2006.06.04 NANOG Open Community Meeting Notes

Mon Jun 5 09:27:35 UTC 2006

Here's my notes from tonight's (overly!) long Open
Community Meeting.  When I said "yes" to going
long vs cutting the discussion short, I was thinking
we'd go long by 10 minutes or so...not by a whole
hour+  ^_^;;

Matt

2006.06.04 NANOG Open Community Meeting
NANOG/San Jose NANOG SC <steering at nanog.org>

AGENDA
Steering Committee (Randy)
Program Comittee (Steve)
Financial Report (Betty)
Mailing List Report (Rob)
Open Discussion (Randy)
 Aside from vetted presentations, we're
 speaking as individuals, and we differ!
The microphone is open throughout.

NANOG Steering Committee Report
SC Goings On
Get meeting schedule under better control
 thank you, Rodney!
Charter amendments
 voted on in October
ML Policy and Proceedures
Copyright and IPR issues
Press, photography, ...

Future Meetings
Thank you Rodney for pulling chesnuts out of
 the fire!
October in St. Louis with ARIN
 since it's meeting with ARIN, it's Monday/Tues,
 they have Weds-Fri
Joe organizing Toronto first week of February 2007
Josh is looking at Miami for the first week of
 June 2007

Mailing List
Still working with ML Panel to document their
 process
Still working with MP(ML?) Panel to develop an appeals
 process (vote in October)
Statistics are published monthly on the NANOG web
 site
Please volunteer for the ML Committee
 a selection will happen in Oct. 3+1 so far, that's
 the lowest limit right now.  Need to share the
 load.

ML Panel Appointments
No terms, etc. in current charter
Straw proposal charter change
 parallels SC and PC
two year terms
staggered
two sequential terms max without a vacation

ML Panel process cont.
this would give members a light at the end of the tunnel
volunteers would know what they're signing up for
Allows change without bad vibe of removal
normal organizational practice

Charter Changes
Randy and Steve F are working with Dan Golding and
Steve Gibbard, the old charter group,
to get the known charter revison proposal pieces in order
for San Jose Meeting.
 (for voting in October)
(not sure they'll quite make it)

Dan Golding, there's a lot of bootstrapping
language in the current charter, changes will
remove the bootstrapping language, lists terms,
which things are staggered, etc.
Hoping to publish by the end of this meeeting.
Mostly bookkeeping.

Rights in Data
NANOG trademark is held by MERIT
Presentations are copyright by the author
Right to freely distribute, but not modify,
 granted to NANOG
PC is drafting this formally
 copyright notices on slides are OK if small and
 unobtrusive
But what about rights to Streaming and Videos?

Press
Press likely to be present in San Jose
MERIT may prominently tag their badges
MERIT will ask that no pictures be taken in the actual
 meetings themselves
This ensures that members are free from having their
 picture published without their consent and without
 prejudice as to who is taking the pictures.

Ren has been taking pictures of individuals to
post on the Multiply site; so, if you haven't
had your picture taken in the hallway, talk to
her.  But again, not in the meeting room.

Mailing LIsts
Engineering and Ops Discussion only
<nanog at nanog.org>
Discussions about NANOG itself
<nanog-futures at nanog.org>
Steering Committee <steering at nanogsc.org>
Program Committee <nanogpc at nanogpc.org>
ML <nanog-admin at nanog.org>

Agenda
Over to Program Committee (Steve)
Steve Feldman, PC Chair
Disclaimers--all opinions, errors, are his
program is result of hard work by the whole PC

NANOG 37 program
37 submissions, up from 26
22 accepted
1 cancelled
14 rejected

No breakdown on the rejections; they were fine, but
there wasn't enough time to put them all in; some
will resubmit for next time.

Areas for improvement
Speaker solicitation--PC still needs to solicit
 more; get broader representation of NANOG community
Scheduling
 this meeting was harder, didn't know where it was
 going to be.

Program Format
Mon-Weds format
 Morning Plenaries
 Afternoon BOF, Tutorials
 Evening social events
  (moved program out of evenings for more social
   time)
Newbie meeting--beefed it up with more content
from Bill.

About 50/50 split in terms of how many like each
format.  After October, will use survey results
for subsequent meetings.

Lightning Talks
Criterion: on-topic for mailing list
Signups start Monday morning
 instructions during plenary
 deadline: 12:30 Tuesday
PC selects 6 best submissions
Take place during 1 hour of Weds morning plenary

Feedback
Talk to us!
 PC members have yellow and green badges
Send mail
 nanog-futures at nanog.org
 nanogpc at nanog.org
And fill out your surveys!!

Open Discussion
What topics would you like to hear more (or less)
  about?
How can we (PC and community) get speakers on those
  topics?
Charter revisions
 some proposed PC updates, take out his name, bootstrap
 details out of it; specify when the PC is selected by
 the SC, things like that.  Draft will be published on
 the futures list.
Transparency
 more debate recently; how much of the workings
 of the PC should be visible to the outside.
 PC members feel the discussion has to be in private
 so they can be honest; if they go on public record,
 opinions will be curtailed.

Bill Norton goes to microphone.  He has sympathy for
those who put together presentations for submission
to NANOG; getting permission from PR, Boss, etc.; to
get rejected, may make people not want to go through
the submission process again.  Could we put some
coaching or shepherding into the system, so that
it's not a fling over the wall, then get a rejection
without understanding why they were rejected.
It's very difficult to figure out what's going to
be said to a bunch of slides; could be good, could
be bad.  Hence the call for some shepherding.
Or some type of feedback to the speaker that others
could learn from.  What about anonymizing the
feedback?  Might be hard to sufficiently anonymize
so that people aren't immediately recognizable.
SteveF notes that comments are included from PC
members and himself with rejections, along with
offer to resubmit with fixes.

Randy Bush, he has a foot in the academic research
paper community.  In academic world, the paper
stands alone, the talk is secondary.  Here, the
talk is primary, the slides are an adjunct, so
it's hard to understand what they'll be talking
about during the slides.
Bill Norton suggests a white paper that goes
along with the slides to clarify the slides;
as long as it's not required, might work.
Randy: separate publishing the PC minutes from
the views of the reviewers.  Publishing the PC
minutes has 2 purposes; 1) how the PC operates,
under the transparency guideline. 2) having the review
of programs on record is harder to support, as the
author doesn't need to see their criticisms online.
Ren notes fear of rejection may bring on fewer
submissions.
Bill Norton also notes that PC members may not be
honest in their feedback if they know their
words will be on record.  On the flipside, if
there's an anti-MPLS person on the PC, wouldn't
you want to be able to see a consistent bias
against programs of that sort coming from them?
Randy: where his other foot rests, when papers
are submitted, reviewers must first declare
their conflicts; hating MPLS, working for a
company submitting papers, etc. should be
pre-declared.  But we *DO* want a diversity
of opinions, at least!
In the academic world, 75% of paper reviews,
the reviewers...er, on 25% the reviewers don't know
who wrote it; you get title, number, body of
text, no name or institution.  The reviewed
get back a review with no names or institutions.
Most are single blind; the reviewers see the
paper's author, but the reviewee doesn't get
signed reviews.
Rejection, biases are something we just have to
learn to live with.
Bill Norton: how many here have submitted proposals
to NANOG that have been rejected?  Only 3.  It
does suck.  Could some of it be pulled back in?
Maybe Betty could do some research into it?
Bill, Randy, and Lixia could be anomalies?
Others who get rejected might not come back again.
Ren Provo--several folks who took commentary
from review, and fixed it based on that feedback;
they did their revisions, put it back in, and
got accepted.  That was a conditional rejection,
so maybe the new feedback loop is helping.
Bill Norton: when he was on the PC, the rejection
note comments seemed to reflect a misunderstanding
of the talk on the part of the reviewers.
Ren does note the slides need to be standalone,
since they'll be in the archives, without the
talk.
Chris Malayter, Broadwing; he doesn't see a problem
with having the feedback loop, that you talk to a
person on the PC about your feedback; but on the
transparency side, he'd like to give the elected
PC as much freedom to create their own level of
transparency as they're comfortable with themselves.
Is there enough of a continuous change process in
the PC meetings--if so, then yes, meeting minutes are
needed.  If there's not that much change, then no need
for meeting minutes.
Dan Golding notes there's a web page for submitting
papers and comments back; could have an automatic
set of minutes where author's name and reviewers'
names were peeled out?
Steve Feldman doesn't favour publishing details of
individual talks, to avoid public shaming.
PC is answerable to the SC; if the SC mandates,
they can produce attendence records and minutes,
as part of being accountable.
Betty from Merit; to achieve transparency without
getting into specific talks, if PC could publish
when they have calls, and who would be on the
call, and number of talks being reviewed on the
call.   That at least lets people know what the
flow is like.
Joe Abley, FNSI?  PC members shepherd members
who would otherwise get their talks rejected.
Small number of them, the PC member will talk
to the submitter, to make sure it's complete
and sensible.  That way there's at least one
person championing the talk through, the submitter
has already explained it to one PC member.
Bill Norton notes that Dan Golding was key to the new
charter; how does the SC know if the PC members are
doing a good job; how would they know who to remove if
they aren't doing a good job?  Should be one SC
member on the calls to monitor the calls (other
than Steve), not to participate and choose talks,
but to be the elected overseer or adult supervision
for the PC members.  It hasn't been been happening
yet, both Chris Morrow and Joe Abely sit on both
committees, makes 3 out of 16 that sit on both.
To have any more, makes conflict at appointment
time.  The SC has to consider replacing half of the
PC when their terms expire.  When there are PC
members intimately involved in the SC, they have
to recuse themselves from the decision process.
Only 3 people on SC who were also not on the PC,
so only 3 made the whole set of decisions.
Dan Golding did put the exclusivity in the ML, but not
in the PC/SC; should be a charter revision if
possible to make the PC and SC exclusive, other
than the Chair and the oversight member of the
SC that watches the PC.
PC should keep minutes about process, not about
reviews
PC shepherding proposals that need some more help
on proposals that aren't clearly solid on their
own?
Signed reviews vs unsigned reviews.  Today they
are unsigned.
Bill Norton; the feedback that goes to the authors;
paragraph forms with no names.
Steve Feldman notes there's comments for internal use
only, and section on comments back to submitter;
so far, nothing has gone back to the submitter
that shouldn't be put there.  So far, the current
PC is very well behaved, gives good feedback to
the submitters; currently, isn't zero feedback.
Audience (Jacobs?) asks if the feedback is
separated out?  Yes, at least dashes between the
feedback.
Steve Feldman notes a lot of what we do is simply because
that's the way we've done it in the past, not
because there's strong reasons for it.  Keeping
simple minutes would probably be good.
SC meetings are published a week later, every
Thursday via teleconference, minutes are on the
website.

Betty Burke, Project Manager, Merit Network
Acknowledgements
Susan R. Harris
 casualty of some restructuring at Merit, no
 longer working with NANOG unfortunately.
SC, PC, List-Admins
 Thanks to all of them for their long hours!
Merit Staff Attending
 Mary, Brian, Glenn
 effort to get Merit more actively involved with
 NANOG.  Brian is backbone engineer, Glenn is DNS admin
Merit Staff in Ann Arbor
 Brad, Jeff, Jason, Bert, Rick
 Watching via camera, Bert is on PC, these are all
 engineers with full time jobs, and very active with
 NANOG
Merit NANOG Staff on site
 Sue, David, Larry, Carol, Val, Laurie, Teresa
 Many thanks to all of them for helping make these
 meetings a success, esp. in the video area.
NANOG 37, Neustar

All the sponsors!
Dave Rand
 Bungi
JD Frazer
 Userfriendly.org
Tony Kapela
 Kapela and associates

Google sponsored a break.

Updates
Accomplished
 Improved broadcast options and server
  Laura Kirkmeyer is onsite working to improve it.
 Improved video gear
 Network Monitoring Tools
  Larry, monitoring wireless gear
 Organizational Changes
 Appointment of Merit CEO
Next quarter
 Voting Process
 Charter Revisions
 Registration Process
 New switch hardware
 Merit CEO arrives
Possibilities
 Presenter's website?

New CEO is Don Welsh, starts July 10th, will join the
October meeting.
After this meeting, get ready for voting and charter
updates.
Improve the registration process!
Improve switch gear for network connectivity.
Anyone who wants to donate some switch gear,
 talk to them!  :)
 Jared asks what they need?
  Talk to David Gilbertson, he has specs on what
  they need.
Steve Feldman did a great job at heading up the PC; his
authenticated website for the voting is great!
Some of the delay is that the presenters have to
go through filter at Merit to get in, and then
another filter to get it up on the website.  Trying
to improve communication between the systems.

Challenges and Opportunities
Most IT organizations are facing:
 escalating costs
 declining, flat, or slightly increasing revenue
Most are striving to reduce costs, and increase revenues
Reduce costs: salaries, general expenses, etc.
Increase revenues: attract and retain customers
 enhance and add services, etc.
Merit isn't alone
 Don't want NANOG to become a trade show; the sponors
 play an important part of the budget mix; how can we
 make it a good investment to put $8,000 into a beer
 and gear

NANOG 36 - Dallas, Feb 06
Revenue      181,692.18
Expenses
 Salary       75,717.79
 Non-Salary  143,786.61
  hosting     79,648.51
  G&A         47,482.04

Per Meeting Balance: ($37,812.22)

FY 06 close
Revenue             676,540
  reg               402,870
  B&G               192,000
  break              30,000
  sponsors (ARIN)    51,670
Expenses
 Salary             173,225
 Non-salary         567,510
  eqpt                7,440
  supplies           38,678
  merit staff trav   34,698
   non merit trav         0
   speakers               0
  hosting           285,528
  G&A/overhead      201,166
Balance            ($64,195)
2.25FTE
Plant Marind(?) does an audit of these numbers.
Not such a good year for NANOG.

NANOG budget assumptions
Revenue
 ~$10K increase
 based on 3 meetings per year, 400 attendees @$350 each
 B&G sponsors per meeting @$8,000 ea (hoping 8)
 Break sponsors per meeting @$6,000ea (hoping 5)
 continued support from ARIN
Expenses
 hotel
 salaries ~$43K less
 supplies & equipment ~$25K less
  will ask the community for gear they might be able
  to donate to them.
  Chris Malayter asks if they can put a website up
   with requests for hardware donations, etc.
 overhead ~$10K higher

FY 07 predictions
Revenue          686,000
  reg            410,000
  BandG          192,000
 breaks           34,000
 ARIN             50,000
Expenses
 Salaray         130,000
 non-sal         556,162
  eqpt             8,265
  sup             12,675
  staff trav      24,000
  hosting        300,000
  GandA/over     211,000
Balance            ($641)
1.65FTE

Trying to keep registration numbers down.  As a
501c.3 organization, has to do cost recovery;
NANOG must be able to cover its own costs.

Future meeting sites
Oct 0g St. Luis
1st week feb, 07, toronto, Joe abley
4th week May 1st/2nd week June 07
                       Josh, Miami
Fall 07 w/ARIN, TBD

Bill Norton asks about the GandA/Overhead category.
GandA/Overhead is paying the university
to do accounting, covers rent for the space,
it's a general business expense, it'll get
paid one way or the other.  Telephones,
insurance, legal fees, etc.

Bill Norton:, back to Dallas.  Hosting seems to be
damn expensive, hotels are just so expensive.
Could a university handle 400 people?  Yes,
lots of universities have large freshmen
lecture halls.
Internet2 meetings are always on university
campuses.
Lodging close to meeting hall is good.
You can give feedback on the survey form about
where you would like to have meetings!!

ChrisM, Broadwing; if we move to a university
for the sessions, how much would a bussing
scenario cost, would that outweigh the
hosting costs?  Are universities also union
shops?  Access to the wiring infrastructure
tends to be one of the biggest expenses.
Hopefully, university campus would allow us
to avoid that very large expense.
The meeting setup would be very different,
of course.

Rob Seastrom, inter.net; the event horizon seems
to be a little further out, at least; but if you
can plan further ahead, at least a few years out
with some flexibility with the hotel on the exact
week, gives some very strong negotiating positions
with hotels.

Betty agrees, everyone is somewhat held hostage
until we announce dates, since it limits when
people can travel.  There's certainly a committment
from the SC and Merit to try to get ahead of the
eight ball.  It takes a committment from the
community to help Merit host.  People need to step
up to the plate, and help provide transit for
these meetings.  Merit doesn't know where people
have transit!
It can make or break the cost of the facility
for 20-30% based on negotiating leverage.
Rodney is working on slides for presentation
tomorrow; five companies involved in getting
packets from here to the internet, because of
the rules of the facility.
Not easy, and the single biggest task a host
has is to solve that problem!
The further out we can plan the meeting, the
easier it is to plan logistics for hardware
and network connectivity.

Randy notes--what about self-hosting?  Just
go to a hotel in Biloxi, and do it that way.
RenProvo: RIPE does it well, has a known location
everyone knows the cheap hotels, the hotel is
pre-plumbed, etc.  Pick one meeting a year, so
that everyone knows the fees, the footprint,
and works out a better cost for the hotel
year over year.
Betty has been looking at where it has been
easiest to host, and cheapest, with best
registrations?  Still need to go to a host
to ask about transit costs, instead of waiting
for a host to come to them.
Randy notes if we can't come up with transit,
as a community we have bigger problems!!
Rodney Joffe gets 60-70 emails with people
offering preferences of where they'd like it
to be!  It's really difficult to find out how
many people would come if it was in a particular
city.
Difficult to pick a city, and then hope enough
people will show up to support it.
DanG; may consider separating out the transit
provider vs the hosting provider.  Limited
number of facilities-based wiring shops that
can show up, vs companies that can offer people
to host.  If you can split the transit hosting
from the location hosting, may be a more viable
option.
The ability to keep Merit's travel budget low
is a big part of the issue; Carol Wadsworth,
Brad? and one other get on hotels and see
them for the first time on Friday, figure
out the details.  Having people who know
NANOG to be eyes and ears would be good.
ChrisM notes having direct flights in from
cities, and other countries, keeping weather
in mind (flip Feb and June, please!) will help
give an idea of what the registration numbers
will be.
Betty notes that they got feedback from the
community that they need to keep the room rate
manageable, they try to find places that keep
the room rate below $150/night.
someone (puerto rico IX?) at mike asks why have 3
meetings a year, why not have 2 meetings a year?
More rare, will be more attractive, bring more
registration and lower expenses.
Randy jumps in; the issues Betty hits are mostly
independent of that; most people's managements
don't care if you go to 2 or 3 meetings a year,
it's the expenses that matter.
BillN asks if they limit Beerandgear sponsors;
yes and no; depends on venue.  If there's room,
they let them in.  If it's a small room, they
turn away.  If a room is too crowded, people
don't stay, it's not a good sell.  Carol keeps
an eye on the space, to fit vendors and food
in the room; has varied from 12 to 6, which
also affects the revenue coming in.
$8K per beer and gear sponsor, sounds like a
good revenue to tap, why not aim to go with
12 per meeting to help with the costs?
MikeHughes--reverse psychology on sponsorship;
if you have fewer slots, raise the costs for
the exclusivity at smaller venues; Cisco and
Juniper will be more likely to pay to have a
foot in the room in front of the engineers.
Betty notes the companies like the ability
to plan ahead of time for sponsoring based
on fixed costs.
AvivaGarret, from Juniper; prorated costs based
on revenue of the company, so bigger companies
pay a bit more.
Betty notes that leads to a pressure for smaller
companies to sponsor, if it's sufficiently
cheaper.
Random at the mike notes the costs to attend are
generally fixed, while costs to provide the
meeting are variable.  Why not go to fixed
locations so the expenses are better understood.
Betty notes people like shorter trips, so the
moving of locations gives people who don't like
to travel a better shot of going.
JoeAbley, smaller regional meetings have sponsorship
structures which allow companies to give a single
amount, and they are a sponsor for all meetings
being held.
Betty notes they said Yes to ARIN for that model.
DanG notes that companies have wanted to do
parties like Yahoo, or hospitality suites in
hotels as well.  $9k-$16k revenue from a hospitality
suite easily, why not consider them?
Randy notes that there are no private parties
allowed at NANOG; must be open to all if you're
associated with NANOG.  But how commercial do
they want to be?  It's like the internet, it
mostly works, so there's not a huge pressure
to make drastic changes.
JaredMauch, NTT, what about bumping the reg fee
by $25, over 3 meetings, 400 people, that will
help adjust the numbers.  Very few people in
the room are very sensitive.
Randy notes the price sensitivity for the reg
isn't as high as hotel price sensitivity.
Rob Seastrom, If you're passing through to an employer,
not as price sensitive, as a consultant, much more
price sensitive.
Jared notes his was only talking about $25 for reg!
Betty notes that Merit takes very seriously the
pressure to not raise rates.  They don't want to
make it into a trade show either.
>From BillN being chair to now, raised reg costs
3 years ago, just no two ways around it.
Years ago, was one camera and a broadcast over the
mbone; now, bigger streams, more cameras, and more
costs associated with it.
NANOG is not in trouble, there are some financial
issues, yes, but Merit board and NANOG leadership
are aiming to preserve the reserve to help cover
contract languages, allow Merit to take the risk
on behalf of NANOG to sign up for the meeting.
Aim to get the venue in advance, and get sponsorships
to help get the numbers in line again.
Chris Malayter, venue selection--all fixed location,
or RIPE model; all 3 fixed would take some of the
pleasure out of it.  But having at least one home
base would be nice--but who would pick it?
Betty notes there are questions on the survey about
where home base would be.  They look at registration
counts as the way to tell where good locations are.
Important points are for community to tell Merit
what *we* think is best--what locations, how much
the costs should be, etc.

That wraps up Betty's section--if you still have
questions for her, track her down in the hallway.

Rob Seastrom does the ML presentation
Mailing List Commitee Status Update
(Wasn't sure Chris Malayter would be here)
Agenda
Status update on list committee membership
process flow recap
old business AUP additions

Present Committee
Sue Joiner: Merit
Chris Malayter - Broadwing (Chair)
Steve Wilcox
Rob Seastrom

Process Flow
User sends an email to the list
an MLC volunteer judges email to be in violation of the
 AUP
The SC is authorized to make changes per the NANOG
 charter (7.1.1)
For one-off violations, an MLC volunteer sends an
 offlist note to the offending user, giving guidance
 about the list AUP and explaining the MLC volunteer's
  concern.
For repeated violations, the MLC discussion on the
 nanog-admin list may result in an official warning
 being sent to the user, outlining the specific
 violations the user has been responsible for, and
 specifying that further violations might result in
 revocations of posting privileges
For repeated...

Pending AUP addition
Sent to nanog-futures on 10 Apr 2006 after being
 presented in Dallas,.
List feedback, while minimal, was overwhelmingly
  supportive
Challenge/response sender whitelisting software which
 requires interaction by any party to validate a post
 to the NANOG mailing list as non-spam shall be treated
 by the list adminstration team like any other condition
 that generates a bounce message
Subscribers with software (such as but not limited to TDMA)
 that is (mis)configured in this fashion are subject to
 removal from the list without notice and are...

Proposed AUP addition (not discussed yet on nanog-futures)
Replace current 3.5 (Emergency Actions) with the following
3.5: If Merit determines that a subscriber is behaving in
such a way that the operation of the NANOG list (or other
associated Merit systems) are threatened, then Merit may
initiate emergency proceedures to defer the threat.
Within 12 hours of Merit's determination...

Proposed AUP addition (discussed briefly at NANOG 36)
Subscribers with software (including but not limited
to MTAs and MUAs) that is (mis)configured in such a
fashion as to send vacation notices to either the
mailing list or to individual list posters are subject
to removal from the list without...

List stats:
current subscribers (as of jun 4 2006): 8012
total messages jan-jun: 2899
list traffic stats jan-jun
jan: 694
feb: 665
mar: 670
apr: 453
may: 399
June to 04 Jun 2006: 18 messages
as weather gets nicer, people seem to go outside
and stop emailing.

current nanog subs: 8012
nanog-post:         7183
nanog-digest:       1322
nanog-announce:      653
nanog-futures:       192
total messages jan-jun: 2899
jan: 694 - 2 warn, 1 ban
feb: 665 - 5 warn, 0 ban
mar: 670 - 6 warn, 0 ban
apr: 453 - 1 warn, 0 ban
may: 399 - 0 warn, 0 bans
jun: 18 so far, 18 messages, 0 warns, 0 bans

summary list stats, jan-jun
2899 messages
 14 warnins
 1 bans
 no interventions

When do we request that people change their behaviour
on the list?
warnings are only made over violations of the AUP
here's the AUP as it exists online at:
http://www.nanog.org/aup.html

 1. Discussion will focus on Internet operational and
    technical issues as described in the charter of NANOG.
 2. Postings of issues inconsistent with the charter are
    prohibited.
 3. Postings to multiple mailing lists are discouraged.
 4. Postings that include foul language, character
    assassination, and lack of respect for other
    participants are prohibited.
 5. Blatant product marketing is unacceptable.
 6. Postings of political, philosophical, and legal nature
    are discouraged.
 7. Postings to the list must be made using real,
    identifiable names and addresses, rather than aliases.

Posting modification stats: jan-jun
(numbers correspond to AUP rules above)
1: 1
2: 1
3: 1
4: 3 (foul language, character assination)
5: 2
6: 0
7: 8 (real names, not aliases)

Example of email requesting someone to fix
their posting name.

Questions?  Nope, people must be getting
hungry.

back to Randy.

Open discussion
PC Issues
What subjects might interest the members but are
not at the meeting because the talks were rejected
by the PC?

Q: how do we know what was rejected?
A: you don't.  sorry.  SteveF doesn't remember
   off the top of his head.
Randy: perhaps minutes could note which topics
were shot down, or which area?
SteveF notes sales talks get shot down.  Or,
if there's a lot of talks in a similar area;
tutorials, had 3 or 4 about MPLS, picked one,
rejected rest.  The others were fine, but
they didn't want to overbalance the program.
Some just lacked polish, requested more polish.
He can't remember any other rejections.  Oh,
one IPv6 tutorial that was not accepted this
time.

PC minutes?
With what content?
Shows and no-shows?

PC issues
should the reviews be signed or anonymous?

The press:
how should we deal with attendees from the press?
attendance fee?
photography?

JoeProvo: is Paul Ferguson the press?
BillN: side point, audience has thinned out quite a
bit, so straw polls are pretty meaningless.
Merit will discourage people from taking photos
during the meeting; how do people feel about
that?  Many other people take photos at the
meeting, maybe we should get some idea from
the rest of the group about they feel about it?
Betty notes as Merit that they are asking people
to refrain; they're not policing, but because
they're unsure, if people could just refrain
from taking pictures of the presenters or
the BOFs, until the more formal, open discussion
happens for the fall meeting.
Not enough people here to represent a consensus.
Q: what is the concern?
A: People don't want their pictures in the press,
   people will be giving heated opinions tomorrow
   and this is NOT a public venue.  Randy does not
   want his picture taken.
Vanessa Evans, LINX:  is it just the press, or is it
any/all photos being barred?  Randy notes Ren has
been taking pictures of attendees for a facebook
type website.  Ren notes she will remove pictures,
upon request, if they aren't comfortable with their
pictures being online.
Randy notes that for this meeting, the badges will
attempt to identify people as press, and all attendees
are asked to NOT take pictures inside the rooms; but
in the hallways, you can be approached by the press,
or by Ren, so you have the power to consent first.
Marty, Renesys, that is across the board, press
or not?  Yes, Betty and Randy confirm that.
Sylvie from Teleglobe notes she doesn't mind
people she knows taking pictures of her, but
random others, she doesn't like taking pictures
of her or groups she's in.

Ollie Jacobson--why is it coming up in this
forum, and not others?  People taking pictures
on the dance floor at RIPE, for example.
Is there a specific history around this?
Randy notes the IETF has gone through this
issue.
Rob Seastrom, he doesn't care about open
photography, they're welcome to take pictures of him.
Randy is open about non-press taking pictures.
BillN, there may be broader support for this if
it was just press.
Marty from Renesys: he didn't have any photos
of him online until 2003, and then he started
finding pictures of him online due to other
people's choices.  He asks to not have pictures
taken, as he doesn't have permission from his
company to be photographed at this conference.

Two or Three meetings a year?
Amortization of fixed costs at Merit
Cost to attend
Changes would be in 08
FILL OUT THE SURVEY!

Marty, Renesys, thanks to Betty on the presentation,
came out well.  He supports two meetings a year, his
numbers show that if there's a reduction in GandA by
1/3, you'd come out ahead based on attendees.
He feels there's already too many meetings to
attend all of them, with ICANN, RIPE, peering
forums, DNS meetings at Cisco, etc.

Merit doesn't own the issue of whether we meet
twice a year or three times a year; it's up to
the community.  What serves the community better?
They'd prefer two meetings a year.
Some numbers don't change.  Some of the overhead
costs, the costs of rent, and other fixed costs
won't change, they just get split over two instead
of three; the hotel costs go down, the staff travel,
logistics, supply costs, etc.

Hold to same plan for FY07, and then see what we
do in FY08.  What about sharing venues with the
peering forums, could there be sharing between
meetings that are open and have common membership?

RobSeastrom again: assuming one stays with ARIN,
it would be reasonable to think the other one
might be a bit longer, to cover more material.
A week-long meeting can be tiring; hopefully
the model will take the human factors in as well.
Betty agrees:
The longer the meeting, the greater the hotel
expense as well.  Adding a day adds to the hosting
costs as well.  Real issue is the partnership;
how often do we want to travel and attend meetings?
Commit to some plan for the next year so we can
schedule for it.
BillN: If we go with a longer meeting, how much will
it cost for the longer meeting if we two two meetings
a year?  If we assume that a big piece of revenue is
attendance, and we go to two meetings, we lose break,
beer and gear, ARIN sponsorship, etc.  Some of those
predictions show that if we stay at reg of 400
paid per meeting, but two meetings, we lose BandG,
breaks, we still keep fall meeting with ARIN, and
one-non-joint meeting, to cover the expense balance
would need to raise the registration cost by about
$75 per person.
Lots of variables that go into it, not a simple
savings game to go to 2 meetings a year from 3,
since you lose a revenue chunk.
BillN notes if you raise reg fees by a chunk, most
people don't care that much, based on the straw
poll here.
Betty: the program is the big challenge; the relevance
of the program, is there enough program content that
is relevant for 3 meetings a year, or will we get
better content out of 3 days twice a year?
John Christoff--there seem to be topical issues that
we may lose if we wait too long between meetings,
like the Cogent depeering.

MikeHughes, working group chair at RIPE, one thing
they've noticed with policy items; around each
meeting you get a bell curve of activity, then
it trails back off.  Going from 3 to 2 reduced
activity on working groups.  But the two meetings
has been fairly well received; but policy group
pretty much ground to a halt due to too much
time between meetings.
Betty noted reduced volume on the list after the
February meeting with light attendance.  Could be
a similar effect with NANOG.

Rob Seastrom, can gen up number of articles month
over month for past 5 years on the list; then we
could track against attendance.

Rob, Interramp?, if you go a whole year between
geographically undesirable locations, you can lose
track of people; with 2 meetings, may be stuck with only
one meeting a year that's not in an undesirable
location.

Sylvie, Teleglobe, is the timing of the events
planned this way?  June, October, Winter?
Huge snowstorm in winter seems to impact the
winter meeting attendance on a regular basis.

Jared notes it's harder to get flying in the
summer, and central airports have thunderstorms
that destroy schedules worse than snow.
Feb. poor attendance most likely due to valentines
day more so than snow.  Betty is avoiding valentines'
day from now into the future, blacklisted!

Ren: Can it be detached from RIPE!!  October is
right after RIPE, you have to leave RIPE early
to make NANOG.
Randy: The schedules were chosen to avoid IETF,
there were no RIPE and Apricot meetings at the
time either.

Ren: people support multiple continents, with
meetings back to back, you have to pick one of
the two meetings to ditch, and NANOG loses out.
Randy notes registry and ops are tough to try
to fit into the calendar year.

JoeAbley notes the survey data shows actually
a small overlap in the attendees: the survey
had checkboxes with how many other conferences
you attend.  Didn't have much detail around it.

Ollie Jacobson--that's the exercise RIPE has
done, we should have "should avoid" and "should
not avoid" dates?
Randy: trying to coordinate with other ops and
registry groups.  There's an online calendar they
use for tracking what days to avoid, including
PacNOG, SaNOG, IETF, and others.
If you take that list, and then add a cushion
of a week between them, there's not enough days
in the year.  The internet is just too popular.

The electronic survey form can be updated for
Monday afternoon; hard copy is too late to
update.
So, USE the electronic form!  the paper form
is just twice the pain.

Mike Hughes.  Yes, dead trees are bad.
Is there any point to take data from previous
years, and try to do some union with the different
meetings, given the attendee lists from each
set of conferences.
Betty notes there's summary data around that
that was boiled down during the reconfiguration.

Marty, Renesys, let's not quibble over $50 worth
of toilet paper in the restrooms.  The GandA cost
isn't worth arguing over.  Business may require
you go from RIPE to NANOG, he does that, he has
no pets, others might not be able to; he's seen
the lists, and for those that overlap, yes, it's
tough.
Betty--No, not happy with GandA, but not sure...
oh.  Pets.  It is what it is for 2007, we can
think about changing it for 2008.

ML AUP change, Rob Seastrom covered it.

How can we make NANOG more useful, fun, informative?
What are benefits of presentations, BOFs, tutorials,

NANOG's future
Audience: who do we serve?
Level of organization
 Minimalist (already 3 committees)
 Learn from IETF/ISOC (why NOT to go down that path!)
 SC, PC, ML: too much or too little?
Content?

Does anyone other than Martin read the SC minutes?

Ren is leading the charge on 2 meeting vs 3 meeting;
if you don't fill out the survey and speak up, since
it's on the web page, you lose your chance to vote
for how the future of NANOG plays out.

MikeHughes notes the survey was ACL'd to only be
available to the local net only in years past...

Betty notes it's not restricted; on the nanog website;
did you attend locally, or did you attend remotely is
the one question that narrows down who is filling out
the feedback.
NANOG is not a membership organization, anyone
can fill out the survey.

RobSeastrom: one request, for things that are binary
in nature--can there be a "don't care" option?
Betty: yes, SC has seen it, there's space for
comments.  If you'd like to work with her to do
some modelling, she's more than happy to sit in
open seating and cover it.

Complete the Survey!!

And with that, meeting wraps up at 20:02 hours
Pacific Time.
*whew!*