We talked a bit about this during the DebConf Sprint that we had during DebCamp and my feeling was that there was rough consensus about it. I'm sending it team-wide now, as a request for comments.
The main change that I'm proposing is renaming our original "registration" period to "pre-registration" (or similar) and the "reconfirmation" period to "registration". Additionally, I also propose that the official event submission is moved much earlier than what it was this year. Please read on. The pre-registration period is for people that are requesting sponsorship or submitting event proposals. They would only express their intent on going to DebConf (and DebCamp if applicable) and then fill in the sponsorship fields and/or submit proposals. Nothing else. We can also allow other people to sign up for this, but this would be only in order for them to get notified when actual registration opens. When the registration period opens, everyone needs to fill in all their registration data (dates of attendance, t-shirt size, food/accom choice, etc). This avoids a problem that we've had over and over of people filling in random dates when signing up, and then never correcting them, or people registering because we tell them to, but then never reconfirming, because they don't intend to attend anymore. The timeline of when things need to happen would be tied to the dates for the conference. In order for bursaries to have decisions 3 months before the conference (needed for not-so-expensive flight tickets), the pre-registration needs to close 4 months before it. Pre-registration needs to be open at least one month, maybe two. Regarding the actual registration, it should probably start 3 months before the conference. The deadlines regarding this period need to be clarified. i.e. "last date for sponsored attendees to register", "last date to get a conference T-shirt and conference bag", "last date to register for accommodation at the venue", etc. There were several comments this year of people claiming that it was not clear what the reconfirmation deadline meant. We could make all of these the same date, but it needs to be clear for everybody involved what happens if you register after that. As far as I understand it, for DC16, this would mean: * Pre-registration starts sometime in January. * Pre-registration closes end of February. * Bursaries decisions by end of March. * Registration opens in April * Last day for sponsored attendees to register: Apr. 30th * DebConf16 starts first week of July. Regarding talks (this needs input from those involved in the Content team), the feeling I got from several pieces of feedback is that most people will submit talks on the last days before the deadline (or even a few days after that), regardless of what the deadline is; and people want to know approved talks early so that they can know if they have been selected, justify their trip to their work, and generally plan ahead whether they want to attend or not. This year we had the submission deadline in the middle of the reconfirmation process, which meant that approved talks were not announced until after the reconfirmation process had ended. Also, bursaries was interested in knowing if an attendee had submitted a talk and the approval status of it when deciding whether to sponsor them or not, but this information was not available at all. It is my opinion that both things should be avoided if possible. Using an equivalent correlation as the one used before, I'd propose that talk submissions for the official schedule need to be submitted 4 months before the conference and approved talks get announced 3 months before it (right about the time registration opens). Bursaries and Content will need to coordinate sharing their information during that month of work, but it should be possible to do it. Regarding announcement of the conference schedule (also part of Content team), I believe it would make sense to at least state the time and date of the welcome and closing talks plus -if possible- the speakers and time and date of the keynotes, by the point registration opens, so that people can plan their trips with that information already available. Adding it all up, the timeline I'm proposing would be: * Pre-registration + official event submission starts sometime in January. * Pre-registration + official event submission closes end of February. * Bursaries + official events decisions by end of March. * Basic schedule announced + registration opens in April * Last day for sponsored attendees to register: Apr. 30th * DebConf16 starts July 3rd. I hope this makes sense. I'm not trying to put artificial pressure on people, but rather trying to have a timeline that makes more sense for more people. -- Besos, Marga _______________________________________________ Debconf-team mailing list [email protected] http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-team
