| Internet-Draft | Canceling Meetings | February 2021 |
| Duke | Expires 26 August 2021 | [Page] |
The IETF firmly believes in the value of in-person meetings to reach consensus on documents. However, various emergencies can make a planned in-person meeting impossible. This document provides criteria for making this judgment.¶
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.¶
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.¶
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."¶
This Internet-Draft will expire on 26 August 2021.¶
Copyright (c) 2021 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.¶
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License.¶
One highlight of the IETF calendar is in-person general meetings, which happen three times a year at various locations around the world.¶
Various events could make a scheduled IETF meeting impossible, in that a particular time or place can be largely closed to travel or assembly. These conditions do not always have obvious thresholds. For example:¶
This document provides procedures for the IETF to decide to postpone, move, or cancel an in-person IETF meeting.¶
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].¶
In this document, the term "venue" refers to both the facility that houses the sessions and the official meeting hotel(s).¶
The LLC is responsible for assessing if it is safe to hold the meeting given the following criteria. This assessment SHOULD occur eight weeks prior to the first day of the meeting, though events may require reevaluation as late as during the meeting itself.¶
This document provides a consensus of principles the LLC can apply in emergency situations, to avoid operating without such consensus or invoking a time-consuming consensus process. In the event of considerations this document does not foresee, the LLC should protect the health and safety of attendees, as well as the health of the organization, with approval from the IESG and a plan to seek a later update of this document.¶
The criteria in Section 3.1 of [RFC8718] apply to venues that have changed status. Specifically:¶
The LLC must also confirm that:¶
Finally, the LLC should assess the impact of various travel restrictions, legal and corporate, on the ability of critical support staff and contractors to enter the host nation. The LLC can cancel the event if it concludes it cannot adequately support it.¶
The IESG assesses if projected attendance is high enough to capture the benefit of an in-person meeting. In some cases, corporate travel restrictions may lower attendance in the absence of any formal guidance from authorities. If it concludes that attendance is too low, it can cancel the meeting regardless of the LLC's safety assessment.¶
The IESG is discouraged from relying on a simple head count of expected event attendance. Even dramatically smaller events with large remote participation may be successful. The IESG might consider:¶
The IESG is encouraged to solicit information from the IRTF char, Working Group chairs, and Research Group chairs to make this assessment.¶
In the event cannot be held at the scheduled time and place, the IETF has several options. The remedies below should be consdered in light of these principles, presented in no particular order:¶
For attendees, the least disruptive response is to retain the meeting week but move it to a more accessible venue. To the maximum extent possible, this will be geographically close to the original venue. In particular, the IETF should strive to meet the criteria in [RFC8718] and [RFC8719].¶
Relocation that requires new air travel arrangements for attendees SHOULD NOT occur less than one month prior to the start of the meeting.¶
The second option, and one that has fewer issues with venue availability, is to make the meeting fully remote. This requires different IETF processes and logistical operations that are outside the scope of this document.¶
Although it is more disruptive to the schedules of participants, the next best option is to delay the meeting until a specific date at which conditions are expected to improve. The new end date of the meeting must be at least 30 days before the beginning of the following IETF meeting.¶
Due to scheduling constraints at the venue, this will usually not be feasible. However, it is more likely to allow attendees to recover at least some of their travel expenses than other options.¶
As a last resort, IETF may cancel the meeting totally. This is a last resort in the event that worldwide conditions make it difficult for attendees to even attend remotely. Not holding a meeting at all has wide implications for the rhythm of IETF personnel policies, such as the nomination process and seating of new officers.¶
Cancellation is likely the only practical alternative when emergencies occur immeidiately before or during the meeting, so that there is no opportunity to make other arrangements.¶
The IETF SHOULD NOT reimburse registered attendees for unrecoverable travel expenses (airfare, hotel deposits, etc).¶
However, there are several cases where full or partial refund of registration fees is appropriate:¶
These provisions intend to maintain trust between the IETF and its participants. However, under extraordinary threats to the solvency of the organization, the LLC may suspend them.¶
This document introduces no new concerns for the security of internet protocols.¶
There are no IANA requirements.¶