Re: [Debconf-team] Online rooms booking systems
On 01/23/2013 08:54 PM, Philip Hands wrote:
> Daniel Pocock <daniel@pocock.com.au> writes:
>>
>> 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 was helping the room assignment "team" on last debconf. All work was
made by ana. I coordinate the input of registration@ with her, and I did
few last-minute assignments. The assignment was done in excel and there
was a lot of revision because of hotel changes (and thus room size).
OTOH in this DebConf things are very different: biggest rooms.
> 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.
IIRC on DebConf12 there was only one no-show and few people (who noticed
us) arrived few days later or renounced to join us because traval (and
visa) problems. IIRC on DebConf11 there was few more no-shows. Few
people registered very late (but we accepted only professional people),
one person arrived early, and one person arrived with two additional kids.
Few people asked to change roommates (or they change room anyway).
Anyway the room assignment team used few information from registration
(name, gender, preferences, languages), so the tools are not so relevant.
ciao
cate
Reply to: