant dinner with my
friends.  I can do that *and* attend an IAB plenary on Thursday night.

--aaron

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 12:48:13 -0800

> Yokohama given 80% of folks there wil be on severe sleep

i know the japanese are said to be workaholic.  but will they
be more tired than the 20% of us who fly?

</ subtle hint>

randy

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 13:22:44 -0800

>Yokohama given 80% of folks there wil be on severe sleep

 From the western US, Europe is as good/bad as Japan for time 
differential.  (Actually, Japan is a bit closer to San Francisco.)  Hence 
the jet lag effect is no worse for Japan than for Amsterdam, Stockholm, etc.

So, there is nothing new here.

That said, if we have been doing a schedule that is notably bad for folks 
attending from distant countries, we should fix it for ALL ietf meetings.

My own reaction is to believe that keeping Sunday casual is a particularly 
good idea, in this regard.

d/

----------

---

From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 22:34:42 +0000 (GMT)

> So, there is nothing new here.

Including the decades of research into circadian rhythms and jetlag
that you have somehow overlooked. The effect depends on the direction.

L.

<[email-masked]>PGP<http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/>

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 14:53:54 -0800

>that you have somehow overlooked. The effect depends on the direction.

not overlooked at all.  actual reactions to direction show pretty wide 
variance between and within individuals, acknowledged statistics of the 
effects not withstanding.

d/

----------

---

From: Lixia Zhang <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 17:32:42 -0800

On 1/17/02 12:03 PM, "Michael Mealling" <[email-masked]> wrote:

>> ...

If talking personal preference...
I would rather prefer not to have anything officially scheduled on Sunday
since that fundamentally requires we leave for the trip one day earlier.
Friday is not too good either.

How about moving the social to Monday evening, and have Tue and Wed evening
for the two plenaries?

Lixia

---

From: Ian Cooper <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 20:08:21 -0800

--On Saturday, January 19, 2002 17:32 -0800 Lixia Zhang <[email-masked]> 
wrote:

> How about moving the social to Monday evening, and have Tue and Wed
> evening for the two plenaries?

So those who don't go to the meetings on a Monday night get to go to the 
social, but if your group is in that 2.5 hour slot you don't get to go...?

---

From: Lixia Zhang <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 15:27:17 -0800

At 08:08 PM 1/19/2002, Ian Cooper wrote:
>--On Saturday, January 19, 2002 17:32 -0800 Lixia Zhang 
><[email-masked]> wrote:
>

As a matter of fact, I havent had time to go to the social even when it's 
on Tuesdays :-)

OK, I'll just vote with others for moving the social to Sunday evening.

given I'm sending this msg anyway, I'll just take this opportunity for a 
little spam (cant figure out any other ways): at Salt Lake City, someone 
asked me for an official quote of a statement I made back in '96 "no amount 
of QOS can generate any additional bandwidth" -- I made that statement in a 
talk at some highspeed networking workshop and I found the original slides, 
but lost the card from the fellow and dont remember the name either. I hope 
he'd read this msg: pls let me know if you'd still like to get the slide.

Lixia