Re: [Debconf-team] [Coordination] Timeline changes proposal for DC16
On 25/08/15 at 09:11 +0200, Gaudenz Steinlin wrote:
> >> or people registering because we tell them to, but
> >> then never reconfirming, because they don't intend to attend anymore.
> >
> > I don’t follow it. I think we will have the same problem with people
> > not registering but with preregistration.
>
> But with calling it preregistration and making clear that it's mostly
> for people who request sponsorship there will be less cancelations.
Note that you have two conflicting goals here:
- you want many people to register early, because you want a good
estimate of how many people will attend
- you want people to register only when they are sure they will attend,
because you don't want people to cancel (or just don't show up, if
sponsored)
You might want to think of an incentive, or a penalty for bad behaviour,
here.
> >> The timeline of when things need to happen would be tied to the dates
> >> for the conference. In order for bursaries to have decisions 3 months
> >> before the conference (needed for not-so-expensive flight tickets),
> >> the pre-registration needs to close 4 months before it.
> >> Pre-registration needs to be open at least one month, maybe two.
> >
> > From past experience, the bursaries needs more than one months. The important part is travel sponsorship, especially for Cape Town, and this take much time. But let’s see commentary of bursaries team. (OTOH on your timeline, we have 2 months before opening registration and an additional month before sponsored registration close, so enough time.
> >
> > On past we had A queue and B-C-… queues. Possibly only A queue is
> > processed in such timeline (and other people are notified about they
> > status), so that when sponsored people cancel, we can move fund to the
> > next one.
>
> One month for bursaries is tight, but doable if we are well prepared. 1
> 1/2 months would be better. It mostly needs someone to drive the process
> as David did it this year.
>
> At the bursaries Bof we thought that the idea of sponsoring more people
> as others cancel or don't need the sponsorship anymore worked quite well
> this year. So we will continue to do that.
This sounds wrong to me. For me, the role of bursaries is to decide, for
a specific attendee, if s/he should be sponsored to attend or not.
That's a yes/no question (a hard one, but still). If you end up needing
more budget to cover the sponsorship for all those that should be
sponsored, just ask for more money from Debian.
But deciding that someone's attendance is not worth getting sponsored,
and then, in the end, sponsoring it, sounds like throwing money out of
the window. And on the other hand, deciding that someone should not be
sponsored based on the initial assumption of the sponsorship budget,
even if that person's attendance would be beneficial to DebConf/Debian,
is a net loss for Debian.
Lucas
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