gmane.linux.debian.conference.team

Re: Next team meeting Thursday 23th May 2013 1800 UTC

David Bremner — 2013-05-21T13:11:51


I have a phone meeting at that time, so my participation will be pretty
minimal.  As long as some reasonable sized group of people can
participate at that time, I think it's more important to move forward
with the sponsorship process than wait for a time that everyone can make
it.

d

Re: Accommodation numbers/upgrades/communalaccommodation

Gaudenz Steinlin — 2013-05-21T22:02:50

Hi

Steve Langasek <vorlon< at >debian.org> writes:


This is because of two things: First 7 people did not answer the
question. Second the number of 121 above includes 2 persons who did not
check the "I want to attend" box.

Here is more detailed data also including the camping question:

 communal  | camping | count | 
-----------+---------+-------+
 f         | f       |    16 |
 f         | t       |     1 |
 t         | f       |    79 |
 t         | t       |    16 |
           | t       |     3 |
           | f       |     4 |



As far as I recall we decided to not fill these rooms. The meeting
minutes of the IRC meeting on 8th April seem to somwhat confirm this.
But unfortunately nobody did a "agreed" meetbot command about this, so
it's not super clear. [1] 

But the Pricing page did not get updated after that meeting. So IMO the
wiki page is wrong about this.


Only filling these to 6 seems wrong to me. These are all more modern
rooms than some of the smaller rooms. So I would consider them
equivalent

Next team meeting Thursday 23th May 2013 1800 UTC

Didier 'OdyX' Raboud — 2013-05-21T09:26:40

Hi all,

Sponsored registration has now closed and we apparently collectively forgot to 
call for a meeting today.

I therefore propose to hold a team meeting is on Thursday 23th May at 1800 UTC 
in #debconf-team< at >irc.debian.org [0].

The prospective agenda is below. Please review, add topics I forgot or propose 
topics for removal you think are irrelevant.

https://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf13/Meetings/20130523

Cheers,

OdyX

[0] I know it's off the agreed-upon schedule, but I think it's important to 
have a meeting soon'ish to start the sponsorship/Herb team work. Please 
comment on the proposed time, it's not to tightly fixed.

Re: Accommodation numbers/upgrades/communal accommodation

Steve Langasek — 2013-05-20T23:09:25

Hi Gaudenz,

On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 10:29:52PM +0200, Gaudenz Steinlin wrote:











Thanks for running this query.  It seems that the models advanced for
sponsored attendees by the local team are reasonably accurate, then, and
there is no need for major adjustments to the undersubscription of the
rooms.

Just a couple of things:

 - The early query showed a total of 121 people requesting sponsored
   accomodation, and your query only includes 95+17=112 of these people.  We
   should understand where the other 9 people are.  Have they requested
   sponsored accomodation, but failed to mark "I want to attend this
   conference"? Or are they missing for another reason?  If people failed to
   mark "I want to attend", we should probably consider that a schema bug
   and include such people in the count of possible attendees.

 - I'm very confused by what I find at
   <https://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf13/Pricing>.  I understood that
   there was very strong opposition to filling the largest rooms to the

Re: Accommodation numbers/upgrades/communalaccommodation

Gaudenz Steinlin — 2013-05-20T20:29:52


I just got read access to the penta DB and tried to retrive the data
about the communal accomodation survey [1]:

95 would accept communal accomodation
17 would *not* accept

I'll try to produce more detailed statistics tomorrow.

Gaudenz

[1] I used the following SQL query, wich if I understood the DB layout
right should only include those that requested sponsored accomodation
(accom_id=22) and plan to attend DC13 (attend=true and conference_id=7)

select attend, person.person_id, person.public_name, conference_id,
com_accom from debconf.dc_conference_person join person on
debconf.dc_conference_person.person_id = person.person_id where
conference_id=7 and attend=true and com_accom=false and accom_id=22;

Re: Accommodation numbers/upgrades/communalaccommodation

Gaudenz Steinlin — 2013-05-20T16:08:06

[Ganneff: Could you please add a munin graph with the answers to the com_accom
question or provide the numbers by email, Thanks]

Moray Allan <moray< at >sermisy.org> writes:


The room categories are visible in this munin graph [1]. Additional data
about the "Debian role" is available in the admin interface. 

Current status:
                                All / accompany / interested / None / not selected
Own accomodation:               26 / 0 / 10 / 3 / 0
Sponsored accomodation:        121 / 0 /  5 / 0 / 0
self-paid communal:             16 / 0 /  3 / 1 / 1
self-paid camping:              13 / 1 /  0 / 0 / 0
                               (+ 20 requesting sponsored accomodation and prefering camping)
self-paid 8 bed:                27 / 1 /  3 / 1 / 0
self-paid 2 bed:                27 / 0 /  2 / 0 / 1

Not taking into account any additional requirements this means we have
enough rooms for all these requests.


I think we should as soon as possible confirm the rooms for those that
choose a self-paid room. Fo

Re: Accommodation numbers/upgrades/communalaccommodation

Moray Allan — 2013-05-19T21:54:04

While I remember, on a related note:

It would be very nice if someone could inspect the data at
http://munin.debconf.org/archive/

and see how the final numbers of arrived attendees
http://munin.debconf.org/archive/dc12/skinner.debconf.org-penta_conferences_arrived.html

compare to the number of people who had registered at the date of the 
relevant year's sponsorship deadline in e.g.
http://munin.debconf.org/archive/dc10/skinner.debconf.org-penta_conferences_attend.html
http://munin.debconf.org/archive/dc11/skinner.debconf.org-penta_conferences_attend.html
http://munin.debconf.org/archive/dc12/skinner.debconf.org-penta_conferences_attend.html

Knowing the past range of the ratio (final arrived attendees)/(planned 
attendees at sponsorship deadline) might let us make a better estimate 
for the final number of attendees this year.

Accommodation numbers/upgrades/communal accommodation

Moray Allan — 2013-05-19T21:46:18

We are now (by tomorrow) at the end of the period for applying for 
sponsorship, so the next set of decisions about room utilisation etc. 
should be made soon.

How many people have registered for what room categories currently, and 
how does that compare to the available rooms?  How many sponsored people 
said they would/wouldn't take "communal" accommodation?

We should clarify soon for people already registered what kind of room 
they can expect to receive, and, e.g. give them the chance to pay for a 
better room if they aren't happy with that one.

(That doesn't necessarily mean cheaper "upgrades" beyond the current 
pricing, as some team members suggested, but we should start to clarify 
things beyond the very vague options most people selected so far.)

Re: Call for Help: DebConf travel sponsorship team

Christian PERRIER — 2013-05-17T21:14:29

Quoting Steve Langasek (vorlon< at >debian.org):



That suggestion seems to make sense to me. Indeed, is there a reason
for the team to not start the review until the registration deadline
is over (hmm, maybe clumsy en_FR but you get the point, I guess).

The only problem is that we aren't sure yet of who the Herb team is
made (no idea who had this idea of naming the team "Herb" but it makes
me feel like we're pot smokers as this is what "herbe" means *also* in
French).

Re: Call for Help: DebConf travel sponsorship team

Gunnar Wolf — 2013-05-17T20:52:02

Steve Langasek dijo [Fri, May 17, 2013 at 01:41:11PM -0500]:

Right, I (sh|c)ould have set References: and Reply-To: in my original
mailing :-}


Ok, I'm happy to have the two of you on board \o/


I completely agree, and that's why I have sent related discussions
(the rating mechanism) to the mailing list. Of course, now we have to
discuss based on what to do the rating itself. I expect the mailing
list and the #debconf-team channel to be good venues, prefering the
list as it is archived and easier to follow (or find information in).


Right, important and good suggestions!
_______________________________________________
Debconf-team mailing list
Debconf-team< at >lists.debconf.org
http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-team

Re: Call for Help: DebConf travel sponsorship team

Steve Langasek — 2013-05-17T18:41:11

(Heh.  making people edit References: headers in their mail client, kind of
a high bar, isn't it? ;)



If more volunteers are still needed for the Herb team, I'd be willing to
participate.  I have been a member of the team in the past and am familiar
with the general principles.



I would hope that this process decision is made by the DebConf team as a
whole, and not by the Herb team exclusively, as I think a certain
"separation of powers" is necessary here.  To be precise, the decision about
sponsorship /criteria/ should not be made by the Herb team alone; the Herb
team should have the delegated authority to execute on the sponsorship
criteria, but the criteria themselves should be reached through open,
team-wide dsicussion.


I would like to suggest that any requests that seem "unreasonable" to any
member of the Herb team should be flagged early and immediately result in an
email to the applicant, expressing this concern and requesting
clarification.  Some applicants might have a good reason; others mig

Re: Call for Help: DebConf travel sponsorship team

Lior Kaplan — 2013-05-16T17:47:04


Testing... 1 2 3 (:

Anyway, as stated above - after receiving sponsorship for debconf for a few
years, I'll be happy to help with the process itself.

Kaplan

Re: Rethinking the way travel sponsorship works

Gunnar Wolf — 2013-05-16T15:05:19

Didier 'OdyX' Raboud dijo [Wed, May 15, 2013 at 10:31:54AM +0200]:

Right. I share your concerns. I think the information I would be
comfortable disclosing are aggregated (or even individual) numbers,
stating total travel amount, amount requested/granted by us, and *at
most* a coarse geographical area. So, say, we would report that "we
funded CHF7500 of travel expenses (out of CHF10,350, with CHF2,850
paid by the sponsorees) for the attendance of 6 people coming from
North America". Maybe also the percentage of people requesting
sponsorship that got it — "We managed to sponsor the travel of 45 out
of the 70 people that requested it".


This could work this year, say, for people from Europe. however, if we
were to find a line saying that a Mexican DD got CHF3000, I'm sure I'd
get somebody questioning as to why am I travelling on business class
on Debian funds.

Maybe I'd agree not *publishing* this list, but formally agreeing to
disclose the (full, with names) list to DDs requesting it, subject to
treatment

Re: Traveling information: Train via Germany use "Europa-Spezial Schweiz"

Andreas Tille — 2013-05-16T07:25:36

Hi Daniel,

On Wed, May 15, 2013 at 11:00:55AM +0200, Daniel Pocock wrote:

There is no such thing like "border and back" if you by the "Europa
Spezial" ticket so I can not answer this question.


Feel free to put this information at

   https://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf13/Travel/Train

Kind regards

       Andreas.

Re: DC12 Travel Bursaries ("Herb Team"): Ping? Discussion?

Gunnar Wolf — 2013-05-15T21:57:39

Gaudenz Steinlin dijo [Wed, May 15, 2013 at 09:36:05AM +0200]:

Sure — Lets wait, I hope some people reply, bringing more diversity to
the team.
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Re: Rethinking the way travel sponsorship works

Philip Hands — 2013-05-15T10:29:41


Very true, and that would be the main reason not to do it that way.  It
would be very easy to spend the time available sodding about with a
system for combining votes without ever getting round to giving out the
money.

...

Not really.

The only reason I posted was that Moray appeared to be sifting over the
corpse of one of my old suggestions, and seemed to have missed the point
that I was trying to get across at the time.

So perhaps I was dredging up assumptions I had a few years ago, but I
was mostly starting from the concern that it might seem unfair or simply
opaque to those not involved, and pondering ways to make it so that it
would be easy to see that the process had been designed to be
transparently fair.

If the team from the last couple of years think that there's now enough
diversity, then that's fine as far as I'm concerned.

Also, given that I've repeatedly demonstrated that I'm incapable of
getting myself organised enough to implement any of my mad ideas, I
should probably shut up and let p

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Manager

Re: Rethinking the way travel sponsorship works

Didier 'OdyX' Raboud — 2013-05-15T09:47:54

Hi Philipp,

Le mercredi, 15 mai 2013 10.53:24, Philipp Hug a écrit :

Indeed, thanks for pointing this out. As for the proposal, as mentionned, it's 
only reasonable if we warn the requesters.

Cheers,

OdyX

(P.S. No need to CC me, I'm subscribed.)

Re: Traveling information: Train via Germany use "Europa-Spezial Schweiz"

Daniel Pocock — 2013-05-15T09:00:55

Just out of interest, how much do you pay just for a ticket to the Swiss
border and back?

While there is no detail confirmed about the day trip, people buying
multi-day rail passes would presumably use them to and from the border
and on the day trip as well

The regional pass for "Lake Geneva - Alps" is a typical example but
doesn't stretch to the German border:

http://www.myswitzerland.com/en/regional-pass-lake-geneva-alps-en.html
  (adult, 130 CHF, 7 days)

but for somebody coming from France, assuming that half the price of
that ticket is used for the day trip, and the other half is paying for
arrival/departure, they are paying about 33 CHF each way from the border
to Yverdon.

Re: Rethinking the way travel sponsorship works

Philipp Hug — 2013-05-15T08:53:24

Hi Didier,


You probably misread Gaudenz's email. He was suggesting to publish
only the names without any amount or other details, which is
reasonable IMO.
I agree that we should not publish the amounts as this causes exactly
the problems you mentioned.

Philipp

Re: Rethinking the way travel sponsorship works

Didier 'OdyX' Raboud — 2013-05-15T08:31:54

Hi Gaudenz, hi all,

Le mardi, 14 mai 2013 23.44:06, Gaudenz Steinlin a écrit :

I think that this would be a too big hit on privacy of the beneficiaries of 
travel sponsorship: the "amount-name" relationship is too sensitive to be 
published. Publishing how much the Debian project gave to support who's travel 
IMHO introduces all sort of social biases in unsuspected ways: one's employer, 
partner, friends, family, etc, get to know that "one can't even afford a trip 
to $country", to take a simple example outside Debian. It also helps to game 
the system in future years: "oh, that other DD in my area asked for $amount, I 
can probably get the same even if I don't need it". Even if we try very hard 
to add all sorts of metrics to help the rating, the team is still a set of 
humans applying their common sense on requests that are money-sensitive for 
the affected individuals. That will inevitably lead to having to ''take 
decisions''.

On the other hand, I very much understand the need for transparency: the