Daniel Pocock <daniel@pocock.com.au> writes: > On 23/01/13 18:17, Gaudenz Steinlin wrote: >> Daniel Pocock <daniel@pocock.com.au> writes: >> >>> Philipp Hug <debian@hug.cx> wrote: >>> >>>>> choosing rooms by algorithm only is a sure recipe for desaster. >>>> >>>> I don't think we should automatically assign rooms. >>>> It's better if we let the attendees choose their own room according to >>>> availability. >>>> >>> >>> Can we come up with some solution where people pay and then manage >>> their exact location/room mates through a wiki page? >> >> I don't think that's a good idea because a wiki does not ensure that no >> room will be overbooked or else enforce any allocation rules we might >> want to set. It will create a lot of chaos I fear. >> > > > I wasn't proposing a complete free-for-all > > Another possibility is to use a shopping cart to sell the beds. The > `stock level' feature of the cart software could be used to limit the > number of beds sold. People then organise themselves however they like > through private communications (whether it be wiki, email or whatever) > > The only risk is that people have to accept that if they don't organise > themselves into a group for a room, they will be allocated to any > available bed at random on arrival - but thanks to the stock-level > mechanism, nobody would miss out on the category of bed they actually > paid for. Has anyone that's been responsible for doing the room allocation bit of debconf actually contributed any views to any of these threads yet? I fear that without their input all these ideas that are kicking around will just turn out to be noise what one of them turns up and points out the (probably several) fatal flaws. I'd be happy to be wrong about that of course. I think we normally do a lot better than allocating rooms at random, and even so there are still gripes about it, and last minute changes, so as an uninvolved observer that approach seems likely to end badly. Also, I'd like to know what our past no-show and last-minute-booking rates are, as I have a feeling that they're high enough to break any assumptions along the lines of "just get people to book way in advance, and it'll be fine". At least there seem to have been times when the accommodation team was having to work much harder than you'd expect if those assumptions were true. Cheers, Phil. -- |)| Philip Hands [+44 (0)20 8530 9560] http://www.hands.com/ |-| HANDS.COM Ltd. http://www.uk.debian.org/ |(| 10 Onslow Gardens, South Woodford, London E18 1NE ENGLAND
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