Veni Markovski wrote:
That includes ideas for example to meet at locations, which are easily accessible, but then we are facing the problem of people from different countries not being able to travel in order to participate, or to cover their expenses. By definition, such a location is not accessible. :-)
Or the fact that these are conferences, which are not exactly like the IETF, therefore comparing the two is like oranges and apples There is value in learning from the experiences of others. While every instance has its unique characteristics there are still lessons to be learned.
( e.g. IETF is mainly in the northern countries, no problems about getting visas for people to travbel to the USA, BTW, I am not for a moment arguing that North America is more accessible than other areas. Indeed, visa problems are a substantial obstruction to accessibility that I would never discount. I hope that I did not convey any inference that any region was necessarily more accessible than any other -- there are many factors in what I would consider "accessibility" of a location.
The fact that often the meeting will have to take place in a remote location, because the prices in the city are much higher ( e.g. Rome, Mar del Plata, etc.), etc., etc. When ICANN goes to distant countries, it also gives the people from the region the chance to participate - e.g. when they had a meeting in Bucharest, we had Bulgarians going by car, etc. You may be misinterpreting me. I am not for a moment arguing against having meetings in cities such as Bucharest. Indeed, I would imagine that many cities in Eastern Europe could be very accessible by global comparison. I am simply arguing that planning policy must inevitably force city decisions to be made at least a year in advance. If they cannot be made by consensus then there must be a process that otherwise accomplishes the task in time.
I am also asking that financial and visa accessibility be made a priority concern in at least one meeting a year -- not constraining all of them. What I would like to do is to find out of ALAC believes this is a worthy issue, given that IMO the public is being served worse by the status quo than other constituencies. If ALAC does not feel this is worthy of its time I may consider other options to bring this forward.
Without going further into details - and without involving into a discussion, I repeat again - the best way to approach this problem, is to address the Meetings Committee; or may be even go into the ICANN archives, and see why the meetings take place where they take place, and why it is not easy to have the countries assigned two years in advance. I never said it would be easy. ;-) I just said that it needs to be done, easy or not.
- Evan