Re: [Debconf-team] Information gathered for travel sponsorship
On Tue, Oct 02, 2012 at 12:51:44AM +0200, Gaudenz Steinlin wrote:
>
> Hi
>
> Thanks for all the input so far. It seems that most people agree with
> the general direction of the proposal.
>
> Gunnar Wolf <gwolf@gwolf.org> writes:
>
> > Lucas Nussbaum dijo [Mon, Sep 03, 2012 at 08:33:26AM +0200]:
> >> (...)↓
> >> I don't think that the "economical effort" should be part of the
> >> ranking. First, it's very hard to quantify, because you need to consider
> >> at least: income, general cost of living, family & other recurring
> >> expenses, does attending debconf result in a loss of income (case if
> >> working freelance), in a loss of vacations (if attending debconf during
> >> vacations), or is the applicant attending debconf as part of your work,
> >> etc.
> >>
> >> Second, I think that it's irrelevant: I don't see why we should care
> >> about how hard it would be for the requester to attend if we don't
> >> sponsor him. Also, it turns the process into asking "OK, that requester
> >> says s/he won't attend if we don't sponsor him 200€. But maybe s/he
> >> will attend anyway? Let's see how much s/he earns."
> >
> > I agree with Lucas on this. There are just too many side
> > considerations to be able to unambiguously quantify how much does
> > attending DebConf cost to any given person. It is not just the salary
> > level.
>
> I don't agree to this in this form. I agree that we should not ask about
> income or work effort or some other related amount, but I strongly think
> that the sponsorship decision should also be based on need. I don't
> think it should uniquely based on the value to Debian and I also don't
> think it should be based on need only.
That seems to be more or less what mostly people think here. Asking income is
bad. Some people employed by $(evil_inc) aren't even allowed to offer such
information. It's a sort of info that can be voluntarily provided by the
requester once we make very clear that the team cares about it. Indeed, it's
always subjective and rich of variables...
> In the past the wording suggested that you should state the absolute
> minimum you need to be able to attend DebConf. But experience shows
> that this did not work out in this way. At least a substantial group
> did not put in their absolute minimum, but the amount they would like to
> be sponsored. This made some sense as to my knowledge nobody ever got
> more sponsorship than their minimum amount.
>
> I think that the 3 questions proposed in the initial mail can improve
> the situation in this regard as they make the distinction between the
> amount requested and the minimal useful amount more explicit.
>
> Do the people seconding Lucas' opinion think that sponsorship should not
> be based on need at all or did I misunderstand Lucas?
>
> >
> >> I also don't think that the "current/past contributions to Debian"
> >> should be ranked. Of course, they should be part of the form, to provide
> >> context for the "project" of the requester and make sure it is realistic
> >> (references are a good idea and help with that, too). But if you rank
> >> past contributions and use that to award sponsorship, you turn Debconf
> >> in a "thank you for your past work!" event. Someone who does fantastic
> >> work in Debian, but plan to attend Debconf as a base camp for visiting
> >> Switzerland, should not be sponsored.
>
> I agree that we should not sponsor soley based on past contributions.
> But I also think that we should not sponsor uniquely based on potential
> future contributions. Probably we should not think about this in terms
> of past and future but as current contributions.
This is a fundamental question for the process. Ideally, all the raters should
have this very clear in their mind. So we could agree on something like
(non-english-native speaking):
"""
1) It's not a compensatory sponsorship
2) It's not a promises-based sponsorship neither
3) It's about what you're doing for Debian *now*
Of course we encourage you to tell us about your past contributions if it's
related to your current ativities for the project. Also, if you want to list
your near future plans for Debian please provide us enough details to
avoid falling into 2). Again, more your plans are connected to your
current/recent activities, more the changes to get sponsored.
"""
Also, requesting plans for debconf and a report after the conference...
> I don't see a problem with the "thank you" part of sponsorship iff the
> decision is based on a intent to contribute during Debconf and in the
> future. IMO current contributions are a much more fair indication for
> future contributions than any statement of intent or recomendation.
IMO it should be left as a personal inference from raters, not written
anywhere.
> The basis for all of this is that the sponsorship decision should be
> based on trusting the applicant to be honest. So requesting sponsorship
> to use Debconf as a base camp for visiting the country should not
> happen. To guard against free-riders we should also better keep track of
> past decisions, so that you can only abuse the system once.
>
> >
> > Right. This is a point I have thought about, but cannot come up with a
> > convincing (even for myself) answer. So, maybe we should ask:
> >
> > - What is your general historic involvement in Debian? (to have as a
> > reference)
> > - What are your plans for *this* DebConf, how do yo expect your
> > presence here to be benefical for Debian?
> > - What makes you believe you will achieve it? (i.e. who can vouch for
> > your involvement in a given project, or something like that)
>
> To me these questions seem mostly the same as the ones proposed in the
> initial proposal.
>
> >
> >> Another idea: ask sponsored attendees to write a short report after
> >> Debconf, on their actual work during debconf. It would probably be very
> >> extreme to remove sponsorship after Debconf if the results are not good
> >> enough, but it could be re-used during the next year's process.
> >
> > Right. But I don't want to be among the reviewing people, or chasing
> > around people because they didn't submit their work reports. And we
> > are, after all, not managers and managees(?) - We are a bunch of geeks
> > who allegedly enjoy working together, but sometimes need some monies
> > to do so. Adding such a report would IMO deter from the fun.
>
> I think we could solve this by basing future sponsorship decision on
> this. If someone does not write his report his chances are lower to got
> sponsorship in the future. If we do it that way we also don't need
> someone to chase around people.
>
> As an additional factor I think we should take into account past
> sponsorship decisions. If someone got sponsorship in the past, maybe
> it's time to give the money to someone else. So those that got more
> money in the past should get less sponsorship. I think this should be an
> additional factor beside the need for sponsorship (requested amount),
> the current contributions and the work plan for DebConf.
Agreed.
Is there anyone working on a guideline draft already? If not, could we start?
Is it time to start addressing other important points such as composing the
rating team or so?
Regards and thanks people for giving life back to this, I hope it become a less
stressful process for next DCs.
--
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