[LGM] Is LGM still on track?

[Tobias Ellinghaus]

Dear LGM organizing teams,

I have been watching the progress of LGM for a while now, telling my opinion 
every now and then and helping Sirko with some local organizational work for 
Leipzig. But since the event is approaching rapidly (only three months left) I 
feel that I have to step up and ask some questions about the current state.

Base for my questions are mostly this mailing list, IRC discussions and the 
minutes from the Madrid meeting found in [0]. I copied the relevant parts to a 
Wiki [1] for easier reference, but the content is the same as in the original 
source.

My general observation is that none of the teams mentioned in [2] (besides 
"infrastructure") seem to have done any work so far.
Press coverage is hardly there, according to Sirko sponsorship is lacking, no 
idea if any travel assistance has been requested yet, the participants list 
[3] looks quite empty with most of the people coming from countries that don't 
require a visa anyway. And according to the Madrid decision the task of the 
content team is to "make sure we have the right presentations, workshops, 
people". There is a list of projects in the wiki [4] which was taken from 
minutes of an IRC meeting. As of now only Sirko and me took the time to ask 
projects if they would like to come and maybe even give a talk.

Maybe I am wrong, maybe all you people have been busy doing what you agreed to 
do 7 months ago, maybe you just didn't manage to document that or I was just 
not able to find it. But maybe that isn't the case? Maybe some of you are just 
watching LGM coming closer and closer with no preparations happening, hoping 
that no one would remember who is responsible for making it a success? Guess 
what, I do remember. And I am really sad that apparently many nice projects 
haven't been asked if they would like to join us in Leipzig. And since the CFP 
will end in a little over one week I doubt that there is time to reach out 
now.
I am also not happy about the fiscal situation of LGM. I don't want to talk 
about the time it took to reimburse for Madrid or that some are still waiting 
for their money from Vienna, but having a transparent accounting of how much 
travel money LGM owns and about sponsorship money that can be used to organize 
Leipzig would be much appreciated. Oh, and speaking of remembering, does 
anyone else remember "Have all travel money secured 3 months before the 
event." [0]? That is exactly now. And the official LGM-Travel-Money Pledgie [5] 
is at $775.00 while I write these lines. That are the flight costs of a single 
person, not of a whole LGM.


So instead of discussing if NSA may fund LGM you should really think about the 
job you agreed to do. Organizing LGM isn't just a matter of ranking proposals 
in the end to decide what to accept and be done with it. It's about wanting to 
bring the community forward and make this event happen. Just doing nothing 
will result in a train wreck that will hurt future LGMs for sure.


Thanks for your attention
Tobias



[0] http://lgm2013.titanpad.com/4
[1] http://houz.org/LGM/wiki/
[2] http://houz.org/LGM/wiki/LGM2014:Teams
[3] http://libregraphicsmeeting.org/2014/participants/
[4] http://houz.org/LGM/wiki/LGM2014:Projects
[5] https://pledgie.com/campaigns/22927
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