Re: [Debconf-team] reports from Le Camp "BSP", part 6: trust + seeing is believing
On 14/11/12 19:51, Andreas Tille wrote:
> Hi Gunnar,
>
> On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 11:22:28AM -0600, Gunnar Wolf wrote:
>>>
>>> Do you possibly want to draft an email calling for such pledges, and it
>>> can be discussed at the next meeting?
>>>
>>> Should we ask people to pledge the marginal cost (about 300 CHF), the
>>> professional fee (about 600 CHF), or just ask each person to pledge "I'm
>>> willing to pay up to XXX francs if it can't be avoided"?
>>
>> I thank and welcome Andreas' mail, and am joyous we will again have a
>> chance to meet. However, such pledges have no place IMO. Many people
>> know we are facing a tough budget, and we should, yes, make clear to
>> attendees we could use their help. But requiring such pledges (and
>> making them public or semi- even more) is off-limits.
>
> I fully agree here and I also hesitated to formulate an e-mail about
> this because this is what I'd call asking people for following which is
> what I did not want to do (because it is not acceptable). After
> thinking twice about my offer it might create some mental pressure like
> "he did this, should I do the same" which is also not intended.
I certainly never intended to create the impression that people would be
"required" to make such a pledge, nor that it needs to be done publicly.
It would be for people who want to do so, that is all.
However, just imagine two hypothetical scenarios:
- everybody makes a pledge, all participants, all sponsors, etc, some
small, some big, some zero: we know almost exactly how much money is in
the budget, can choose the correct number of days, correct number of
meals, suppliers give us better prices because of our miraculous ability
to predict what the community wants: no money wasted
- nobody makes any kind of pledge, no survey, etc: we know much less, we
can only guess from previous years. Maybe too many people show up and
we have to send people away (wasting the potential of people who would
have otherwise participated). Maybe we have to add a 20% `safety
margin' into the budget, more wasted money (although it does become a
surplus for next year, etc)
Having some kind of voluntary pledge, not necessarily in a public email
either, would allow us to find a more comfortable place between those
two extremes.
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