Re: [Debconf-team] [Debconf-discuss] Information about accommodation at le camp (photos and plans) ·
On Sat, Dec 01, 2012 at 12:22:26AM +0000, Moray Allan wrote:
> On 2012-11-30 22:25, Moray Allan wrote:
> >Personally I find this a strong negative
>
> I have been asked on IRC to clarify my position/thinking:
>
> Personally I think Le Camp is a bad choice of venue. I am
> influenced in that by how unattractive it is to me personally in the
> context of a technical conference to stay in an "indoor camping"
> setup, and the lack of any alternative accommodation for a
> non-driver who wants to be around late in the evenings. However, I
> already thought this at the time of the venue decision meeting for
> DebConf13, and yet Le Camp won when votes were cast by the DebConf
> Committee after a lack of consensus from the preceding discussion.
> Because I had pushed the creation of the venue decision process
> including that vote, even if I have also felt it appropriate to
> voice my own concerns again as part of discussion when the topics
> have come up, I feel a duty to respect the decision of that meeting.
>
It is a pity you (or others) didn't raise your concerns strongly back then.
> It is valid from my perspective for the DebConf team to choose a
> venue that does not please everyone, just as for DebConf10 a venue
> was chosen in the US which some people didn't like for political
> reasons; or just as the lower attendance last year was probably due
> to the high costs of reaching Nicaragua.
I disagree, every case is different. People when DebConf10 chose not go to
there because their political ideas, others share the same political ideas
but thought the people in USA didn't have anything to do with their
politicians. Nicaragua is also different, the two option we had for dc12
were expensive (as in far for most developers), so there wasn't a lot to do
there. There will never a location close to everybody unless somebody
invents teletransportation soon.
This year, we're still in time to find a place that is suitable for more
people. We can not achieve 100% but at least give people choice, even if some
people might anyway not like mountains or swiss chocolate... (Although there
are not mountains close to le camp, nor a supermarket to buy chocolate).
> In the last few months I raised additional concerns about money,
> when the full costs of Le Camp became apparent (or rather, when the
> costs didn't reduce with negotiation as it been suggested that they
> would, and when fundraising started later than planned). However,
> the financial risk is mitigated if we will now only commit to an
> 8-day rather than 15-day DebConf period. The costs are still
> extremely high, but as the locals have pointed out, that would
> mostly be true anywhere Switzerland.
Costs won't change a lot from changing venues, no. But we can get something
much better for a similar price. Pocock easily found other possible venues
and I have found another interesting option I haven't shared on list, only
in IRC.
> It is possible that some of those who originally voted for
> Switzerland didn't see issues exactly as they have emerged, or
> expected, as in most years recently, that issues about the venue
> would be sorted out by later changes, rather than expecting that the
> locals would insist that we stick with the precise venue choice.
> But that's something that I feel should be commented on by anyone
> who was initially for Switzerland/Le Camp, and now against it, not
> speculated about by me for whom the issues appear much the same as
> at the time of the bid decision meeting.
>
That's exactly what I did in a previous email that you have probably read.
For reference:
http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20121122.153221.79d33304.en.html
I wasn't fully happy with none of the venues but I seriously trusted the swiss
team into improving their bid or switching it. Switching venues is something
we have done often and no localteam was hurt in the process.
When I realized about how bad things were going 2 months ago (funnily from
holger's emails), I was told repetitively "I was late" and that's what it
seems the team decided. We were 11 months before DebConf and now we are 9, why
we can be so optimist about finding money that depends in so many external
factors and so negative about finding a better venue, something that depends a
lot more on us?
Reply to: