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

[Dave Neary]

Hi ALE,

My position has always been "make the conference as good as possible".

At the start, the goal of the conference was to get a critical mass of 
developers from key graphics projects together so that they could have 
team meetings, and so that we could have cross pollination across the 
projects. The talks were just our "rent" so that we could put on some 
content targeted at staff & students.

As the conference evolved, it became a goal to broaden both the scope 
(in terms of projects represented) and depth (in terms of the types of 
attendees, getting more artists for example) of the conference.

Certainly, putting the developers of the GIMP with their most passionate 
users was a goal of mine for the first one, and the reason why I was 
delighted to have AndyFitz give a talk on his workflow with the free 
tools so that people could see live how a graphic designer uses them.

I specifically wanted to avoid "talk for costs" discussions, because I 
wanted to choose the content to set the tone for the conference, and not 
force people to submit content which might turn out to not be so 
interesting, just to get costs paid.


As I say *every time* a "what is the process?" discussion comes up: go 
beyond the process, think about what we want to achieve, and the 
decisions will be easier. Start with the goals, let the process grow 
from that.

Is person X travelling from a company? Perhaps he can expense his 
travel. Is person Y a poor student also maintaining one of the most 
exciting graphics programs on the scene? Then we should cover his costs, 
even if he doesn't have a presentation. Is it worth covering the costs 
of someone who is "only" an artist? Sure! But perhaps invite them to run 
a workshop, or sit down with developers for half an hour to show them 
his annoyances and how he would like to use the tool.

Cheers,
Dave.

On 02/05/2013 11:40 AM, ale rimoldi 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.
>
> the most visible consequence of this policy, is that team members get
> their costs reimbursed (at least in theory...) even if they don't give a
> talk.
>
> as we read in a previous mail: we are organizing a meeting, not a
> conference.
>
> 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!
> and it does not really matter if they're giving a talk or not!
>
> 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.
>
>
> in my eyes (2) talks are there to
>
> - give good food for thoughts to all participants
> - increase the participant -- and its ideas -- visibility in the meeting
> not to get the traveling financed.
>
> do i have such skewed opinion about what the LGM is?
>
>
>
> on a side track, i urge you to think about the current policy for
> reimbursement.
> 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
>
> it would be a pity, if we would miss him just because he could not get
> the money in advance but would have got the money afterwards).
> the same $ 900 that are "very manageable" for many of us, are a huge
> amount of money for him!
> the fact that it's very likely he has not got yet last year's money does
> not help either.
>
>
> all in all, the policy that the money is payed afterwards is ok for me.
> really. but we should be able to make exceptions for people that are
> very active contributors in their project and have a really hard time in
> finding the money to pay for traveling (to be clear: i'm talking about
> people living in countries where the ticket costs several months of
> avarage salary! and i'm talking about rather cheap tickets! and i'm
> talking about people who have an important role in their project and
> plan to have a very active LGM with code sprints and lot of meetings!)
>
> currently, we have three or four pledgies that are running in parallel
> and are -- as far as i know --  all equally unsuccessful.
> this is not something i'm proud of, but it's probably a direct
> consequence of the current policy.
>
>
> any thoughts?
>
>
> have a nice day
> a.l.e
>
>
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-- 
Dave Neary, Lyon, France
Email: dneary at gnome.org
Jabber: nearyd at gmail.com