Daniel Kahn Gillmor <d...@fifthhorseman.net> writes: > On Thu 2015-02-05 03:13:46 -0500, Giacomo A. Catenazzi wrote: >> On 02/05/2015 02:29 AM, Martín Ferrari wrote: >>> While I am in the group that sometimes wished they could eat the >>> vegetarian dish, because it looked tastier, or because they wanted to >>> skip meat one day, I really don't agree with your proposal. > > Can you think of a better way to frame it so that we can avoid the > every-meal-has-meat baseline assumption that the current framing > implies?
I agree that the framing is a problem here. I also think that the *main* problem that this set of choices is here to solve is the problem of organizing food for Debconf. In my experience with doing this for Debconf in NYC, that meant identifying a place, or places, that could accommodate food for the number of people expected, for the time expected. For us, it was a series of meetings with different organizations that were potentially able to solve the problem, eventually filtering down to the ones that we felt confident would actually come through, at a reasonable price. Finally, signing a contract with them and paying some money up front. The negotiation process with those caterers involved talking to them about the numbers of people, which meals would be provided, time frame and money, it was also very important that we talk about what food would be available, and we based it on the answers to the registration questions. It was important to have an accurate number of *confirmed* attendees, and it was important to make sure the food provider to meet the food restrictions that were indicated in the choices. However, this is where we, and I think other Debconf organizers in the past, have made a fatal error. During the negotiations with the potential food providers, the organizers of Debconf should *not* go to them and say "We have exactly 7 people who said they need vegetarian, can you provide that?" This is what is done because of this selection registration question. Its a perfectly normal approach by hackers to do such a survey and then use the exact numbers to produce the correct results that will match that number. However, this isn't how things work in practice, I can give you a couple examples. In NYC, much to our distress, we were promised gluten-free options, but that was not delivered properly. This meant that a core video-team person was going hungry, and a core organizer was making special trips to the store to buy food to solve that problem. People were angry and stressed, and we didn't have time to do this, but feeding people is important, so it was done. We failed as organizers to make it clear in our contract with the food provider that this was a requirement, it was just communicated verbally and then we had no way of resolving it with them later. I can't tell you how many times I've been to Debconf and had selected vegetarian, and the food providers made just enough vegetarian food based on the numbers that the organizers provided (probably between 3-10 people, depending on which Debconf).... by the time I got through the line, the vegetarian was gone because various non-vegetarians thought it would be nice to have some of that food. After a few days of going hungry, or having to go elsewhere and miss sessions, we would figure out who the other vegetarians were and organize to stop that madness, usually by making it clear to the non-vegetarians that they should NOT touch that food, but that usually didn't work, we often gave up in frustration. So, yes, I think the framing problem is important here, but the real problem is that the negotiations with food providers should be approached from a different perspective. Asking them to provide gluten friendly, ovo-lacto vegetarian food (and this does need to be clarified, because many countries think that chicken and/or fish is vegetarian) as the primary base, enough to feed *everyone*, with a meat/fish option to add to it if you prefer, is going to fix the fundamental problem. I have yet to find a meat eater, who *needs* meat at every meal, and *only* meat. Everyone likes to have something else, so make sure that something else is the primary course, and suitable for everyone, instead of trying to perfectly engineer the exact portions based on the indications made on this faulty questionnaire. _______________________________________________ Debconf-team mailing list Debconf-team@lists.debconf.org http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-team
