On Thu, 2018-05-03 at 12:54 +0100, Allan Day wrote:
Germán Poo-Caamaño <gpoo gnome org> wrote: ...FWIW, processing times for events like GUADEC are not usually processed before the talks have been accepted. They cannot, as the speakers have preference, and budget is limited.That's a good point. Maybe we could look into how the budgets are allocated for this.
I do not follow. I would expect to have the CfP and the results earlier. That said, there has been coordination between the Travel Committee, and the Papers Committee before, to save some days. The issue usually is: budget for GUADEC sponsorship used to be $30,000 for many years, and the amount requested was always over $40,000 or $50,000. So, you have to decide how to allocate it.
There is a guideline for looking for reasonable prices. In my past experience at the TC, among all people applying few of them actually did their homework.Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the Travel Committee guideline just say "find the cheapest option"?
Maybe "policy" was not the proper word. However, the instructions says what the Travel Committee uses to verify airfares: https://wiki.gnome.org/Travel/Request ' * Find the best fares for tickets and accommodation: look at various airlines and routes, try to avoid agencies since they usually charge 10% or 20% extra. * The travel committee use http://kayak.com to verify flight prices.'
The question the board was discussing is how to balance economy and convenience (in other words, what counts as "reasonable"). For example, do you have to take the cheapest flight, even if it takes twice as long? The Foundation's staff travel policy [1] covers this. For example, it says that it's acceptable to spend $100 extra on a flight if it saves you 3 hours.
In my experience, it is not always the cheapest option the one that the Travel Committee considers. "Twice as long" might depend on the context. If the flight usually takes 1 hour, an extra hour is twice the time but not the end of the world. But for a flight that usually takes 8 to 10 hours, 16 to 20 hours may be way too much, or a connecting flight that require to stay overnight in an airport... unless there is no other reasonable option.
Regarding applicants not doing their homework, the Foundation staff travel policy also specifies that the traveller should do a price comparison search and save the results. Maybe this could be a way to check whether the homework has been done or not...
Usually it is easy to spot them (it is just like any bug report :-) That just add burden to the Travel Committee. The less precise the information entered, the more communication is needed. -- Germán Poo-Caamaño http://calcifer.org/
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