[LGM] 2011/2012

[Dave Neary]

Hi,

a.l.e wrote:
>> It's a departure, but perhaps it's time to bring in an entrance fee?
> 
> well, currently we tend to have everybody attending asking to give a
> talk to get his travelling costs reimboursed...

The conference is important to attend or it isn't. We have less and less
money every year, for more and more requests for funding. Something's
gotta give. If the conference is important enough for a bunch of people
(Louis, Jon, etc) to spend hours organising it, surely it's important
enough for attendees to make an effort to get there.

And I hope for the sake of the conference that we're not linking
reimbursements with talks being accepted... that's a really bad idea,
the two things should be completely independent. As you point out, that
just leads to people without much to say pushing presentation proposals
for boring presentations to get flights paid. If it's worth having them
at LGM, it should be worth having them there whether they give a
presentation or not!

> how does it fit with the idea of an entrance fee?

Conferences cost money and time. Attendees benefit from the conference.
So do sponsors. In general, it's the people who benefit from the
conference who bear the burden of the cost. So you spend time or money
organising the conference. Seems fair to me.

> ... we even had people who didn't want to pay a contribution for the
> museum visit + apéro at the last LGM...

My personal opinion? Fuck 'em, the ungrateful, self-righteous pricks,
with their over-bearing sense of entitlement.


Excuse me if I'm a bit worked up about this issue, but if I was charging
by the hour for all the volunteer time I've put into organising
conferences and meetings voluntarily over the past 8 years, I'd be a
happy man. I've spent hours working on LGMs that I haven't even
*attended* afterwards. And then some snivel-nosed student who had his
flight paid is complaining about paying €5 to get into a place where
he's going to visit a museum and get free drink? Please!

At some point we have to stop being so complexed about saying "everyone
on the organising committee is giving. Don't be such a stingy git, put
your hand in your pocket to help out".

Cheers,
Dave.

-- 
Dave Neary
GNOME Foundation member
dneary at gnome.org