RFC 9137

Considerations for Cancellation of IETF Meetings

📅 published October 2021, from ietf

RFC 9137: Considerations for Cancellation of IETF Meetings 🎀

Okay bestie, this one is RFC 9137, and it's called Considerations for Cancellation of IETF Meetings 💅 It was written by M. Duke at F5 Networks, Inc., and published in October 2021 🌸 It's a Best Current Practice, so it's filed as BCP 226, and its ISSN is 2070-1721. Its header doesn't list anything it obsoletes or updates, so it's standing on its own ✨

Abstract

Okay so the IETF usually holds three in-person meetings a year to talk through issues and push the Internet forward 🌈 But sometimes something happens and a planned in-person meeting just isn't doable 😭 This document gives the IETF Administration LLC (IETF LLC), the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG), and the Chair of the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) some criteria to help them decide whether to relocate, virtualize, postpone, or cancel an in-person meeting 🧚

Status of This Memo

This memo documents an Internet Best Current Practice 🫶

This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) 💖 It represents the consensus of the IETF community, it got public review, and the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) approved it for publication ✨ If you want more on BCPs, check out Section 2 of RFC 7841 📚

You can find the current status of this document, any errata, and how to send feedback at https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9137 🦋

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, which you can find at https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info as they were in effect on the date this document was published 📜 Please actually read these, bestie, because they spell out your rights and restrictions for this document 🙈 Code Components pulled out of this document must include Simplified BSD License text, as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions, and they come with no warranty, as described in the Simplified BSD License 💅

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction
   2.  Conventions
   3.  Decision Criteria and Roles
     3.1.  IETF LLC
     3.2.  The IESG and the Chair of the IRTF
   4.  Remedies
     4.1.  Relocation
     4.2.  Virtualization
     4.3.  Postponement
     4.4.  Cancellation
   5.  Refunds
   6.  Security Considerations
   7.  IANA Considerations
   8.  Normative References
   Acknowledgments
   Author's Address

1. Introduction

Okay, the highlight of the IETF calendar is the in-person general meetings 🌟 There are three a year, in different places all over the world 🌍

Now, a bunch of major events can affect whether a scheduled in-person IETF meeting still makes sense, and sometimes it's not obvious at first 👀 Some examples:

  • Honestly, the meeting venue could suddenly close, or just stop meeting IETF requirements, because of a health issue, a legal violation, or some other local problem 🏨
  • A natural disaster could wreck the travel and meeting infrastructure in the planned location, and it would be unethical to keep loading that infrastructure up with a meeting 🌪️
  • War, civil unrest, or a public health crisis could make a meeting unsafe, and/or lead to big national or corporate travel bans 🚫
  • An economic crisis could sharply cut the resources people have for travel, so attendance drops 📉
  • Changes in visa policies, or other sudden government restrictions, might make the venue unreachable for lots of attendees 🛂

This document gives the IETF Administration LLC (IETF LLC), the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG), and the Chair of the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) criteria to help them decide whether to relocate, virtualize, postpone, or cancel an in-person IETF meeting 🧚

2. Conventions

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here 🔥 So if you see them in caps, they're doing the official BCP 14 thing, and otherwise they're just regular words 💅

In this document, the term "venue" refers to both the facility that houses the sessions and the official meeting hotel(s), as defined in [RFC8718] 🏨

3. Decision Criteria and Roles

Here's the split: the IETF LLC checks whether an in-person meeting is logistically and financially viable given what's happening, and it pulls together info on travel restrictions that might hit attendance ✈️ The IESG and the Chair of the IRTF check whether the projected attendance is enough for a viable in-person meeting 🫶

3.1. IETF LLC

The IETF LLC is responsible for assessing whether a venue is suitable for an IETF meeting 🏛️ It's also responsible for reassessing when a major event leaves the earlier conclusion in doubt 🔍 If that kind of event happens more than fourteen weeks before the scheduled meeting starts, it counts as a non-emergency situation 📅 Later events, all the way up to and including the week of the meeting itself, count as emergency situations 🚨

In non-emergency situations, if the IETF LLC decides the scheduled meeting clearly can't go ahead (for example, the venue has permanently closed), then it MUST share the reason(s) with the community and MUST consult on its proposed remedy 📢 In less clear cases, the IETF LLC SHOULD run a formal reassessment process that includes:

  • Consulting with the community on the timetable of the decision process.
  • Consulting with the community on criteria to assess the impact of new developments.
  • Publishing an assessment report and recommended remedy.
  • Seeking approval of the IESG and the Chair of the IRTF for the recommendation.

In emergency situations, there's no time for a consultation process 😬 So this document gives criteria that have IETF consensus, and the IETF LLC MUST apply them in its assessment 💜

The IETF LLC will collect info on how national travel advisories, national and corporate travel bans, transportation availability, quarantine requirements, and so on are likely to affect in-person attendance, and it will report the results to the IESG and the Chair of the IRTF 🧳

These criteria, some of which come from Section 3 of [RFC8718], apply to venues that get re-evaluated because of an emergency 🚑

  • Local safety guidelines allow the venue and hotels to host a meeting with the expected number of participants and staff.
  • It is possible to provision Internet access to the venue that lets those attending in person use the Internet for all their IETF, business, and day-to-day needs. On top of that, there must be sufficient bandwidth and access for remote attendees 🌐 Provisions include, but are not limited to, native and unmodified IPv4 and IPv6 connectivity and global reachability. There may be no additional limitation that would materially impact their Internet use. To ensure availability, it MUST be possible to provision redundant paths to the Internet 🔁
  • A reasonable number of food and drink establishments are open and within walking distance to serve the expected number of participants and staff 🍜
  • Local health and public safety infrastructure is expected to have adequate capacity to support an influx of visitors during the meeting week 🚒

Finally, the IETF LLC MUST assess the impact on its own operations, including:

  • The number of critical support staff, contractors, and volunteers who can be at the venue.
  • The financial impact of continuing a meeting or implementing any of the possible remedies 💰

The IETF LLC SHOULD cancel an in-person meeting and explore potential remedies if it judges the meeting to be logistically impossible or inconsistent with its fiduciary responsibilities 🫠

If something happens that this document didn't foresee, the IETF LLC should protect the health and safety of attendees and staff, as well as the fiscal health of the organization, with approval from the IESG and the Chair of the IRTF 🛡️ The IESG should pursue a later update of this document 📝

3.2. The IESG and the Chair of the IRTF

If the IETF LLC decides there are no fundamental logistical or financial obstacles to holding a meeting in an emergency situation, then the IESG and the Chair of the IRTF check whether projected attendance is high enough to get the benefit of an in-person meeting 🤔 The IESG and the Chair of the IRTF SHOULD cancel the in-person meeting if that benefit isn't big enough 🙅‍♀️

The IESG and the Chair of the IRTF are discouraged from relying on a simple head count of expected attendance 🙈 Even dramatically smaller meetings with lots of remote participation can be successful 🌸 Besides the IETF LLC's estimate, the IESG and the Chair of the IRTF might consider:

  • Are many working groups and research groups largely unaffected by the restrictions, so that they can operate effectively?
  • Is there a critical mass of key personnel at most working group meetings to leverage the advantages of in-person meetings, even if many participants are remote?

4. Remedies

If a meeting can't be held at the scheduled time and place, the IETF LLC, IESG, and Chair of the IRTF have several options 🗺️ The remedies in this section should be considered in light of four principles (listed in no particular order):

  • Hold the scheduled sessions of a meeting in some format.
  • Provide benefits of in-person interactions when possible.
  • Avoid exorbitant additional travel expenses due to last-minute flight changes, etc.
  • Ensure sufficient time and resources to adequately prepare an alternative.

The following remedies are listed in roughly declining order of preference 👑

4.1. Relocation

For attendees, the least disruptive response is to keep the meeting week but move it to a more accessible venue ✈️ As much as possible, this should be geographically close to the original venue 📍 In particular, the IETF LLC SHOULD meet the criteria in [RFC8718] and [RFC8719] 🎀

Relocation that requires new air travel arrangements for attendees SHOULD NOT happen less than one month before the meeting starts 🙅‍♀️

4.2. Virtualization

The second option, and the one with fewer venue availability issues, is to make the meeting fully online 💻 This needs different IETF processes and logistical operations that are outside the scope of this document 🧚

4.3. Postponement

Postponing is more disruptive to participants' schedules, but it's the next best option 📆 It means delaying the meeting until a specific date, at the same venue, when conditions are expected to improve 🌤️ The new end date of a meeting must be at least 30 days before the beginning of the following IETF meeting, and a meeting MUST begin no earlier than 30 days after the postponement announcement ⏳

Due to scheduling constraints at the venue, this usually won't be feasible 🥲 Still, it's more likely to let attendees recover at least some of their travel expenses than the other options 💸

Note that it's possible to both postpone and relocate a meeting, though that comes with the disadvantages of both 😭

4.4. Cancellation 🚫

Okay so the IETF LLC, IESG, and Chair of the IRTF are allowed to cancel a meeting entirely if worldwide conditions make it hard for attendees to even join online. 😬 Canceling a whole meeting is a huge deal, bestie, because it can mess with the nomination process and the seating of new officers. 💀

Cancellation is lowkey the only practical move when an emergency hits right before or during a meeting, since there's no time to set up anything else. 🚨

5. Refunds 💸

Real talk: the IETF SHOULD NOT reimburse registered attendees for travel costs they can't get back, like airfare or hotel deposits. ✈️🏨 Sorry, babe. 🥲

BUT there are a few situations where a full or partial refund of registration fees is totally appropriate, and these are the ones I'm obsessed with:

  • A cancellation SHOULD result in a full refund to all participants. It MAY be prorated if some portion of the sessions completed without incident. 🎟️
  • When there's a postponement, the IETF LLC SHOULD offer refunds to registered attendees who say they can't make the newly scheduled time. Attendees can opt out of getting a refund. 🙅‍♀️
  • When a meeting is virtualized, the IETF LLC MUST offer to refund registered attendees the difference between what they paid and the equivalent fee for an online meeting. 💻 The IETF LLC SHOULD also offer refunds to registered attendees who don't want to attend an online meeting. 🌈
  • The IETF LLC SHOULD offer refunds to attendees whose government forbids visits to the host venue, or has issued a safety advisory against them, even if the in-person meeting keeps going. 🛡️ It SHOULD NOT refund cancellations caused by employer policy or personal risk assessments. 🙈

These provisions exist to keep the trust between the IETF and its participants strong, and that's so iconic. 💖 However, if the organization faces extraordinary threats to its solvency, the IETF LLC may suspend them. 😭

6. Security Considerations 🔒

Plot twist: this document introduces no new concerns for the security of Internet protocols. 🫧 Phew, no drama here. 💅

7. IANA Considerations 🧩

This document has no IANA actions. 🌸

8. Normative References 📚

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

   [RFC8174]  Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
              2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
              May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.

   [RFC8718]  Lear, E., Ed., "IETF Plenary Meeting Venue Selection
              Process", BCP 226, RFC 8718, DOI 10.17487/RFC8718,
              February 2020, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8718>.

   [RFC8719]  Krishnan, S., "High-Level Guidance for the Meeting Policy
              of the IETF", BCP 226, RFC 8719, DOI 10.17487/RFC8719,
              February 2020, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8719>.

Acknowledgments 🫶

Jay Daley provided extensive input to make this document more usable by the IETF LLC. 👑 Many members of the IESG and the SHMOO Working Group also provided useful comments. 💜

Author's Address 📬

Martin Duke
F5 Networks, Inc.

Email: martin.h.duke@gmail.com
📦 where this page comes from