Offering feedback below in case it's helpful... I don't consider myself an arbiter here, more an interested onlooker.
On Thu, Apr 20, 2017 at 12:35:20PM +0200, Brian Exelbierd wrote:
Thank you for doing this Máirín!
On Thu, Apr 20, 2017, at 06:09 AM, Máirín Duffy wrote:
Hi,
As we discussed in a meeting earlier today [1], I worked on putting together how the regcfp registration / financial assistance request system might look accounting for some of the new requirements / ideas / etc. that were expressed by council members on how we'd like to run Flock this year.
This is not a complete set of mock ups (I have some questions to ask before I can mock up the final page and a few cases need to be mocked up, and I forgot halfway to mark required fields, and a random thing I just thought of is super emphasizing their email address and that they need to be contactable, still need to do that), but I think it's enough to seehow the requirements might affect the registration process and the scope of some of the regcfp changes that might be needed to make for a reasonable process.
Let's walk through the mockups:
Page1 - Initial screen, basic details
https://fedoraproject.org/w/uploads/d/db/Regcfp-2017_page1.png
A little letter up front to talk about the changes since last year with some rationale. I made up stuff where I didn't know what to say. This text needs to be drafted / bikeshedded :)
In general, I like all of the text you have come up with, so far.
I suggest the following small modifications:
- Flock now has a nominal registration fee. The goal of this fee is to
decrease the number of no shows. The fee doesn't even begin to cover the cost of attendance, however when registered attendees do not show up we lose money on them through things like food commitments, swag printing, etc. These fees will be used to offset food and other costs. The fees and expenses will be visible in the [Fedora Budget](https://budget.fedoraproject.org)
We are scaling the fee because not all parts of the world have the same economic levels. What is a nominal fee in one country can be very expensive or very cheap in another. We rely on the honesty and integrity of our community to select the appropriate nominal fee below. Note: Not every country in the world is listed. We are scaling using a purchasing power parity index so we had to use the data we could get. If your country isn't listed, please choose a country or region with a similar economic situation.
There will be no registration fee for onsite registration, however you will most likely not be able to attend to any of the evening activities or take advantage of any of the catered food. This is because we set our commitment and planning numbers based on registrations.
- If you are requesting ... [Add sentence] It is possible to include the
registration fee in your funding request.
Suggested Deadline: Closing date of the CFP.
Below this, some basic initial stuff to be filled in.
Question 1:
Can we save partially-filled out registrations? E.g., I fill out everything and get to the travel pricing section and realize I don't have enough time to do the pricing research right then and there? (IF not, we need to make more of an effort to make sure up front users have time to finish it all, and perhaps move the travel stuff forward a screen so they get to it sooner.)
This was part of the reason I was suggesting that the funding request be in a separate system or screen.
I think it's possible for regcfp to separate these modules, similarly to how papers + registration are separated currently. I don't know if that's currently how the payment workflow is set up, although Patrick can tell us.
Question 2:
If there's an error in someones displayed name from FAS, where do we want to point themin order to get it corrected?
They should have to fix it themselves in FAS. I'd rather not have the flock-committee also be the fas-fixing infra ticket filing team. Let's point them to the FAS link.
Agreed.
-Do we require payment of this to submit the registration form,or is it paid later, with any financial assistance copayment as well?
- Is it required for any registrations whether or not you end up going
(you may change your mind if yourtalk isn't accepted) or is it non refundable
- ^^ Whatever the answers here I think we should make it clear with
language in the form around the registration fee itself.
- Registration due date - does this apply to registration itself or
registration + payment, considering next question -
- Can you wait to pay until you find out whether or not your financial
assistance request was accepted? (A reasonable thing to want to do?)
Country selector box: We should repeat the language about choosing an appropriate region/country if yours isn't listed, here.
Country/Fee proposal: (based on the 23 Jan 2017 data set from http://www.economist.com/content/big-mac-index) is at the bottom.
Yeah, ideally it would be awesome if the registration fee were prepopulated based on that data. If I understand the BMI correctly, for example in India the undervaluation of the dollar is -50%, meaning the registration fee should be roughly the equivalent of USD $12.50 in rupees, which is roughly INR 800 as of today according to Google.
https://www.google.com/search?q=12.50+usd+%3D+%3F+inr&oq=12.50+usd+%3D+%...
Page2 - social details, personal reqs
https://fedoraproject.org/w/uploads/d/d0/Regcfp-2017_page2.png
Question 5:
Is blog url used for checking funded participants event reports or is it on badge too?
Neither. I suggest we dump this field.
I don't know that we've ever used this data, so I agree.
Question 6:
Is it ok to make the Twitter field either/or Twitter or Mastodon?
I suggest we dump this field. Instead, if people want this (or the blog) on their badge they can put it in the extra line field.
Not sure we've ever used this data. However the extra line is often used for other bio data. +0.
Page 3 - financial assistance not needed
https://fedoraproject.org/w/uploads/f/f4/Regcfp-2017_page3a.png
I know from one of the regcfp tickets that there was a desire to ask attendees if they'd like to help sponsor other attendees. This doesn't seem to make sense to ask people who have indicated they need financial help, so this mockupsimply demonstrates that logic - if you indicate youdon't need financial assistance, we then ask you if you'd like to chip in to help others.
I believe we should clarify on this that the money is used to increase the funding pool for non-Red Hat employees needing funding to be able to attend Flock.
Right, s/contributor's/volunteer's/
Question 9:
(This affects othermockups too) How should we handle currency? For example, it's hard for me to understand what I can afford and costs of things when they aren't in a currency I understand. Patrick, can we automagically convertinline, and have a field up front to ask users their preferred currency? If someone does something in a given currency are we needing to get conversion fees involved? Etc.?
I believe we should just use USD through out. The Project publicly operates in USD. I believe that our non-USD contributors are used to having to do the conversion. We will always be sending invoices in USD.
Shouldn't affect being able to use the BMI either, since that is based on a % valuation.
Page 3 - financial assistance needed
https://fedoraproject.org/w/uploads/4/43/Regcfp-2017_page3b.png
Holy crap this is very long. Hopefully folks will have ideas on how to cut this down. Originally I had designed a form for indicating flight date/time prefs. I cut itbc it was too much and I wasn't sure you wanted that level of detail.
Okay from the top - I gave folks achance to opt out of air travel. The area is well-connected to multiple ground transit options. Folks as far as Maine and New York City andmaybe even DC could reasonably use Amtrak to get there. There may also be folks who'd be close enough to take a reasonable length bus ride. So I wanted to make it possible to request travel funding without requiring they fill out air travel details.
Huge +1
Wow, this looks *very* complex from a progammatic point of view. Before anyone gets too set on this design, let's make sure it's something Patrick can pull together in time. I see Mo has talked about this below, too.
I put a calendarthat show dates, notes some important time boundaries to be aware of WRT the Logan<=>Cape Cod bus, etc. because I think it's helpful to have that visual when planning out potential travel plans. It's not mean to be clickable, just a reference.
Then we ask for their preferred home airport code, their bestestimate of rt airfare (again we have the currency thing here), and ask for them to upload a PDF or screenshot of how they priced it so we have a reference of the flight numbers / timing / etc. (Patrick if upload is too much, we could just make it a freeform text field and ask for flight details, one flight per line)\
Let's ask for a list of airport codes, in preference order. For example, mine might read "BRQ, VIE, PRG, BTS"
Also, let's not ask for the upload or routing information. Let's instead state that the budget for airfare is based on this estimate. If you horribly underestimate there may not be enough money left to fund you, if you horribly over estimate you will block other attendees from being funded. We rely on the honesty and integrity of our community members to fill out this form accurately.
+1, trust but verify.
Question 10:
What do we cover in terms of non airfare transit that people use to get to/from airport? Cabrides? Train rides? Buses? Personal gas + airport parking? etc? How far?Do we have a document we can point to with this sort of policy?
Generally we cover very little here, but the field above gives us the information we need to make the decisions.
Agreed. People needing assistance should be also taking a reasonable amount of action on their own to cut down costs. Grab a ride with friends, airport dropoff/pickup, etc. We shouldn't need to go quite so far out on the funding limb here.
Ok then next is lodging. Similar to the airfare opt-out, I wanted to allow people to opt-out of requesting help with lodging. Maybe they have a friend in the local area they are staying with or something like that. I thoguht they should be able to opt out.
Again the calendar to help folks figure out how many nights they need.
I totally made up a fake lodging funding policy here- which brings me to
Your policy is "on the money," except that we need to note that all accomodations are one bed in a shared room.
+1
Question 11:
Noting that folks may want to arrive earlier or stay later to go to the beach or be a tourist, do we have a policy on what hotel nights we'll fund? Dowe need to ask how many hotel nights they want vs how many they are requesting be funded? Or if they have extra nights they'll personally fund are they making a separate reservation on their own?
We will work this out on a case by case basis. In general, we fund the nights of the conference and extra nights should be arranged and paid for personally. However, we may need to allow people to have a single reservation for continuity reasons.
Yeah, we should definitely say a number of nights here -- if the minimum stay for a full conference would be arriving on the 28th, and leaving on the 1st, then we should state we fund up to four nights for domestic travelers, and five for international.
Page 4- Cost Summary
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/File:Regcfp-2017_page4.png
A note about meals with a made up statement about what we cover.
We will need to clarify this. But let's roll with this for now. Let's add that no additional meal funding is possible.
A summary ofwhat they told us about their cost.
Let's change "Flock Cost Summary" to "Estimated costs for funding request" as these costs do not represent all costs related to attendance, just funding.
If Airfare is selected, please add a line:
"Travel Booking Fee - Air: $27" *Note price varies slightly for flights based on country of origination.
Let's change "Registration" to "Registration Fee" and just put in the number based on the country they selected on page 1. Let's delete the line about the index.
A selector allowing them to choose the financial assistance they'd like to request.
While I like what you've written here, I am worried that asking the question like this will cause many people to click a box assuming they are asking for 1556.21 in funding, for example, and not realizing they are offering to pay this amount. I am not sure if what I am suggesting is better, but here it is:
This year we want to increase the ability of Flock to fund attendees by offering partial funding options. Please help us understand what level of funding you actually need by selecting how much you can personally contribute to your cost of attending flock. If you are selected for funding, we will confirm all the details with you one last time and then request you to pay your portion to Flock. We will then handle your travel arrangements, etc. for you.
I can contribute the following amount to my cost of attendance:
I don't know that you need so much text here, just makes the form longer. What about just "YOU AGREE TO PAY:"?
If really needed add "from Fedora" to the subsidy, e.g. "20% subsidy from Fedora".
[ ] [blank] I can afford to pay this specific amount. [ ] XXX (80% of the cost of my attendance can be paid by me.
boo passive voice
[ ] XXX (60% of the cost of my attendance can be paid by me. [ ] XXX (50% of the cost of my attendance can be paid by me. [ ] XXX (40% of the cost of my attendance can be paid by me. [ ] XXX (20% of the cost of my attendance can be paid by me. [ ] XXX (10% of the cost of my attendance can be paid by me. [ ] XXX - Just my registration fee can be paid by me. [ ] $0 - I cannot afford to pay any costs on my own.
I *really* like the idea of using "OTHER" for this, not offering options for full subsidy. It doesn't mean people can't request it, but they have to think harder about it. That's not too much to ask IMHO.