[Conferences-discuss] Let's step back a bit...

[David Ascher]

> One idea is to have a rotating conference. With the standardisation
> conferences in the library world, we have members volunteer to host a
> meeting, with a planning horizon of about 2 mmetings into the future.
> These meetings are rather small with about 80 attendees max. They
> usually have two meetings in North America followed by one meeting
> elsewhere (usually Europe). I think it is very much a matter of where we
> can get the key people (Guido, Tim, Barry, David, Martin et al) to show up.

If we all had 'strong' university or similar affiliations and were
fairly uniformly distributed, I think that might make sense.  I got the
impression from Guido that there's a massive predominance of
north-americans in the community.  That would be a good thing to get out
of the poll.

In general, though, I think it's easier to get people to go to one
conference than three =).  The bigger the conference the easier it is to
get budget approval, too.

Final comment on that topic: I think standardization groups have very
different dynamics than we do.  They try to get things done in a very
hostile environment. We just want to have fun, and happen to get things
done because it's fun. =)

> >    Time of year
> >         May-June
> >         July-August
> >         Sept-Oct
> >         Jan-Feb
> >         other.  [I have no idea what times are possible]
> >
> Is this very important? My own criteria is that it shouldn't overlap
> with OSCON. Either it should be back-to-back with it to save travel
> costs or it should be at a different time of year.

I put it there because it was mentioned to me as an important criterion
by others -- they weren't able to justify two conferences in the same
month (mostly in terms of absence from day-to-day duties, I think).

> Maybe: What do you think is a reasonable cost for a 4 day conference?

It all depends on the amenities.  The range is $50 to $1500. =)

> >    Type of accomodation acceptable:
> >       - dorm room
> >       - cheap hotel
> >       - nice hotel
> >
> Make this a preference question. 

Good point.  FYI, I didn't mean for that poll to be "the" poll or even a
real draft.  I don't think we're there yet.

--david