Hi all, Sorry @holger.
Made beginnings of a wiki page https://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/Debconf17/Pre-Conference_Important_Dates Maybe the naming could be better . While pollo has shared that the dates needed would probably be known next week, made so that it's always available on the wiki. As a potential attendee, I would probably look for a page like this instead of hunting for information in the FAQ. Maybe after the dates are filled in, some of the first section content in the FAQ could be taken out ? As far the gap between registration and confirmation was shared on today's IRC meet, it was shared as 2 months . While that probably works great for non-paying public, for sponsored attendees, that window would probably be cutting it too fine. I have my own-one-off cases to share, illustrate - (2016) - SA 22 March 2016 - initial registration 11th May 2016 - Bursary granted 14th June 2016 - Visa issued by VFS (2015 ) - Germany 1 May 2015 - Initial Registration (know I did it late) 11th July 2015 - Some cancellations - Bursary granted Had to decline the same day as there was a difference of 200 Euros from last what I had seen. Also Debconf 15 was from 14th August 2015 anyways so would have been a tight squeeze even for the visa bit. While I understand that granting of bursaries is a sensitive and a dynamic topic and there are/were probably lot of factors which go into it. There were 581 applications for debconf 2015 that probably took a lot of time and energy for the minimum 3-person team to sift through all the data, do A > B comparisons and come with results they could justify to themselves as well as debconf-team. https://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf15/Statistics Similarly SA wouldn't have been an easy walk in the park either, as 282 people attended and from casual conversations it was something like 20-30 applications declined and some similar number of no-shows, so probably around 330-340 odd applications, unfortunately debconf16 final report doesn't mention the full number of applications received - https://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf16/FinalReport So, at least for sponsored people, have the window around 3 months to give breathing room both for attendees as well as the bursary team so they could do the necessary vetting that needs to be done from their side . I do have a feel that this year would again have a bumper number of applications as Canada has been named best place for tourism by CNN and Lonely Planet. While for a technical conference it shouldn't affect, from casual conversations, it does make a difference - http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/06/travel/best-places-to-visit-in-2017/index.html https://www.lonelyplanet.com/best-in-travel Probably due to Canada celebrating it becoming 150 years this year. Visa registration (via VFS) will take a month if I apply today and this is lean period IIUC, so it would only become more as tourist season starts looming up. A sponsored attendee would only go for visa only after the bursary has been granted. Having enough time would be a plus (+) for both debconf as well a potential attendees. -- Regards, Shirish Agarwal शिरीष अग्रवाल My quotes in this email licensed under CC 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ http://flossexperiences.wordpress.com EB80 462B 08E1 A0DE A73A 2C2F 9F3D C7A4 E1C4 D2D8 _______________________________________________ Debconf-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-discuss
