> It seems to me that the issue is whether the benefit *to the SIGCOMM
> community* of having a closed workshop is large enough to exclude some
> parties who wish to attend the workshop.  My view is that, provided
> the workshop produces valuable results which are disseminated (via
> proceedings and other means), it is worth it.  Everyone sees the
> proceedings (and only a small group was going to be able to afford to
> attend the workshop).  But we need to hold the workshop to a high
> standard of results.

I like this framing a bunch.

But, I am not quite sure if I agree with your view.  Maybe we end up in
the same place.  Whether the workshop is open or closed everyone gets
the proceedings --- even if only online.  To me, that means that
dissemination of the proceedings has no bearing on whether a particular
workshop should be open or closed.  I.e., the entire community derives
the benefit of the proceedings regardless of their attendance or the
attendance policy.

What then is the benefit the research community derives from a closed
meeting?  Two things jump to mind as possibilities ...

  * Discussion that is documented for the community's consumption.  I
    believe this has been done for at least some of the HotNets
    workshops.  I suppose one could argue that smaller groups make this
    more likely and more useful.  The down sides being that if everyone
    knows it is being documented then maybe that tempers things a bit
    and documenting lively discussion in a way that is useful for people
    who were not there is tough.  (Maybe I am thinking too much about
    "documenting" being "minutes" and not "audio and video".)

  * In the aggregate and over the long-term the community benefits from
    having a place to engage in lively discussion on some topic.  And,
    just because one is closed out this year doesn't mean next year that
    person will not have a paper accepted and appreciate the closed
    nature that fosters fruitful discussion on his/her ideas.

    Of course, for the above argument to be really solid there would
    have to be a good amount of turnover in the attendance of the
    workshop.  If only 10% of the slots change over the years based on
    submitted papers then I guess I'd personally have a hard time buying
    this particular line of thinking.  But, with enough turnover this
    actually might sway me.

Maybe there are more than just these two things.  Probably.

allman