Hello James,
James Medeiros dijo [Mon, Jan 26, 2026 at 11:43:50AM -0500]:
Hi all,
For team review and consideration, I took a stab at updating the policy.
I didn't intend to rewrite, but wanted to address the following:
- Shift focus from pandemic; to public health best practices / transmission
of illness more broadly.
- Emphasized collective responsibility of the community and a lens on those
who may be more vulnerable.
Uff.. I do thank you for the initiative. However, making sense from the
volume of changes between both documents is a bit hard — personally, I
don't want to check if every item contained in one version is contained in
the second, and make a weighed semantic comparison between them. The way
your version is presented is akin to comparing two documents of completely
different sources 🙁
I'm unclear on whether the following still applies from a conference
planning / policy perspective (highlighted in yellow)
- re: Changing individuals' accommodations due to illness
- Reimbursement for cancellations or travel bursaries due to illness.
- Expectation that the conference team is notified of illness and that
hotel / venue staff are informed
- Conference reg desk provide surgical masks / N-95s
Yes, we are indroducing this document for the first time ever, and we
thought those were important points to include, to reassure potential
attendees. And we mean to really reassure attendees on this — no “at the
organiser's discretion” that can be read as “oh, we ended up deciding not
to refund you, that was our distcretion after all”.
*Suggested revisions below* and I've *attached a PDF with differences* from
the policy as written.
Greetings,
– Gunnar.
