Re: [Gendispatch] Re: Last IETF ever in China ?! Re: Agenda request: draft-rescorla-anonymous-network

Visa/travel issues can be quite individual, and dependent on where
people have traveled, past employment, current employers.

On Sat, Apr 4, 2026 at 4:32 PM S Moonesamy <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Hi Ted, George,
> At 05:36 AM 02-04-2026, Ted Hardie wrote:
> >Permit me to gently suggest that you may want to rethink the phrase
> >"'protest based reasons to avoid a venue."  Defining an objection as
> >protest carries a connotation that is fundamentally political, which
> >is contrary to your stated aim.
> >
> >I also must suggest that you should reflect a bit more on whether
> >these choices can ever be truly apolitical.  The IETF has ranged
> >from "unincorporated association" through "organized activity" and
> >and is now a "disregarded entity"--through all of those it has kept
> >a deep aversion to having a defined membership.  The IETF, in our
> >common understanding, is whoever shows up and does the work.  We
> >have participants, not members.
>
> I searched for the minutes of the plenary after reading the sentence below:
>
> >As I said at the plenary, I am willing to personally contribute to
> >the shortfall.
>
> I could not find the comment from Ted [1].  It's not that important
> as Ted followed up with a message to the mailing list.
>
> Here is what I saw at some time last week.  There were two IESG
> members who were attended a working group session from other
> locations instead of location where the meeting was held.  I found
> that odd as, some of the subscribers to this mailing list, over the
> years used to point out to me that it was important to be able to
> attend the meetings to be able to "get work done" [2].
>
> The point which Ted raised is interesting.  I thought about how it
> would be if I applied it to what I saw.  Would it mean that there
> were two IESG members who avoided the venue for political reasons?
>
> It's been a tradition for the IESG members to make an appearance on
> the stage.  The minutes [1] do not say whether the IESG members were
> on stage or if only some of them were there.  There is an idiom (in
> English) to describe a glaring issue which is avoided in
> discussions.  Was the omission for political reasons?
>
> Let's test the hypothesis that someone who was chosen by a nomination
> committee cannot attend the meeting because he/she does not have the
> funding to travel.  The IETF Administration LLC has a travel policy
> which, among other things, enables its directors to attend
> meetings.  That rules out a funding problem.
>
> Now, what if they was a visa problem?  It is easy to find out.  There
> were other attendees residing in the same country who were able to
> get to the meeting.  That leave me with the option that the person
> was objecting to something or else he/she shows up and does the work.
>
> There was a remote room which was set up in Japan.  I don't recall
> seeing a significant number of attendees who are usually from that
> location in the room.  That location is relative close, time-wise,
> with the location of the meeting.  Was attendance through the remote
> room some form of protest?
>
> Moving past the last meeting, there is another "avoid meeting"
> issue.  There are decisions taken outside the standards process which
> can influence how the participants do the work.
>
> Regards,
> S. Moonesamy
>
> 1.
> https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/125/materials/minutes-125-ietf-202603180830-00
>
> 2. It is aligned with one of the points documented under "core values".
>


-- 
Astra mortemque praestare gradatim