On Tue, Dec 04, 2012 at 06:10:15PM +0100, Gaudenz Steinlin wrote: > While not all answers to all reasonable concerns have been as good as > they could have been, I'm under the impression that much more > information about the proposed accomodation is available than for every > other DebConf since the begining (at least considering it's still 8 > months away). That's true, but in large part it's because the initial information has been greatly concerning to a wide range of would-be DebConf attendees. The local team has a different vision for DebConf13 than for past years; and that's fine as far as it goes, but it means there are lots of people who are not excited about camping-grade accomodations, who feel disenfranchised by the venue choice, and who are struggling to figure out if and how they can attend DebConf. Also different from past years is that, 8 months before the conference, we are about to sign a contract for the venue with stiff cancellation penalties. It's reasonable that people who have concerns about the accomodation options at the venue of choice are trying to raise these concerns before we pass this point of no return. The DC13 team has a different vision for this conference; I think they need to own the consequences of this vision being incompatible with the vision of many others who regularly attend DebConf and would like to attend this one. Yes, gathering information about external accomodation is a big task; consider how much worse that task is when 50-100 people, who don't know Switzerland and definitely don't know the area around Le Camp outside of any city, are each trying to gather this information for themselves. Various people have made snide remarks that anyone who isn't happy with Le Camp accomodations can find their own hotel, and that this is no different from past DebConfs. This simply isn't true. Past DebConfs have been hosted in cities, or (in the case of DC6 in Mexico) in a large complex that had more private accomodations available for a price. Even ignoring the price differential (which I'm told is worse than it might be at other places in Switzerland), the logistics of external accomodation at Le Camp are *very* different than they have been at past conferences. This *will* contribute to suppressing turnout at DC13. How much it contributes will depend on how much work the team is willing to do to mitigate this problem. > While more information is always pereferd, gathering all this and making > it available is also a huge task. And I think it's only understandable > that people are reluctant to do this while it's not even clear if it > will ever be usefull (because the chairs might decide to drop the Le > Camp venue). It's true in a theoretical sense that the chairs might decide to drop the Le Camp venue. It's also clear to me that this isn't going to happen. > >> For instance, one "fact" that I currently hold as entirely probable > >> based on IRC rumour is that there are only a handful of parking > >> spaces > >> at Le Camp. > >> If that really is true, then Andreas's ideas about people coming in > >> cars > >> are going to fail because there will be nowhere for them to park. > > > > Was there any accurate information posted on this point yet? > > As I already said on IRC this morning, a car parking for about 100 cars > will be built during winter/spring 2013. And there is already parking > space for about 30 cars at the moment. Is it written into the contract that they must accomodate a certain number of cars for us? What is the impact to us if the parking lot falls behind schedule and is not ready for use at DebConf, or if they have a change of mind and decide not to build the parking lot at all? Do we have any sort of model for what our parking requirements will actually be? If so, what assumptions regarding on-site/off-site attendees are built into that model? AFAIK this is also a problem that DebConf has never had to contend with previously, owing to previous conferences being held where external accomodation options were either in close walking distance, or well connected by public transport. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/ slangasek@ubuntu.com vorlon@debian.org
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