Re: [Debconf-team] Special sponsorship
On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 10:59:43AM +0200, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
> Furthermore, before asking here, Richard has asked me if Debian (via
> SPI) could act as an intermediary for reimbursing Clint (receiving
> donations to that end and then approving his reimbursement). I've
> replied no, without knowing of the potential tax problem, on the basis
> that I don't feel good with Debian doing that for one person alone.
>
> It might happen that sponsoring decisions get something wrong; in fact I
> believe it will *always* happen, no matter the process we choose --- in
> that respect I completely agree with Phil's mail earlier on in this
> thread. When that happens one can say "that's life" or try to
> compensate. But in compensating I think we should make an effort to find
> all the people affected by a specific problem [1] and deal with all of
> them. Up to now, I've seen no evidence of that an effort to identify
> others in the same situation of Clint has been made.
My plan was to mail -discuss, asking for help, and also letting others
know they could also ask for help from their peers. I haven't
actually asked anyone to join me in this yet - the people who have
volunteered have done so spontaneously, without any request.
My overall plan would be something like this:
Mail -discuss telling of my plan. (Perhaps not even mention Clint
in the first message, instead follow up saying "here is one
example"). Ask if anyone else would like to contribute, or would
like to ask for money from the community. Work out (possibly
privately) who donetas how much and who gets how much. Do the
accounting based on that, whether it is things on-site, donation of
part of attendees' own travel sponsorship, or other payments.
Would this be more acceptable? We can make it better, should you
like.
This is why I didn't want to do a "people pay people directly". I
think that sending a mail to a list and say "reply to this thread if
you want money from others" and hoping for lots of peer-to-peer
payments has more opportunity for problems or resentment. Sending a
mail to a list asking people to send money every which way, seem more
likely to have problems, thus I wanted to avoid that if possible.
So, the "official" support isn't intended to help just one person:
it's intended to make it more comfortable supporting multiple people.
Of course, it would still rely on people donating to their peers.
- Richard
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| "Ye shall know the truth and -- the truth shall make you free"
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