Re: [Debconf-team] Online rooms booking systems
On 23.01.2013 09:01, Didier 'OdyX' Raboud wrote:
Le lundi, 21 janvier 2013 19.44:59, Didier 'OdyX' Raboud a écrit :
- hoteldruid
http://www.hoteldruid.com/
Last-Release: 2012-12-11
(…)
After looking at all those, I think we should try to adapt hoteldruid to
our needs; the fact that it is already in Debian is certainly a plus (even
if we might need to fork it to suit our needs). I will do a rapid intent
at configuring it with something similar to LeCamp accomodation options as
discussed and report back.
So I have now setup an instance on a server and clicked around, created
different rates (for categories), rooms, assignment priorities and rules (so
that early birds get the smallest rooms first, etc).
I have now acquired the conviction that having a well-configured hoteldruid
will be of great help for the rooms/beds registration, assignment and billing.
I'm really not so sure.
I see the following problems:
- the allocation algorithm: the small rooms are may not be the better
one: if we full the small rooms, but we have only few people on some of
the biggest room? I don't think we will "sell" out all the available
place (and on the all days). Consider also that many people don't attend
the whole DebConf.
- for many people the people in the same room are more important that
the number of people in the room (especially on big rooms).
So how can people choose to share the same room? We cannot ask one
person to book the room for the other friends at the same time.
- special arrangements (handicap, gender, age, etc.) are common.
- Registration, payment date or receive payment date? Note also we
opened the registration some day before the announcement, so people
reading the minutes will be advantaged (but they always was good beta
tester).
So I think that manual allocation will do a better (and fairer) job.
Possibly we can implement a lot of rules in the interface, but I don't
think it is the way (complex = less transparent = possibly less fair)
Maybe we could (instead of allocating a specific room) give a "4 people
room guarantee" (e.g. such person will have a 4 people or
better/smaller room), etc.. Then manually we allocate rooms (and
possibly in a better way: we have all the data at end of registration
period), taking into account the special cases, the preferences and the
"size guarantee".
IMHO the most important things for the registration tool:
- a single entry site, login, password for all debconf stuffs of
attendees (i.e. not a requirement for staff, videoteam, payment,
sponsors, talk selection and other internal stuffs).
- the debconf program should be available without login
- we need the following data: attend, confirm, t-shirt size, arrived,
dates, diet type, + status and accommodations.
- and we need to be flexible: adding eventually new questions later
(daytrip options, special events [fondue], etc.)
- and on the above data, we need to test consistency and completness
before to allow one to reconfirm.
So, maybe it is handy to handle such stuffs also with room allocation
tools, but I think it is easier to go on the other way: adding simple
room allocation to a conference orga tool.
To conclude: I don't think automatic means more fair.
ciao
cate
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