Re: Planned changes to registration payments & deadlines

[Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]>]

On 26/04/2018 16:35, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 03:57:50PM +1200, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
>> Let me just adjust your text to make it more precise:
>>
>> "If you could register for ancillary things without having *paid* for the
>> meeting, then if you never *pay* we'd need to have tracked those
>> other things and be able to undo them."
> 
> That's not "more precise"; that's just a different meaning of
> "registered."
> 
> I confess that I have never understood the IETF meaning of
> "registered", in which one could be in this half-state of registered
> for the meeting but not paid.  I've never been to any other
> paid-attendance thing where there was any way to be publicly
> registered without paying first.  But it is true, as I think we have
> said all along in this discussion, that we are changing the meaning of
> "registered" to mean "paid registration".  The plan does not
> anticipate any other meaning of "registration".

I can't be categorical, but I feel I've been to other meetings with
pre-registration prior to payment. Too many meetings over too many
years to be specific :-(.

>> Correct, and I fully understand that. But a side effect of the change
>> is that anybody currently using the registration system as a convenience
>> for arranging a side event can effectively no longer do so until the
>> 7 week deadline, because people *will* pay at the last possible moment
>> to minimise their credit hit.
> 
> I guess I don't understand the complaint.  To the same extent that the
> IETF has a hard time predicting whether people will really show up
> without knowing whether they've paid, anyone else would not know
> whether the prospective attendee was really coming.

One example is the WG Chairs lunch. Unless it's changed recently, you
have to sign up using your reg #. Currently, that's tied to an intention
to attend; in future, it will be tied to having paid.

Again, I'm not saying this is a big problem. I'm saying: it's a change
caused by the primary change. 

I think there may be other side-effects of the published list of attendees
too. Such as "I see that Fred Flintstone is planning to be there,
so I think I'll go too." We just don't know, of course.

    Brian

> And presumably
> the entire list of IETF attendees wouldn't be going to the side event,
> so the list is too broad anyway.  Finally, the list is collected for
> the purposes of registration for the IETF meeting and not some other
> event, so actually using the data for some other purpose might be in
> contravention of EU laws (alas, I am not a lawyer, so I can't say for
> certain).  It seems such a side event would be better off maintaining
> an independent list of prospective attendees.
> 
>> won't get attendance mainly settled until the last 2 weeks. They will
>> see two large spikes in registration corresponding to the two payment
>> deadlines. (So will IASA, of course.)
> 
> Maybe we (and it's not _IASA_, but the IETF, of course) will see that
> and maybe we will not.  It is hard to know without trying it.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> A
>