Re: [Debconf-team] Final numbers
Hi,
DebConf12 team, take note. When the global team is prodding on lots
of little details about when we need to know things by, it's usually
for a reason. I burned a lot of goodwill trying to prod on this kind
of stuff, with the answer being "oh it will be fine".
If we had known about these logistics earlier, we could have designed
our registration process around them, like we did DC10's registration
process.
On Wed, Jun 08, 2011 at 02:39:51PM +0000, Adnan Hodzic wrote:
> During this whole time of registrations I've been keep a close eye on
> numbers, mostly on
> http://rkd.zgib.net/http/debconf/registration-data.txt and last night
> we had a meeting where we concluded that reconfirmation date should be
> 3rd of July.
>
> After careful consideration and talking to other parties we need
> somethings changed.
>
> During our lunch with minister, he asked us when we could have the
> final numbers, after Moray Holger and I consulted we told him 3 to max
> 4 weeks. Three weeks mark is just today and I believe we still don't
> have what's called final numbers.
If you think final numbers are this easy to come by, you misunderstand
DebConf a bit.
Hotels have a reason to be exact (and what I wanted to know about
earlier). To do this, we have the reconfirmation process, to cap the
number of sponsored people (and also help us establish our budget).
After reconfirmation, we might still lose some sponsored people, or
have their dates change. We might also have professional people
register which we'd *try* to accommodate if we have the time, and the
hotel will let us.
As for total attendees, that is much more flakey. Lots will register,
many won't show up. Even more will come for a day or two only. For
the past few confs, my philosophy has been that the number of people
requesting a room is a more accurate measure of the scale of a
DebConf, since those are the ones you'll have around 24/7, and you
know will come.
> If you take a look at
> http://rkd.zgib.net/http/debconf/registration-data.txt you'll see that
> we have something that could be our final number ("444") which is fine
> but if you take a closer look at these numbers first thing you'll
> notice is our of these numbers 138 have not even selected what
> country they are coming from. Now, government, hotels and everybody is
> highly flexible but they want *exact* numbers, and we're all but being
> exact right now.
>
> If anything I want exact numbers, in a week or two we'll have press
> release with the president and I wan't to be able to tell him exact
> number of who's coming. These numbers mean a whole lot to us, for
As for this kind of thing, they won't know anything exact. For press
release purposes, if they want something "exact" then report what's on
the list and pretend it's exact. Might be better to say "more than
400 people" or whatever.
> example visas, our attendees who have visa problems will be granted
> visas upon arrival to our country, how can they be given a visa if
> they haven't even set which country they are coming from? Also Arrival
> dates are pretty empty. How are we supposed to even send those
> shuttles if we don't even have these dates? Same case with Tshirts and
> numerous other things.
Wouldn't they get a visa by showing the border guard their passport?
If they need visa help, they would have contacted visa@ and that's
fine. Or are you thinking they _have_ to be on your list to get into
the country?
About the shuttles, yes, and that's what we were trying to say about
"waiting for registration dates". *Dates* are only really required
for people staying in hotels, and how would we know what airport they
are coming from, or even _if_ they are coming from an airport?
Perhaps the wiki pages are a better idea?
> On wiki I wrote about accommodation
> (http://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf11/Accommodation) I put how much
> beds we'll get from each hotel, when I spoke to director of Bosna I
> told him there will be 60 to 80 people in first week, now according to
> our numbers there will be 120. This is fine, but as long as it's not
> some random people signing up for DebCamp just like that. I personally
> know couple of Bosnians that registered for DebCamp because they said
> "why not?" In the end number of people is not a problem, none of it
> is, but all we need is exact numbers so I know how to deal with each
> situation.
>
> IE, for hotel it makes a huge difference if it's 60 or 120 people in
> first week, and for government it also makes a huge difference as it's
> a difference between ~100k km.
All I can say is what I said above. We'll have to do the best we can
to get information now, but since we were told it doesn't matter so
long ago, it can't instantly come together.
> Again if you have any other suggestions let me know.
This is all part of the reconfirmation process ("data sanitation
phase"), and happens each year. I'll work on the scripts, as moray
has said I have. It will take time...
(need to run now, maybe can elaborate more later)
Thanks,
- Richard
--
| Richard Darst - rkd@ - boltzmann: up 687 days, 17:47
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| "Ye shall know the truth and -- the truth shall make you free"
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