[sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events

[Vern Paxson]

At the last SIGCOMM business meeting, one of the issues we framed for
discussion by the SIGCOMM community concerns attendance policies at
SIGCOMM-affiliated events such as HotNets.  The main question is to what
degree should such events be given latitude to limit their attendance
along dimensions such as the following:

	- limiting size in order to facilitate discussion
	- given limited attendance, imposing criteria on who can attend,
	  such as paper presenters / PC members / paper authors / paper
	  submitters
	- filling some limited-attendance slots by invitation

There was considerable discussion at the meeting of this topic, which
I imperfectly summarize as:

	(1) A view by quite a few who commented at the microphone that
	    limited attendance has utility for some events and that
	    SIGCOMM should find ways to facilitate this.

	(2) A view by others (not as many at the microphone) that any
	    policy other than first-come-first-serve is counter to the
	    principles of fairness (both to individuals and in terms of
	    how the SIG uses its resources) by which the SIG should abide.

	(3) A question as to whether smaller venues that benefit from
	    closed attendance need SIG sponsorship anyway.  Benefits of
	    sponsorship include raising awareness of the event and providing
	    a means/imprimatur for publishing proceedings for the event.
	    Some questioned whether small events need proceedings; others
	    view this as desirable as it makes publicly available the
	    research ideas that went into the event.

	(4) The view that if attendance is closed, the invitation policy 
	    needs to be made clear.

	(5) Notions of pursuing hybrids in which some slots are left open
	    to first-come-first-serve, and more generally with experimenting
	    with different forms to see what works best.

	(6) Thoughts on how to "mitigate" the impact of an event being
	    closed, such as by recording some of the discussion to make
	    it available to those who were not able to attend (which on the
	    other hand some viewed as likely to dampen the nature of the
	    exchanges).

We'd like to solicit further views from the community to get a sense of
whether there's rough agreement on the best policy for the SIG to adopt.
Please let us know your thoughts.

- Vern, speaking as SIGCOMM vi-chair