Re: [Debconf-team] Food [Re: Registration questions]
On Fri 2015-02-06 04:21:15 -0500, Gaudenz Steinlin wrote:
> I think this is the right approach to the problem Daniel (dkg) was
> worried about in his reply. Finding the right proportion of vegetarian
> food will be an iterative process. I suggest to start with a proportion
> of vegetarian which seems like a bit too much to make sure we don't have
> a shortage for those that only eat vegetarian food and as a safety
> precaution keep some reserve in case we still run out.
Iterative balancing sounds like a sensible approach to me, though i'm
unclear on what "keep some reserve" means -- does it mean we deny
vegetarian food to people who want to eat it? If so, we're back in the
meat-overconsumption dynamic i raised in the first place (though i
appreciate that it would be reduced by deliberately pushing the
proportion of veg:non-veg higher than it has traditionally been).
Without data, how do we choose what proportion should we start with?
How do we know what is "a bit too much"?
One approach would be to start with all-vegetarian and see how many
complaints there are from those who wanted meat but didn't get it. Or
we could ask people to "pre-complain" by giving them a chance to do so
during online registration. This is what drove my initial suggestion of
including something in the dropdown form. I'm open to other suggestions
about how we set the starting point for the iterative balancing, though.
> That's more or less how we approached this during DC13 and there the
> kitchen crew even to some degree self adjusted this. To most important
> thing in my experience is to be in close relation to the venue
> (including the kitchen crew) to be able to adapt and find solutions
> during the event. During DC13 we had a daily coordination meeting with
> them to discuss these things. This is much more important than
> insisting on exact numbers.
I agree that flexibility and a healthy feedback loop during the event is
critical. Many thanks to the people who took part in this work!
All the best,
--dkg
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