On 23/01/13 20:54, Philip Hands wrote: > Daniel Pocock <dan...@pocock.com.au> writes: > >> On 23/01/13 18:17, Gaudenz Steinlin wrote: >>> Daniel Pocock <dan...@pocock.com.au> writes: >>> >>>> Philipp Hug <deb...@hug.cx> wrote: >>>> >>>>>> choosing rooms by algorithm only is a sure recipe for desaster. >>>>> >>>>> I don't think we should automatically assign rooms. >>>>> It's better if we let the attendees choose their own room according to >>>>> availability. >>>>> >>>> >>>> Can we come up with some solution where people pay and then manage >>>> their exact location/room mates through a wiki page? >>> >>> I don't think that's a good idea because a wiki does not ensure that no >>> room will be overbooked or else enforce any allocation rules we might >>> want to set. It will create a lot of chaos I fear. >>> >> >> >> I wasn't proposing a complete free-for-all >> >> Another possibility is to use a shopping cart to sell the beds. The >> `stock level' feature of the cart software could be used to limit the >> number of beds sold. People then organise themselves however they like >> through private communications (whether it be wiki, email or whatever) >> >> The only risk is that people have to accept that if they don't organise >> themselves into a group for a room, they will be allocated to any >> available bed at random on arrival - but thanks to the stock-level >> mechanism, nobody would miss out on the category of bed they actually >> paid for. > > Has anyone that's been responsible for doing the room allocation bit of > debconf actually contributed any views to any of these threads yet?
That would be good - but also remember that every DebConf is different. This one has a rigid accommodation structure with differing tiers and a maximum bed count, so it does not extrapolate from (pick some other DebConf) > I fear that without their input all these ideas that are kicking around > will just turn out to be noise what one of them turns up and points out > the (probably several) fatal flaws. > > I'd be happy to be wrong about that of course. > > I think we normally do a lot better than allocating rooms at random, and > even so there are still gripes about it, and last minute changes, so as an > uninvolved observer that approach seems likely to end badly. > > Also, I'd like to know what our past no-show and last-minute-booking > rates are, as I have a feeling that they're high enough to break any > assumptions along the lines of "just get people to book way in advance, > and it'll be fine". At least there seem to have been times when the > accommodation team was having to work much harder than you'd expect if > those assumptions were true. I can confirm that I was one of the troublesome last minute latecomers for Managua, I only decided to come 1 week before. Given the convenience of traveling within continental Europe, I would guess that the rate of last minute bookings could be higher and it would be nice to be able to welcome them all with open arms. _______________________________________________ Debconf-team mailing list Debconf-team@lists.debconf.org http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-team
