[LGM] reimbursing traveling expenses: for active people or for presentations?

[Alexandre Prokoudine]

On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 2:40 PM, ale rimoldi <a.l.e at ideale.ch> wrote:
> hi
>
> on google+, i read the following post by alexandre prokoudine:
>
> """
> We reimburse travel expenses to people who give talks. Hence you need to
> submit a talk proposal.
> """
>
> i thought that the policy, was that people actively participating in the LGM
> are getting their traveling expenses reimbursed, if they asked for it.

Mmm? Since when?

> it's nice to have talks.
> it's even nicer to have good talks.
> but the most important thing, is that people are there to actively
> participate!

Completely agreed :)

> and it does not really matter if they're giving a talk or not!

Yes, in the past LGM orgs reimbursed teams too. AFAIK, Rawstudio teams
always got reimbursements even though they didn't give talks. How
would that information be of value to Nina Paley, I have no idea :)

> in my eyes, answers like the one quoted above, tend to put a pressure on the
> people to give a talk just to get the traveling costs reimbursed.
> and gives a wrong image of the LGM to the people who have never been there.

Well, I suggest that we have a simple policy about that.

What we deal with is:

- there are people who have a lot to say or do at LGM
- not all of them can fund their trips, and some would even need hotel
expenses reimbursed
- they need to know in advance if they get the funding [*], because
people tend to do planning in advance

[*] We have a rather horrible track record with reimbursements.

> on a side track, i urge you to think about the current policy for
> reimbursement.

Exactly :)

> as i already tried to explain last year, the current policy is not
> compatible with the few team members that don't live in a "western" country.
>
> http://www.indiegogo.com/dmitriev-lgm-2013

And, as you know, it's not the only campaign like that. Sirko has one
of his own too.

Alexandre Prokoudine
http://libregraphicsworld.org