Perhaps RIPE or someone with good data analytical skills can crunch the numbers from previous meetings:
https://www.ripe.net/participate/meetings/ripe-meetings/archive
First mark which venues are considered low-cost, moderate and expensive (3 categories).
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/region_rankings_current.jsp?region=150
Next, determine how many people attended and again mark it is low, moderate and high to determine which venue attracted the most people:
https://ripe78.ripe.net/attend/attendee-list/
https://ripe84.ripe.net/attendee-list/
https://ripe79.ripe.net/attend/attendee-list/
https://ripe77.ripe.net/attend/attendee-list/
etc…
Lastly, use sites like:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_by_country_or_territory#Central_Europe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_Europe#Eastern_and_Central_Europe
along with other factors like visa availability to determine countries that can be considered good/moderate/bad in the realm of inclusiveness.
Now assign weights to each of the 3 categories and we can then come up with a list of venues that are better suited than others.
Regards,
Hank
From: diversity [mailto:diversity-bounces@ripe.net]
On Behalf Of Cynthia Revström
Sent: 30 August 2022 18:34
To: Vesna Manojlovic <BECHA@ripe.net>
Cc: diversity@ripe.net
Subject: Re: [diversity] Hosting RIPE85 in Serbia that is trying to cancel EuroPride 2022
Hi Vesna,
I agree with you here and we will probably have to kinda balance the pros and cons to various groups.
There are some countries which imo we should absolutely not host RIPE meetings in, such as those without a functioning democracy and those with governments that are actively hostile towards LGBTQ+ people.
Serbia is kinda on the edge here, but is certainly far from the worst and might be acceptable.
One thing that stands out to me though is that from looking at the attendee list, at the time of writing this, not a single person from Serbia has registered so far it seems.[1] (as in where the country is "RS")
If we can't get a single person from Serbia to register for a RIPE meeting in Serbia then I feel like the downsides of hosting it in Serbia outweigh the benefits as a lot of the benefits go away in my opinion.
Of course we didn't know this before scheduling it in Serbia but it still makes me think that we should possibly reconsider the pros and cons a bit better for the future.
Creating a list like Hank suggested might be a good idea to try to evaluate the best options for future meetings.
Also given how I think a lot of people are paid by their employers to attend and how any location is likely going to be semi-expensive for people who don't live there, I feel like the economic parts should have much less weight than the
other factors.
People not being able to travel because it costs money is sad, but people not being able to travel because they feel unsafe or blocked from entering due to being LGBTQ+ or just being the "wrong" nationality is way worse imo.
The summary of my take is: We should consider all of these factors but we need to figure out how important they are, and also figure out where the red lines are. (as in what the total deal breakers are that simply can't be accepted regardless
of whatever pros there are in other ways)
-Cynthia
On Mon, 29 Aug 2022, 15:28 Vesna Manojlovic, <BECHA@ripe.net> wrote:
Hi Sascha,
I do feel triggered with this call for a certain "openness",
I hope you take this reply in a best possible way!
On 28/08/2022 16:45, Sascha Pollok wrote:
> The in-person meetings should welcome everybody and not
> force them to make those weird compromises.
...
> If we want to offer an open meeting, we need to pick the location
> accordingly.
Theoretically, I agree with you -- but -- some of the locations that are
considered "open" are only so to certain groups of people...
(e.g. Germany, Holland, Scandinavia... UK!?)
... and there are still many many people for whom these countries are
NOT open; people who are disadvantaged by _other_ circumstances:
- people who can not afford to travel to North/West Europe, since the
hotels & food are too expensive for them
&
- people from "wrong" countries who can not get a visa
... so if we would host meetings only in those countries, RIPE would be
missing out on many contributions.
It is a difficult challenge to offer equal opportunities for wide
variety of particpation... and I am glad that we are now considering
many of the aspects; I am hoping this will lead to better events, and
more justice in the world!
Vesna
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