As a reminder, we did try to run remote hubs for IETF 98, when there was an issue with folks being able to reach the Chicago venue. Warren Kumari and I arranged for Google to host some full-meeting hubs, with the intent to host one in the same time zone (Eastern Canada) and others where there was critical mass according to a form we sent out requesting expressions of interest.
I've added Warren directly, in case he has more details in his files; what I have indicates that we had very low interest in the same time zone theory and we dropped that site. We did get interest in Europe and hosted a site in Zurich, but it had pretty small attendance. Even though folks were dealing with much more rudimentary remote experiences then, I believe most people preferred to stay home/at their job site rather than travel to a hub for the full meeting.
A lot has changed since IETF 98, but I think there are significant issues with assuming generalized hubs are the anwer:
The IETF has multiple areas which can function like sub-communities. The hallway conversation of a local hub may not be interesting unless the pool of attendees is large enough to contain the folks from the working groups of interest to a specific attendee. Within a hub, it's not clear that the experience of the sessions themselves is substantially better than a remot attendance; for anyone with a specialized set up at home, it can be worse. It can also be harder to get travel funding to a remote hub than to the main meeting.
This is not to discourage continued thought on it, only to remind folks that we did try this once before, and that the quick-and-dirty version was not really a success. A new run at this will take sustained effort and some real thought on how to knit together the folks both at specific hubs and between them.
regards,
Ted Hardie
