Re: [OSM-talk-ie] [Talk-gb-westmidlands] Registration is Now Open for State of the Map!

[Brian Prangle]

Hi Mark

No need to very bored in Redditch. There's a shedload of mapping to do in
Redditch. What are you currently mapping? We may be able to give some
remote assistance with armchair mapping and/or problem solving. Have you
tried using photos with Mapillary?  It's great for capturing lots of detail

Regards

Brian

On 4 May 2016 at 17:43, Mark Croft Redditch Linux Mint <
mark.croft@gmail.com> wrote:

> i did not know it was common for OSS/linux/opensource/etc style
> projects to charge there volunteers to attend , wish i was rich
> computer programmer with lots of free time to kill at these events but
> i am not , i am the complete opposition being disabled and unable to
> find any neche in the computer world anymore , i found work very hard
> when i was a computer programmer starting out and was only in work for
> 4 years and the company had a restructing. I lost my job and never
> found another one been unemployed for 22 years now. I do not have a
> degree and did try to get a computer programming degree but cos i was
> too bad customer for the banks i could not pay for student halls (i
> never paid for accomodation in the end at univeristy of humberside n
> licoln at the hull campus) it was a nightmare. I did get a little bit
> of support from disabled student suppport services got diagnose with
> dyselixa and got a special stamp that i used on my assignments which
> really meant that the lectureers just gave me a pass mark on most of
> them some of thut programming stuff i was getting merits on.  I found
> the degree pretty lame really and a lot of very dishearted lectureers
> that where being overworked and stretched across a number of different
> campuses.
> The maths lecture just told me to copy somebody elses work cos he did
> not have time to explain it too me.
>
> so in the end i never went back after the first year and a few grand
> in debt to the student loan company i guess they will never get it
> back.
>
> very bored mark in  redditch
>
> On 3 May 2016 at 18:08, Martín Ferrari  wrote:
> > On 02/05/16 21:56, Rob Nickerson wrote:
> >> Hi all,
> >>
> >> Tickets for State of the Map 2016 are now on sale. Get yours before the
> >> price goes up (to EUR 100)!
> >
> > Sadly, this cost is too high to justify attending. I care about OSM, and
> > I have been a silent contributor for years, but spending on plane
> > tickets, acommodation, and on top of that 75-100 EUR to attend the
> > conference, is just too much money for this little hobby of mine.
> >
> > I think it is a sad state when most libre projects I care about charge
> > its own volunteers to gather and improve the community, specially when
> > corporate sponsors could be offsetting this cost. OSM is far from the
> > only one, I am just writing this because I am getting increasingly
> > annoyed by the situation.
> >
> > --
> > Martín Ferrari (Tincho)
> >
> > ___
> > Talk-gb-westmidlands mailing list
> > talk-gb-westmidla...@openstreetmap.org
> > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb-westmidlands
>
> ___
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>
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Re: [OSM-talk-ie] [Talk-gb-westmidlands] Registration is Now Open for State of the Map!

[Martín Ferrari]

Rob,

On 04/05/16 13:56, Rob Nickerson wrote:

> 1. We have a scholarship fund in place to help with costs. Feel free to
> apply to that.
> 
> 2. At 75 EUR tickets are sold at a loss compared to variable costs
> alone. When you add in fixed costs the loss per ticket is much bigger.
> We can do this because of sponsorship.
> 
> 3. Our price is in line with SotM 2013 and 5 EUR less than SotM US 2015.
> 
> 4. The hotel deal is available to try to keep accommodation costs down.
> 
> 5. We welcome anyone with contacts to airlines to come forward but can't
> arrange any deals with them as is.
> 
> Once again sorry that we can't get to the price level you want. Please
> apply to the scholarship fund and send in sponsorship leads.

Thanks for your detailed reply.

I don't think I should apply for sponsorship, as surely there are people
who need it way more than I do.

My complaint here was about the cost of attending the event, not about
the plane tickets or accommodation, which one can always handle in
different ways. It is not that I can't afford the 75/100 EUR, but that I
can't justify to myself to pay that money to attend a community event.

If the tickets are sold at a loss, I guess the problem then is that the
costs are too high. I don't know the cost structure of the SotM, as I
have never attended one, so I can't comment.

I have been involved in the organisation of many Debian events, where
attendance is always free, and in the bigger event (DebConf) even food
and accommodation is paid for the majority of attendees, because we
consider it a way to give back to the community. Of course, this means
finding many sponsors and really cheap venues, catering and places to
sleep; and nobody gets paid to deliver a talk. We also provide travel
sponsorship for a small amount of people, based on financial need.

-- 
Martín Ferrari (Tincho)

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