Many speakers (~20) did not register for Flock when submitting their proposals. They didn't want to register because they weren't going to come unless their proposal was accepted.
Problem is, we then don't have their funding request info. If decisions about who is going to be funded are made regardless of whether or not they proposed a talk or not - if someone is essential, we should consider their funding, but if they dont register we dont know how much funding they are asking for.
We should probably separate registration ("Yes, I'm coming") from funding request ("I'd like to come, can you help fund me?")
Another issue is that there were folks that didn't want to register until they knew they were accepted because they didn't want to lose the registration fee. Even though I think we explain we'd refund it. Maybe we should have some mechanism where you're only asked to pay it once your funding request is accepted.
~m
On Thu, 2017-06-22 at 16:57 -0400, Máirín Duffy wrote:
Many speakers (~20) did not register for Flock when submitting their proposals. They didn't want to register because they weren't going to come unless their proposal was accepted.
Problem is, we then don't have their funding request info. If decisions about who is going to be funded are made regardless of whether or not they proposed a talk or not - if someone is essential, we should consider their funding, but if they dont register we dont know how much funding they are asking for.
We should probably separate registration ("Yes, I'm coming") from funding request ("I'd like to come, can you help fund me?")
Another issue is that there were folks that didn't want to register until they knew they were accepted because they didn't want to lose the registration fee. Even though I think we explain we'd refund it. Maybe we should have some mechanism where you're only asked to pay it once your funding request is accepted.
~m _______________________________________________ flock-planning mailing list -- flock-planning@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to flock-planning-leave@lists.fedoraproj ect.org
Many of the other conferences I have attended automatically cover the registration fee for any accepted speakers. Also, if the speaker needs funding they included that in the application...
I think the only issue there is people who would like to attend, but do not have a session approved -- how do we handle that scenario?
If we are funding someone why would we not include the registration fee in that funding?
Charles
Hi Charles,
The issue is if you pay registration fee and then your proposal is not accepted.
~m ----- charles profitt fedora@cprofitt.com wrote:
On Thu, 2017-06-22 at 16:57 -0400, Máirín Duffy wrote:
Many speakers (~20) did not register for Flock when submitting their proposals. They didn't want to register because they weren't going to come unless their proposal was accepted.
Problem is, we then don't have their funding request info. If decisions about who is going to be funded are made regardless of whether or not they proposed a talk or not - if someone is essential, we should consider their funding, but if they dont register we dont know how much funding they are asking for.
We should probably separate registration ("Yes, I'm coming") from funding request ("I'd like to come, can you help fund me?")
Another issue is that there were folks that didn't want to register until they knew they were accepted because they didn't want to lose the registration fee. Even though I think we explain we'd refund it. Maybe we should have some mechanism where you're only asked to pay it once your funding request is accepted.
~m _______________________________________________ flock-planning mailing list -- flock-planning@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to flock-planning-leave@lists.fedoraproj ect.org
Many of the other conferences I have attended automatically cover the registration fee for any accepted speakers. Also, if the speaker needs funding they included that in the application...
I think the only issue there is people who would like to attend, but do not have a session approved -- how do we handle that scenario?
If we are funding someone why would we not include the registration fee in that funding?
Charles
On Thu, Jun 22, 2017 at 09:36:36PM -0400, charles profitt wrote:
Many of the other conferences I have attended automatically cover the registration fee for any accepted speakers. Also, if the speaker needs funding they included that in the application...
We want to decouple community funding from speaking, particularly because speaking is not supposed to be the highlight of the conference. They are related but shouldn't be attached. We intentionally split out the different costs, and speakers are welcome to ask for financial assistance for the registration fee.
I know it's standard for that to be covered for conferences, but that's usually also for conferences where the registration fee is a significant amount of money (hundreds or thousands of dollars). In this case, if the registration fee is a financial burden for *anyone* who should be at Flock, we want to help regardless of what shape their contribution takes.
I think the only issue there is people who would like to attend, but do not have a session approved -- how do we handle that scenario?
I don't think this is a special case.
If we are funding someone why would we not include the registration fee in that funding?
We want to get as many people there as possible. I know for example SUSE's funding for community conferences is a flat 80%. We wanted to be more flexible than that and possibly help people for whom the other 20% is a big problem.
With a binary all-expenses-paid or nothing checkbox, maybe we help one person a lot and someone else not at all. With this system, we might be able to get both people to the conference. Or maybe even more than just those two.
2017-06-22 22:57 GMT+02:00 Máirín Duffy duffy@redhat.com:
Many speakers (~20) did not register for Flock when submitting their proposals. They didn't want to register because they weren't going to come unless their proposal was accepted.
Problem is, we then don't have their funding request info. If decisions about who is going to be funded are made regardless of whether or not they proposed a talk or not - if someone is essential, we should consider their funding, but if they dont register we dont know how much funding they are asking for.
We should probably separate registration ("Yes, I'm coming") from funding request ("I'd like to come, can you help fund me?")
Another issue is that there were folks that didn't want to register until they knew they were accepted because they didn't want to lose the registration fee. Even though I think we explain we'd refund it. Maybe we should have some mechanism where you're only asked to pay it once your funding request is accepted.
~m
Hi,
I'm in that configuration, I have no means to come without funding. Paying registration fees without knowing if I could come in the first place is a bit stretched.
Regards, H.
On Thu, Jun 22, 2017 at 04:57:01PM -0400, Máirín Duffy wrote:
Many speakers (~20) did not register for Flock when submitting their proposals. They didn't want to register because they weren't going to come unless their proposal was accepted.
Maybe this is harsh, but my first reaction is that people who aren't interested in coming if their session proposal isn't accepted have the wrong motiviation for Flock anyway. I think we solve this simply by requiring registration to submit.
On Fri, Jun 23, 2017 at 12:17 PM, Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Thu, Jun 22, 2017 at 04:57:01PM -0400, Máirín Duffy wrote:
Many speakers (~20) did not register for Flock when submitting their proposals. They didn't want to register because they weren't going to come unless their proposal was accepted.
Maybe this is harsh, but my first reaction is that people who aren't interested in coming if their session proposal isn't accepted have the wrong motiviation for Flock anyway. I think we solve this simply by requiring registration to submit.
There are two main cases:
1) I want to attend Flock, but I cannot get my employer/sponsor to fund it if I do not get a talk accepted 2) I want to attend Flock to present about $my_thing but that's about it
You can message to death about not needing to be accepted to be part of Flock in the case of 1, but that's a really hard concept for employers to get their head around. It comes off as "yeah, send your people to Flock because we want more attendees!", which makes it no different than any other conference that just wants people. If you add an explicit *invite* system for people needed and why they are needed, that helps. But I suspect you'll have a lot of people not registering until they get their talk submitted because of that reason.
The second case is probably more in line with your reaction. I'm sure there are people that fall somewhere in between those two though.
josh
On Fri, Jun 23, 2017 at 12:24:58PM -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:
There are two main cases:
- I want to attend Flock, but I cannot get my employer/sponsor to
fund it if I do not get a talk accepted 2) I want to attend Flock to present about $my_thing but that's about it
You can message to death about not needing to be accepted to be part of Flock in the case of 1, but that's a really hard concept for employers to get their head around. It comes off as "yeah, send your people to Flock because we want more attendees!", which makes it no different than any other conference that just wants people. If you add an explicit *invite* system for people needed and why they are needed, that helps. But I suspect you'll have a lot of people not registering until they get their talk submitted because of that reason.
Yeah, that's fair, and I don't really know what to do about it. I like the invite idea. What if we called it a "Contributor Summit" instead of "Conference"? Maybe that will help employers understand? Also, we could possibly add a checkbox to the financial assistance section saying "my employer will fund travel if my talk is accepted, and I need help otherwise".
There's also:
3) i *really* want to come to flock but i cannot afford it on my own (US is expensive, visas are expensive, maybe they are a student or unemployed or otherwise not of means) so i need funding help and part of the reason im proposing a talk is to better my funding chances but if i dont get funding i cant go and i dont want to pay for reg when i cant even go
I think #3 is like 80% of the cases here at the least.
Making people pay to register for something theyre not able to go to seems scammy to me.
~m
On June 23, 2017 12:24:58 PM EDT, Josh Boyer jwboyer@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Fri, Jun 23, 2017 at 12:17 PM, Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Thu, Jun 22, 2017 at 04:57:01PM -0400, Máirín Duffy wrote:
Many speakers (~20) did not register for Flock when submitting their proposals. They didn't want to register because they weren't going to come unless their proposal was accepted.
Maybe this is harsh, but my first reaction is that people who aren't interested in coming if their session proposal isn't accepted have
the
wrong motiviation for Flock anyway. I think we solve this simply by requiring registration to submit.
There are two main cases:
- I want to attend Flock, but I cannot get my employer/sponsor to
fund it if I do not get a talk accepted 2) I want to attend Flock to present about $my_thing but that's about it
You can message to death about not needing to be accepted to be part of Flock in the case of 1, but that's a really hard concept for employers to get their head around. It comes off as "yeah, send your people to Flock because we want more attendees!", which makes it no different than any other conference that just wants people. If you add an explicit *invite* system for people needed and why they are needed, that helps. But I suspect you'll have a lot of people not registering until they get their talk submitted because of that reason.
The second case is probably more in line with your reaction. I'm sure there are people that fall somewhere in between those two though.
josh _______________________________________________ flock-planning mailing list -- flock-planning@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to flock-planning-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org
Oh and my reason for starting this thtead is bc i dont think we should ask for reg fee until funding is decided. It would simplify and lessen confusion imho.
~m
On June 23, 2017 9:39:54 PM EDT, "Máirín Duffy" duffy@fedoraproject.org wrote:
There's also:
- i *really* want to come to flock but i cannot afford it on my own
(US is expensive, visas are expensive, maybe they are a student or unemployed or otherwise not of means) so i need funding help and part of the reason im proposing a talk is to better my funding chances but if i dont get funding i cant go and i dont want to pay for reg when i cant even go
I think #3 is like 80% of the cases here at the least.
Making people pay to register for something theyre not able to go to seems scammy to me.
~m
On June 23, 2017 12:24:58 PM EDT, Josh Boyer jwboyer@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Fri, Jun 23, 2017 at 12:17 PM, Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Thu, Jun 22, 2017 at 04:57:01PM -0400, Máirín Duffy wrote:
Many speakers (~20) did not register for Flock when submitting
their
proposals. They didn't want to register because they weren't going to come unless their proposal was accepted.
Maybe this is harsh, but my first reaction is that people who aren't interested in coming if their session proposal isn't accepted have
the
wrong motiviation for Flock anyway. I think we solve this simply by requiring registration to submit.
There are two main cases:
- I want to attend Flock, but I cannot get my employer/sponsor to
fund it if I do not get a talk accepted 2) I want to attend Flock to present about $my_thing but that's about it
You can message to death about not needing to be accepted to be part of Flock in the case of 1, but that's a really hard concept for employers to get their head around. It comes off as "yeah, send your people to Flock because we want more attendees!", which makes it no different than any other conference that just wants people. If you add an explicit *invite* system for people needed and why they are needed, that helps. But I suspect you'll have a lot of people not registering until they get their talk submitted because of that reason.
The second case is probably more in line with your reaction. I'm sure there are people that fall somewhere in between those two though.
josh _______________________________________________ flock-planning mailing list -- flock-planning@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to flock-planning-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org
-- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
On 23 June 2017 at 21:42, Máirín Duffy duffy@fedoraproject.org wrote:
Oh and my reason for starting this thtead is bc i dont think we should ask for reg fee until funding is decided. It would simplify and lessen confusion imho.
~m
I don't think there is a way we can please everyone here. The reason for asking the fee was to get the N% of declared attendees who don't show up to not sign up. This was an expensive throw-away funding on food, t-shirts, and other bookings that could have been spent on getting people who needed funding there. However the opposite is also true, there are some M% of people who are not going to sign up because they needed funding in the first place.
That said, we should not put too much correlation and causation into people attending this year. There are multiple reasons bookings are down for this and many other shows: 1. People from outside the US are less likely to travel to the US currently. * 2. People inside the US are less likely to travel this year it would seem.* 3. While we are getting great rates, they aren't the 'normal' fudcon or local LUG rates various people may be looking at. Even with funding promised that may be more than people want to take on.
Add onto that we want this to be a do-er event and many people go to shows to listen to talks versus doing stuff. They may not feel they can do stuff or that there is anything they want to do do when they get there. Many others are going to look at what is going to be done and then decide whether they want to go. Which would happen whether or not there was a payment at the front.
* From reading about other tech events, they are seeing around a 50% drop of outside of the US currently and they are seeing a drop 20-30% drop of inside the US.
On June 23, 2017 9:39:54 PM EDT, "Máirín Duffy" duffy@fedoraproject.org wrote:
There's also:
- i *really* want to come to flock but i cannot afford it on my own (US
is expensive, visas are expensive, maybe they are a student or unemployed or otherwise not of means) so i need funding help and part of the reason im proposing a talk is to better my funding chances but if i dont get funding i cant go and i dont want to pay for reg when i cant even go
I think #3 is like 80% of the cases here at the least.
Making people pay to register for something theyre not able to go to seems scammy to me.
~m
On June 23, 2017 12:24:58 PM EDT, Josh Boyer jwboyer@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Fri, Jun 23, 2017 at 12:17 PM, Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Thu, Jun 22, 2017 at 04:57:01PM -0400, Máirín Duffy wrote:
Many speakers (~20) did not register for Flock when submitting their proposals. They didn't want to register because they weren't going to come unless their proposal was accepted.
Maybe this is harsh, but my first reaction is that people who aren't interested in coming if their session proposal isn't accepted have the wrong motiviation for Flock anyway. I think we solve this simply by requiring registration to submit.
There are two main cases:
- I want to attend Flock, but I cannot get my employer/sponsor to
fund it if I do not get a talk accepted 2) I want to attend Flock to present about $my_thing but that's about it
You can message to death about not needing to be accepted to be part of Flock in the case of 1, but that's a really hard concept for employers to get their head around. It comes off as "yeah, send your people to Flock because we want more attendees!", which makes it no different than any other conference that just wants people. If you add an explicit *invite* system for people needed and why they are needed, that helps. But I suspect you'll have a lot of people not registering until they get their talk submitted because of that reason.
The second case is probably more in line with your reaction. I'm sure there are people that fall somewhere in between those two though.
josh ________________________________
flock-planning mailing list -- flock-planning@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to flock-planning-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org
-- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
flock-planning mailing list -- flock-planning@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to flock-planning-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org
On Sat, 2017-06-24 at 12:09 -0400, Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
I don't think there is a way we can please everyone here. The reason for asking the fee was to get the N% of declared attendees who don't show up to not sign up. This was an expensive throw-away funding on food, t-shirts, and other bookings that could have been spent on getting people who needed funding there. However the opposite is also true, there are some M% of people who are not going to sign up because they needed funding in the first place.
That is what I thought the registration was for. In this case I think it is very easy to waive the registration fee for any accepted speakers. If the registration fee is required to make the event happen then we should have the acceptance of the session include an invitation to register.
Add onto that we want this to be a do-er event and many people go to shows to listen to talks versus doing stuff. They may not feel they can do stuff or that there is anything they want to do do when they get there. Many others are going to look at what is going to be done and then decide whether they want to go. Which would happen whether or not there was a payment at the front.
How much is this a 'know and do' vs. a 'learn and do'? If we are more of a 'learn and do' then registration may pickup once people see the sessions that are accepted.
- From reading about other tech events, they are seeing around a 50%
drop of outside of the US currently and they are seeing a drop 20-30% drop of inside the US.
I agree. Right now travel to the US is potentially an issue with bringing electronics (which a doer conference would require). I really do think the atmosphere around US travel at this point is causing a decline in attendance.
----
I may have read things incorrectly or not properly expressed myself in previous emails... so I would like to clarify.
I am interpreting the original issue posted as one regarding potential presenters not being registered. I did not interpret this as an issue with general attendees. Is that accurate?
My original suggestion was that anyone with an accepted session would have their registration waived and be automatically registered. I suggested this because it would avoid the issue of someone having to pay for registration w/o knowing if their session had been accepted.
I also suggested having the application for funding (for presenters) be part of the CFP process. This would allow the organizers to choose to decline a presenter if there was not enough to fund their attendance. This would avoid the issue of accepting the session only to find out the presented is unable to attend w/o funding. It would also ensure that we have a presenters funding request info.
I have not gone through the process so I am not sure if that is already how things are being done... so I may be way off-base here.
---- As for attendees who are not holding sessions and funding. We could provide the ability for there to be conditional registrations. In general having registration fees is a 'must do' to avoid issues of spending money on food, services, swag that will go unused if people do not show up.
---- In general it would be great if a way could be found to ensure that the financial risk be minimized for both Fedora and the potential attendees / presenters. Getting to such a solution is not easy, but tweaking things to make it better is a positive path.
I hope I got understood properly and better explained what my thoughts were.
Charles
On Sat, Jun 24, 2017, at 08:46 PM, charles profitt wrote:
On Sat, 2017-06-24 at 12:09 -0400, Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
I don't think there is a way we can please everyone here. The reason for asking the fee was to get the N% of declared attendees who don't show up to not sign up. This was an expensive throw-away funding on food, t-shirts, and other bookings that could have been spent on getting people who needed funding there. However the opposite is also true, there are some M% of people who are not going to sign up because they needed funding in the first place.
That is what I thought the registration was for. In this case I think it is very easy to waive the registration fee for any accepted speakers. If the registration fee is required to make the event happen then we should have the acceptance of the session include an invitation to register.
The message I took from the Council was separate the idea of presenting from attending and make it clear that presenters are not giving talks, they are helping us all do something. They are not inherently more worthy of funding. If a presenter needs funding they should apply for it. If they don't, then they don't have to apply. I don't think that waiving reg fees for presenters is automatically a good idea. This isn't being done for any group of people.
Add onto that we want this to be a do-er event and many people go to shows to listen to talks versus doing stuff. They may not feel they can do stuff or that there is anything they want to do do when they get there. Many others are going to look at what is going to be done and then decide whether they want to go. Which would happen whether or not there was a payment at the front.
How much is this a 'know and do' vs. a 'learn and do'? If we are more of a 'learn and do' then registration may pickup once people see the sessions that are accepted.
I agree and hope this is the case.
- From reading about other tech events, they are seeing around a 50%
drop of outside of the US currently and they are seeing a drop 20-30% drop of inside the US.
I agree. Right now travel to the US is potentially an issue with bringing electronics (which a doer conference would require). I really do think the atmosphere around US travel at this point is causing a decline in attendance.
I may have read things incorrectly or not properly expressed myself in previous emails... so I would like to clarify.
I am interpreting the original issue posted as one regarding potential presenters not being registered. I did not interpret this as an issue with general attendees. Is that accurate?
My original suggestion was that anyone with an accepted session would have their registration waived and be automatically registered. I suggested this because it would avoid the issue of someone having to pay for registration w/o knowing if their session had been accepted.
I also suggested having the application for funding (for presenters) be part of the CFP process. This would allow the organizers to choose to decline a presenter if there was not enough to fund their attendance. This would avoid the issue of accepting the session only to find out the presented is unable to attend w/o funding. It would also ensure that we have a presenters funding request info.
The Council was very direct in their intention to disconnect funding from talking to encourage those participating to apply. This does mean that for speakers they have to fill out two multi-part forms instead of one. I don't feel like this overhead was unreasonable.
I have not gone through the process so I am not sure if that is already how things are being done... so I may be way off-base here.
As for attendees who are not holding sessions and funding. We could provide the ability for there to be conditional registrations. In general having registration fees is a 'must do' to avoid issues of spending money on food, services, swag that will go unused if people do not show up.
What I think really got missed in this process by accident was trying to better identify from presenters who needed to be present in order for that do-session to be successful. This is something I'd like to explore more, pending feedback from the actual event.
In general it would be great if a way could be found to ensure that the financial risk be minimized for both Fedora and the potential attendees / presenters. Getting to such a solution is not easy, but tweaking things to make it better is a positive path.
I think the Funding FAQs are indicating that this is the general goal. Those were written after this email chain.
regards,
bex
I hope I got understood properly and better explained what my thoughts were.
Charles _______________________________________________ flock-planning mailing list -- flock-planning@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to flock-planning-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org Email had 1 attachment:
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On Sat, Jun 24, 2017 at 12:09 PM, Stephen John Smoogen smooge@gmail.com wrote:
This was an expensive throw-away funding on food, t-shirts, and other bookings that could have been spent on getting people who needed funding there.
Factual correction here -- not really. Generally speaking, we've had about as many walk-ins as no-shows, so it evens out. The badges are wasted, but in the grand scheme of cost, that's not that big of a deal.
On Jun 24, 2017 6:47 PM, "Ruth Suehle" rsuehle@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Jun 24, 2017 at 12:09 PM, Stephen John Smoogen smooge@gmail.com wrote:
This was an expensive throw-away funding on food, t-shirts, and other bookings that could have been spent on getting people who needed funding there.
Factual correction here -- not really. Generally speaking, we've had about as many walk-ins as no-shows, so it evens out. The badges are wasted, but in the grand scheme of cost, that's not that big of a deal.
I wonder with the focus on doing this year if the walk-in numbers will be similar. Most walk-ins aren't there to do. They are there to learn.
The location might help pull in walk-ins that can work on things from the local offices, but other than that I would expect fewer this year.
josh
I get the point of the reg fee, just decide funding first and put a deadline in reg fee. Dont count registrants who have an unpaid fee in counts for things.
~m
On June 24, 2017 12:09:44 PM EDT, Stephen John Smoogen smooge@gmail.com wrote:
On 23 June 2017 at 21:42, Máirín Duffy duffy@fedoraproject.org wrote:
Oh and my reason for starting this thtead is bc i dont think we
should ask
for reg fee until funding is decided. It would simplify and lessen
confusion
imho.
~m
I don't think there is a way we can please everyone here. The reason for asking the fee was to get the N% of declared attendees who don't show up to not sign up. This was an expensive throw-away funding on food, t-shirts, and other bookings that could have been spent on getting people who needed funding there. However the opposite is also true, there are some M% of people who are not going to sign up because they needed funding in the first place.
That said, we should not put too much correlation and causation into people attending this year. There are multiple reasons bookings are down for this and many other shows:
- People from outside the US are less likely to travel to the US
currently. * 2. People inside the US are less likely to travel this year it would seem.* 3. While we are getting great rates, they aren't the 'normal' fudcon or local LUG rates various people may be looking at. Even with funding promised that may be more than people want to take on.
Add onto that we want this to be a do-er event and many people go to shows to listen to talks versus doing stuff. They may not feel they can do stuff or that there is anything they want to do do when they get there. Many others are going to look at what is going to be done and then decide whether they want to go. Which would happen whether or not there was a payment at the front.
- From reading about other tech events, they are seeing around a 50%
drop of outside of the US currently and they are seeing a drop 20-30% drop of inside the US.
On June 23, 2017 9:39:54 PM EDT, "Máirín Duffy"
wrote:
There's also:
- i *really* want to come to flock but i cannot afford it on my own
(US
is expensive, visas are expensive, maybe they are a student or
unemployed or
otherwise not of means) so i need funding help and part of the
reason im
proposing a talk is to better my funding chances but if i dont get
funding i
cant go and i dont want to pay for reg when i cant even go
I think #3 is like 80% of the cases here at the least.
Making people pay to register for something theyre not able to go to
seems
scammy to me.
~m
On June 23, 2017 12:24:58 PM EDT, Josh Boyer
wrote:
On Fri, Jun 23, 2017 at 12:17 PM, Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Thu, Jun 22, 2017 at 04:57:01PM -0400, Máirín Duffy wrote:
Many speakers (~20) did not register for Flock when submitting
their
proposals. They didn't want to register because they weren't
going
to come unless their proposal was accepted.
Maybe this is harsh, but my first reaction is that people who
aren't
interested in coming if their session proposal isn't accepted
have the
wrong motiviation for Flock anyway. I think we solve this simply
by
requiring registration to submit.
There are two main cases:
- I want to attend Flock, but I cannot get my employer/sponsor to
fund it if I do not get a talk accepted 2) I want to attend Flock to present about $my_thing but that's
about it
You can message to death about not needing to be accepted to be
part
of Flock in the case of 1, but that's a really hard concept for employers to get their head around. It comes off as "yeah, send
your
people to Flock because we want more attendees!", which makes it no different than any other conference that just wants people. If you add an explicit *invite* system for people needed and why they are needed, that helps. But I suspect you'll have a lot of people not registering until they get their talk submitted because of that reason.
The second case is probably more in line with your reaction. I'm
sure
there are people that fall somewhere in between those two though.
josh ________________________________
flock-planning mailing list --
flock-planning@lists.fedoraproject.org
To unsubscribe send an email to flock-planning-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org
-- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
flock-planning mailing list -- flock-planning@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to
flock-planning-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org
-- Stephen J Smoogen.
In rereading my reply, I was crass and I apologize. I wanted to put the reasons for why the expense was added clearly so the rest of my sentences made sense in my head but worded it like you didn't know. That was rude and not helpful.
On 25 June 2017 at 13:54, Máirín Duffy duffy@fedoraproject.org wrote:
I get the point of the reg fee, just decide funding first and put a deadline in reg fee. Dont count registrants who have an unpaid fee in counts for things.
~m
On June 24, 2017 12:09:44 PM EDT, Stephen John Smoogen smooge@gmail.com wrote:
On 23 June 2017 at 21:42, Máirín Duffy duffy@fedoraproject.org wrote:
Oh and my reason for starting this thtead is bc i dont think we should ask for reg fee until funding is decided. It would simplify and lessen confusion imho.
~m
I don't think there is a way we can please everyone here. The reason for asking the fee was to get the N% of declared attendees who don't show up to not sign up. This was an expensive throw-away funding on food, t-shirts, and other bookings that could have been spent on getting people who needed funding there. However the opposite is also true, there are some M% of people who are not going to sign up because they needed funding in the first place.
That said, we should not put too much correlation and causation into people attending this year. There are multiple reasons bookings are down for this and many other shows:
- People from outside the US are less likely to travel to the US
currently. * 2. People inside the US are less likely to travel this year it would seem.* 3. While we are getting great rates, they aren't the 'normal' fudcon or local LUG rates various people may be looking at. Even with funding promised that may be more than people want to take on.
Add onto that we want this to be a do-er event and many people go to shows to listen to talks versus doing stuff. They may not feel they can do stuff or that there is anything they want to do do when they get there. Many others are going to look at what is going to be done and then decide whether they want to go. Which would happen whether or not there was a payment at the front.
- From reading about other tech events, they are seeing around a 50%
drop of outside of the US currently and they are seeing a drop 20-30% drop of inside the US.
On June 23, 2017 9:39:54 PM EDT, "Máirín Duffy" duffy@fedoraproject.org wrote:
There's also:
- i *really* want to come to flock but i cannot afford it on my own
(US is expensive, visas are expensive, maybe they are a student or unemployed or otherwise not of means) so i need funding help and part of the reason im proposing a talk is to better my funding chances but if i dont get funding i cant go and i dont want to pay for reg when i cant even go
I think #3 is like 80% of the cases here at the least.
Making people pay to register for something theyre not able to go to seems scammy to me.
~m
On June 23, 2017 12:24:58 PM EDT, Josh Boyer jwboyer@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Fri, Jun 23, 2017 at 12:17 PM, Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Thu, Jun 22, 2017 at 04:57:01PM -0400, Máirín Duffy wrote: > > > Many speakers (~20) did not register for Flock when submitting > their > proposals. They didn't want to register because they weren't going > to come unless their proposal was accepted.
Maybe this is harsh, but my first reaction is that people who aren't interested in coming if their session proposal isn't accepted have the wrong motiviation for Flock anyway. I think we solve this simply by requiring registration to submit.
There are two main cases:
- I want to attend Flock, but I cannot get my employer/sponsor to
fund it if I do not get a talk accepted 2) I want to attend Flock to present about $my_thing but that's about it
You can message to death about not needing to be accepted to be part of Flock in the case of 1, but that's a really hard concept for employers to get their head around. It comes off as "yeah, send your people to Flock because we want more attendees!", which makes it no different than any other conference that just wants people. If you add an explicit *invite* system for people needed and why they are needed, that helps. But I suspect you'll have a lot of people not registering until they get their talk submitted because of that reason.
The second case is probably more in line with your reaction. I'm sure there are people that fall somewhere in between those two though.
josh ________________________________
flock-planning mailing list -- flock-planning@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to flock-planning-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org
-- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
flock-planning mailing list -- flock-planning@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to flock-planning-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org
-- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
On Sun, Jun 25, 2017, at 07:54 PM, Máirín Duffy wrote:
I get the point of the reg fee, just decide funding first and put a deadline in reg fee. Dont count registrants who have an unpaid fee in counts for things.
This is the process we are following.
regards,
bex
~m
On June 24, 2017 12:09:44 PM EDT, Stephen John Smoogen smooge@gmail.com wrote:>> On 23 June 2017 at 21:42, Máirín Duffy duffy@fedoraproject.org wrote:
Oh and my reason for starting this thtead is bc i dont think we should ask
for reg fee until funding is decided. It would simplify and lessen confusion imho.
~m
I don't think there is a way we can please everyone here. The reason
for asking the fee was to get the N% of declared attendees who don't show up to not sign up. This was an expensive throw-away funding on food, t-shirts, and other bookings that could have been spent on getting people who needed funding there. However the opposite is also true, there are some M% of people who are not going to sign up because they needed funding in the first place.
That said, we should not put too much correlation and causation into
people attending this year. There are multiple reasons bookings are down for this and many other shows:
- People from outside the US are less likely to travel to the US currently. *
- People inside the US are less likely to travel this year it would seem.*
- While we are getting great rates, they aren't the 'normal' fudcon
or local LUG rates various people may be looking at. Even with funding promised that may be more than people want to take on.
Add onto that we want this to be a do-er event and many people go to
shows to listen to talks versus doing stuff. They may not feel they can do stuff or that there is anything they want to do do when they get there. Many others are going to look at what is going to be done and then decide whether they want to go. Which would happen whether or not there was a payment at the front.
- From reading about other tech events, they are seeing around a 50%
drop of outside of the US currently and they are seeing a drop 20-30% drop of inside the US.
On June 23, 2017 9:39:54 PM EDT, "Máirín Duffy" duffy@fedoraproject.org
wrote:
There's also:
- i *really* want to come to flock but i cannot afford it on my own (US
>> is expensive, visas are expensive, maybe they are a student or unemployed or >> otherwise not of means) so i need funding help and part of the reason im >> proposing a talk is to better my funding chances but if i dont get funding i >> cant go and i dont want to pay for reg when i cant even go
I think #3 is like 80% of the cases here at the least.
Making people pay to register for something theyre not able to go to seems
>> scammy to me.
~m
On June 23, 2017 12:24:58 PM EDT, Josh Boyer jwboyer@fedoraproject.org
>> wrote:
On Fri, Jun 23, 2017 at 12:17 PM, Matthew Miller
mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Thu, Jun 22, 2017 at 04:57:01PM -0400, Máirín Duffy wrote: >>>>>>> > > Many speakers (~20) did not register for Flock when submitting their > >>>>>>> proposals. They didn't want to register because they weren't going > >>>>>>> to come unless their proposal was accepted. >
Maybe this is harsh, but my first reaction is that people who aren't >>>>>> interested in coming if their session proposal isn't accepted have the >>>>>> wrong motiviation for Flock anyway. I think we solve this simply by >>>>>> requiring registration to submit.
There are two main cases:
- I want to attend Flock, but I cannot get my employer/sponsor to
>>>> fund it if I do not get a talk accepted
- I want to attend Flock to present about $my_thing but that's about it
>>>>
You can message to death about not needing to be accepted to be part
>>>> of Flock in the case of 1, but that's a really hard concept for >>>> employers to get their head around. It comes off as "yeah, send your >>>> people to Flock because we want more attendees!", which makes it no >>>> different than any other conference that just wants people. If you >>>> add an explicit *invite* system for people needed and why they are >>>> needed, that helps. But I suspect you'll have a lot of people not >>>> registering until they get their talk submitted because of that >>>> reason.
The second case is probably more in line with your reaction. I'm sure
>>>> there are people that fall somewhere in between those two though. >>>>
josh
flock-planning mailing list -- flock-planning@lists.fedoraproject.org
>>>> To unsubscribe send an email to
flock-planning-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org
--
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
flock-planning mailing list -- flock-planning@lists.fedoraproject.org
To unsubscribe send an email to flock-planning-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org
-- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity. > _________________________________________________ flock-planning mailing list -- flock-planning@lists.fedoraproject.org> To unsubscribe send an email to flock-planning-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org
It is not at all clear.
~m
On July 7, 2017 8:15:24 AM EDT, Brian Exelbierd bex@pobox.com wrote:
On Sun, Jun 25, 2017, at 07:54 PM, Máirín Duffy wrote:
I get the point of the reg fee, just decide funding first and put a
deadline in reg fee. Dont count registrants who have an unpaid fee in counts for things. This is the process we are following.
regards,
bex
~m
On June 24, 2017 12:09:44 PM EDT, Stephen John Smoogen
smooge@gmail.com wrote:>> On 23 June 2017 at 21:42, Máirín Duffy duffy@fedoraproject.org wrote:
Oh and my reason for starting this thtead is bc i dont think we
should ask
> for reg fee until funding is decided. It would simplify and
lessen confusion
> imho.
~m
I don't think there is a way we can please everyone here. The reason
for asking the fee was to get the N% of declared attendees who
don't
show up to not sign up. This was an expensive throw-away funding
on
food, t-shirts, and other bookings that could have been spent on getting people who needed funding there. However the opposite is
also
true, there are some M% of people who are not going to sign up
because
they needed funding in the first place.
That said, we should not put too much correlation and causation into
people attending this year. There are multiple reasons bookings
are
down for this and many other shows:
- People from outside the US are less likely to travel to the US
currently. *
- People inside the US are less likely to travel this year it
would seem.*
- While we are getting great rates, they aren't the 'normal'
fudcon
or local LUG rates various people may be looking at. Even with
funding
promised that may be more than people want to take on.
Add onto that we want this to be a do-er event and many people go to
shows to listen to talks versus doing stuff. They may not feel
they
can do stuff or that there is anything they want to do do when
they
get there. Many others are going to look at what is going to be
done
and then decide whether they want to go. Which would happen
whether or
not there was a payment at the front.
- From reading about other tech events, they are seeing around a 50%
drop of outside of the US currently and they are seeing a drop
20-30%
drop of inside the US.
On June 23, 2017 9:39:54 PM EDT, "Máirín Duffy"
> wrote:
There's also:
- i *really* want to come to flock but i cannot afford it on my
own (US
>>> is expensive, visas are expensive, maybe they are a student
or unemployed or
>>> otherwise not of means) so i need funding help and part of
the reason im
>>> proposing a talk is to better my funding chances but if i
dont get funding i
>>> cant go and i dont want to pay for reg when i cant even go
I think #3 is like 80% of the cases here at the least.
Making people pay to register for something theyre not able to go
to seems
>>> scammy to me.
~m
On June 23, 2017 12:24:58 PM EDT, Josh Boyer
>>> wrote:
On Fri, Jun 23, 2017 at 12:17 PM, Matthew Miller
mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
> > > On Thu, Jun 22, 2017 at 04:57:01PM -0400, Máirín Duffy wrote: > >>>>>>> >> >> Many speakers (~20) did not register for Flock when
submitting their
>> >>>>>>> proposals. They didn't want to register because they
weren't going
>> >>>>>>> to come unless their proposal was accepted. >> > > > > > Maybe this is harsh, but my first reaction is that people who
aren't
> >>>>>> interested in coming if their session proposal isn't
accepted have the
> >>>>>> wrong motiviation for Flock anyway. I think we solve
this simply by
> >>>>>> requiring registration to submit. >
There are two main cases:
- I want to attend Flock, but I cannot get my employer/sponsor
to
>>>>> fund it if I do not get a talk accepted
- I want to attend Flock to present about $my_thing but that's
about it
>>>>>
You can message to death about not needing to be accepted to be
part
>>>>> of Flock in the case of 1, but that's a really hard
concept for
>>>>> employers to get their head around. It comes off as
"yeah, send your
>>>>> people to Flock because we want more attendees!", which
makes it no
>>>>> different than any other conference that just wants
people. If you
>>>>> add an explicit *invite* system for people needed and why
they are
>>>>> needed, that helps. But I suspect you'll have a lot of
people not
>>>>> registering until they get their talk submitted because of
that
>>>>> reason.
The second case is probably more in line with your reaction.
I'm sure
>>>>> there are people that fall somewhere in between those two
though.
>>>>>
josh
flock-planning mailing list --
flock-planning@lists.fedoraproject.org
>>>>> To unsubscribe send an email to
flock-planning-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org
--
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my
brevity.
>
flock-planning mailing list --
flock-planning@lists.fedoraproject.org
> To unsubscribe send an email to
flock-planning-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org
-- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity. _________________________________________________ flock-planning mailing list --
flock-planning@lists.fedoraproject.org> To unsubscribe send an email to flock-planning-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org
On Sat, Jun 24, 2017, at 03:39 AM, Máirín Duffy wrote:
There's also:
- i *really* want to come to flock but i cannot afford it on my own (US is expensive, visas are expensive, maybe they are a student or unemployed or otherwise not of means) so i need funding help and part of the reason im proposing a talk is to better my funding chances but if i dont get funding i cant go and i dont want to pay for reg when i cant even go>
I think #3 is like 80% of the cases here at the least.
Making people pay to register for something theyre not able to go to seems scammy to me.
As a note, no one has been required to pay a registration fee before they are ready to, regardless of how they define ready. It was possbile to register and not pay or to register and request hte fees be covered as part of the sponsorship. It was even possible to set the fee to zero.
Many people have done this.
Unrelated, so far the only paid cancellation has without prompting in their cancellation asked to forfeit the fee to put a little bit of funding to someone who can come. We could do refunds on any that had to be refunded. All of this should be clarified in our messaging if we continue this and is in my notes for next year. regards,
bex
~m
On June 23, 2017 12:24:58 PM EDT, Josh Boyer jwboyer@fedoraproject.org wrote:>> On Fri, Jun 23, 2017 at 12:17 PM, Matthew Miller
mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Thu, Jun 22, 2017 at 04:57:01PM -0400, Máirín Duffy wrote:
> Many speakers (~20) did not register for Flock when submitting their >> proposals. They didn't want to register because they weren't going >> to come unless their proposal was accepted.
Maybe this is harsh, but my first reaction is that people who aren't
interested in coming if their session proposal isn't accepted have the wrong motiviation for Flock anyway. I think we solve this simply by requiring registration to submit.
There are two main cases:
- I want to attend Flock, but I cannot get my employer/sponsor to
fund it if I do not get a talk accepted
- I want to attend Flock to present about $my_thing but that's about it
You can message to death about not needing to be accepted to be part
of Flock in the case of 1, but that's a really hard concept for
employers to get their head around. It comes off as "yeah, send your
people to Flock because we want more attendees!", which makes it no different than any other conference that just wants people. If you add an explicit *invite* system for people needed and why they are needed, that helps. But I suspect you'll have a lot of people not registering until they get their talk submitted because of that
reason.
The second case is probably more in line with your reaction. I'm sure
there are people that fall somewhere in between those two though.
josh
flock-planning mailing list -- flock-planning@lists.fedoraproject.org
To unsubscribe send an email to flock-planning-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org
-- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity. > _________________________________________________ flock-planning mailing list -- flock-planning@lists.fedoraproject.org> To unsubscribe send an email to flock-planning-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org
flock-planning@lists.fedoraproject.org
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Brian Exelbierd -
charles profitt -
Haïkel -
Josh Boyer -
Matthew Miller -
Máirín Duffy -
Máirín Duffy -
Ruth Suehle -
Stephen John Smoogen