On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 07:57:53AM -0400, chopps(_at_)chopps(_dot_)org wrote:
Your suggestion of not having them would subtract value from the process
though. I don't see the win.
The win is that all of the time and effort and expense (all of which
are finite resources) that go into those could be directed elsewhere.
The conference
fee could be quite high for an individual contributor I think, we should
perhaps explore a reduced fee for individuals when this would make the
difference between attending and not.
It's not just the money, as I've said several times. It's the time:
not everyone has the incredible luxury of being able to be away from their
job or their family. It's the travel expense and the travel hassle/risk,
both of which are increasing. It's the political/legal climate that
attendees are exposed to. It's the problem of unrestricted Internet
access. It's the increasingly-intrusive border crossings. It's all
the factors that go into being there in person for several days.
These meetings select for a highly limited (by circumstance, by necessity,
and by choice) subset. And once upon a time, when the 'net was much
younger and more limited in terms of geography and scope, that might
have been alright, because the subset mapped fairly well onto the larger
set of people involved in networking. But that's no longer true.
And the difficulties/expense of travel are only going to get worse
for the forseeable future: they're not going to get better.
---rsk