[Inpycon] Reg PyCon India 2018

Sun Apr 15 13:59:27 EDT 2018

Hi Vanitha,
Responding back inline with your earlier queries

On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 9:08 PM, Vanitha Shanmugam <vani.pree at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi Chirag,
>
> Thanks for addressing my queries.
>
> On 14 April 2018 at 21:52, Chirag Choudhary <chirag200666 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi Vanitha
>>
>> Hope you are doing great. I would like to respond to the queries which
>> you have asked. Please read inline answers below.
>>
>> On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 7:42 PM Vanitha Shanmugam <vani.pree at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 14 April 2018 at 17:38, E Manivannan <elangovan.manivannan at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi All,
>>>>
>>>> I was planning to send out update to the entire group on how we are
>>>> progressing - however I see alot of anxious emails.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I think you did not get my point. We do not want just an information on
>>> final decision made regarding PyCon India to be sent here but want the
>>> actual discussion to happen here.
>>>
>>>
>> I think the current team is working with transparency & inclusion, where
>> everything is informed & wherever there is scope for inputs from the
>> community is being done, more on this mentioned below.
>>
>
> I appreciate all the effort put by Hyderabad team to make PyCon India 2018
> a grand one. I agree that the decisions are announced in mailing list. But
> once the decision is made, mailing list is used just to share the
> information with large group and you cannot have a discussion on that topic
> later. My concern is with not communicating at the right time where people
> can provide suggestions. I hope you understand what I mean.
>

If you see the mailing threads regarding CFP, Venue and workgroup formation
you will notice they have been made quite some time back over 2 weeks.
Since we are on a tight schedule we expect everyone on responding to it as
early as possible.

>
>>>> HydPy team has been working to make Pycon India 2018 a successful event
>>>> and to this regard, we have published a tentative plan - which included
>>>> conference format, work groups, budgeting etc. On this plan, we received
>>>> feedback & have made progress in that direction.
>>>>
>>>> We have formed work groups which include members across India. They
>>>> have started discussions & charting the work for the conference. Every
>>>> decision & direction taken are towards making this event successful.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Do you mean that people have to be part of workgroup or volunteer to
>>> provide suggestions?
>>> I hope you understand that not everyone in the community can be part of
>>> the workgroup/volunteer and we, PyCon India values every contribution
>>> however small it is and that includes suggestions coming through
>>> discussions in mailing list too.
>>>
>>> Just curious, can you please tell me the guidelines used to select
>>> people in workgroups and who all were involved in coming up with guidelines
>>> and selection of people? I don't remember seeing a discussion in mailing
>>> list on the guidelines. How was community involved in this?
>>>
>>
>> For workgroup selection we basically filtered applicants with some
>> experience with earlier PyCons. Some of us put effort in reachcing folks
>> from different cities to be part of the workgroups so that each workgroup
>> has representation from the maximum python communities possible. Ram has
>> also reached to you to be part of the workgroups, it would be great to have
>> everybody working together for the 10th year anniversary. More information
>> on the workgroups is mentioned here: https://mail.python.org/
>> pipermail/inpycon/2018-March/011880.html, I'll add the selection process
>> to the same thread as well.
>>
>
> Yes, I received an invitation from Ram late in the evening yesterday. As
> you know that Python community in India is large, everyone in the community
> cannot be accommodated in workgroup/volunteer. And not everyone has the
> bandwidth to contribute in work groups. Don't you think it is good to
> involve the community which would enable everyone to contribute to PyCon
> India in some way?
>
> IMO, work groups should do the initial planning, update mailing list on
> the plan, take suggestions from community, improve and evaluate the options
> provided, make a final decision and announce in the mailing list again with
> justification. Work groups should not just go with the closed room
> discussion and just announce the decision.
>

That's what we have been exactly doing. If you see the CFP Workgroup emails
https://mail.python.org/pipermail/inpycon/2018-March/011885.html ,
https://mail.python.org/pipermail/inpycon/2018-April/011954.html this is
the same way we have been planning things.

> To mention a current scenario, sponsorship document was updated and it is
> published in the website already. Am guessing this would have been shared
> with the sponsors also already.
> I have set of concerns (mentioned below) with the updated document. How
> can we handle this now as it is late to discuss on this? Would not this be
> simple, if you had shared the updated document in mailing list and asked
> for suggestion before updating website and reaching out to sponsors?
>
>
>    1. Diamond and A la carte sponsorships are removed.
>    2. For 2 days conference with 1000 participants, the sponsorship cost
>    seems high for Platinum and Gold.
>    3. Logo on the t-shirt for Platinum? How would this be handled if we
>    get say 3 sponsors with just 2 sleeves? There is a tweet (
>    https://twitter.com/anandology/status/983238586781716480
>    <https://twitter.com/anandology/status/983238586781716480>) on this
>    which could have been avoided if they have provided an opportunity to
>    discuss here.
>    4. Platinum sponsors slot is more than half the amount of Gold
>    sponsors with more or less equal benefits.
>    5. Associate sponsors pay 50,000 and get 6 free passes (24000
>    registration cost if we go with 4000 per person) which is equal to Gold.
>
> We also accept Sponsorship prospectus could have been discussed more in
the mailing list and we will take care of the same in the future.

> I have many more concerns.
> I presume that this document was updated by sponsorship work group. It
> seems to me that the sponsorship document was influenced by someone who
> wants to be an associate sponsor for PyCon India this year as the cost for
> Associate sponsor was reduced from 1L to 50,000 and additional benefits are
> provided for less price if I compare this with the original document
> prepared by Bangalore team earlier.
> Same case with the venue as well. With HICC being expensive, number of
> participants being 1000, and the updated sponsorship document, looks like
> participants are bearing most of the conference cost as the registration
> fee is increased to 4000. For people travelling form outside Hyderabad, the
> expense to attend the conference is really high which we might have to
> reconsider.
>

The mail for venue too was sent long time back
https://mail.python.org/pipermail/inpycon/2018-March/011884.html and as Ram
mentioned in his reply here
https://mail.python.org/pipermail/inpycon/2018-April/011940.html we have
have checked multiple locations to ensure it will be convenient for
everyone and it we can conduct the event smoothly. What most of the people
are assuming after the proposal about CMR college is the cost would have
cut down by large is not correct. Since the location is very far form the
main city and we had to plan logistics in the same way which would have
added to the cost. Also transportation is scarce at that place which would
have make things difficult for participants as well and would have added to
their transportation expenses.

>
>
>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> We want positive collobration from everyone and would welcome
>>>> participation from anyone whether in Workgroups/Volunteers. Lastly, I
>>>> request everyone to understand that "Python Community is Larger than the
>>>> individual differences", so please participate constructively.
>>>>
>>>
>>> How would everyone participate when only the decisions are notified here
>>> and no suggestions are accepted? I expect you to understand that Python
>>> community is Large and the decisions on PyCon India has to be made
>>> involving the large community rather than having a closed group discussion
>>> over Telegram/other modes offline.
>>> Also, not everyone think alike and the things that you feel constructive
>>> might not be considered constructive by all.
>>>
>>> I think everybody's suggestions are valuable & I think the current team
>> is trying their best to be inclusive. When the first proposal was made to
>> the community to shift the venue to Hyderabad (
>> https://mail.python.org/pipermail/inpycon/2018-March/011842.html), it
>> made sense for some things like food, venue etc. to be decided by the local
>> community. So the same was asked from the community & community as a
>> whole had agreed upon it before any decision using this framework was taken.
>> As you can see the other teams like website, social media & cfp are working
>> in a open & collaborative way in  the mailing list.
>>
>
> Yes, there was a query raised in the same mail thread (
> https://mail.python.org/pipermail/inpycon/2018-March/011852.html) on the
> level of autonomy which is still unanswered. Am not against Hyd team taking
> the decision, but a discussion with the community for suggestion before
> deciding things are necessary.
>

What Mani meant by autonomy was applicable to only the Local logistics team
and not to any other teams. For all other teams we have workgroup formed
and have ensured involvement from everyone in the community. Also we have
reached out to as many people as we can on the same.

>
>
>> I request you not to silence people from asking questions instead make
>>> sure to take everyone together which will not give anybody a chance to
>>> question. Being a chair of PyCon India is a huge responsibility and
>>> some of the responsibilities are making sure the discussion is happening in
>>> mailing list, justifying the decision taken by the organising committee and
>>> bridging the communication gap between organizing committee and python
>>> community of India. And would request you to justify the venue selection,
>>> updating and publishing sponsorship doc in the website without discussing
>>> here.
>>>
>>> I think the point here was not to shut people but not to go back and
>> forth on the decisions, specially the ones taken by the community itself.
>> The conference chair & the team is answerable for the decisions and Mani in
>> this thread while announcing the venue on March 31st:
>> https://mail.python.org/pipermail/inpycon/2018-March/011884.html, also
>> promised full transparency including the finances in the doucment mentioned
>> in the same email, I'll add it here for reference: https://docs.google
>> .com/document/d/1pwi69D-cfdiFN8vv6AMbdAJwkIpDipMoB0DmQVaMoug/ and that
>> will be delivered.
>> For having a discussion about sponsorship brochure & financial
>> discussions with each sponsor, a public forum might not be the best option,
>> we have taken inputs from some of the earlier PyCon volunteers & further
>> decision on the same will be taken by the offical workgroup formed for the
>> purpose.
>>
>
> Am not suggesting to include mailing list while discussing with each
> sponsor, we have sponsorship alias used for the same purpose. As i
> mentioned earlier, mailing list should be used to discuss the sponsorship
> slots and the benefits not for the discussion with sponsor.
>
> Thanks,
> Vanitha
>
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>
>
 I hope I could address your queries. We from the Hyd team also want to
keep the discussion as much open ended as possible through mailing lists
and we are ready to take the feedbacks provided by the community
constructively to make PyCon India 2018  bigger event !

Regards,
Ananyo
HydPy
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