[sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events

[Joe Touch]

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Some other comments:

Vern Paxson wrote:
...
> 	(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.

Limited attendance has two useful purposes:

	a- encouraging lively debate

	b- fitting a limited-space venue

(b) can and should be handled by FCFS beyond the author list.
Conferences aren't journals; making them more exclusive is counter to
the ACM notion of a public venue for discourse (which is core to the
ACM's charter), and further clouds the 'is a workshop a conference' or
'is a workshop a journal' debate (which is a different debate; we can
have that one later).

Larry said:
> I also strongly believe that there is a valuable place for workshops
> with limited attendance. I don't think anyone is disputing that
> point.

I will:

(a) seems the key point in that regard, but it is well known that the
breakpoint for the size of such groups is around 20-40, and most of the
meetings we're talking about are around 80, so that point is moot.

Larry also noted that there are two options:
> 1) HotNets continues with SIGCOMM sponsorship, remains closed,
>     but has a more transparent admissions policy; or
> 
> 2) HotNets leaves the SIGCOMM nest.

There are others, i.e., that SIGCOMM requires open attendance and
Hotnets complies. We shouldn't limit this debate based on whether
HotNets will stay with the SIG. That seems too much like closed the
attendance policy we're debating (i.e., "only people who agree we want
to keep HotNets should participate in this debate"), and I'm in favor of
_open discourse_.

Joe
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