On 02/08/18 22:52, Daniel Pocock wrote: > In the past, Debian has given priority to mentors who never attended the > summit before. If anybody (including students) would like to make > suggestions about alternatives or enhancements to this algorithm, please > do so, the existing algorithm is not set in stone. >
I didn't see anybody else comment on the selection algorithm publicly so I'd like to throw in a couple of suggestions, so if there are more than 2 people who want to go, the following strategy could be used to eliminate candidates until only two are left: - eliminate candidates who already attended the summit in the past - eliminate candidates who had a DebConf bursary this year - eliminate candidates who had a DebConf bursary within the last 3 years - eliminate candidates who had a bursary for any other major event in the last year and furthermore, at some point in the algorithm, we could try to ensure there is at least one candidate for diversity, which may be a woman or anybody from a non white privileged male background. In response to Dashamir's comment, I don't think visa policies should be a factor in the decision. A lot of visa policies appear to be racist and they fail to treat all people as equal human beings. They appear to be incompatible with Debian's Code of Conduct. The candidates can be selected based on merit and if racism slows down the visa processing for too long and the travel grant is not spent we all know it is not the mentor's fault and we can check if the money can be used to pay for travel to some other event in future. Google set a deadline of 5 September for the two chosen mentors to register with Google but to allow mentors to commence their travel planning, leave authorization and anything else I would propose that we have a Debian deadline for people to express interest by 15 August at 23:59 with a prompt decision by admins after that. As noted in the Google email to mentors on 1 August, every mentor can put their name on the wait list for extra places at the summit, you can do that now using the link provided by Google. Regards, Daniel