[Conferences-discuss] Let's step back a bit...

[Andrew Dalke]

>> You can call Texas part of the South or the Southwest, but it
>> points out the Midwest is due a conference at some time.
>
>There's nothing _due_ to any region, state, county, or principality!  I
>expect the conference locations to be near large concentrations of the
>target audience and/or where we can find appropriate accomodations.

My apologies.  Bad word choice.  Meant to say "I expect there are a lot
of people who use Python in the Midwest and would like to attend a
conference which is a tad bit closer.  Given the population densities
of the East and West Coasts it make sense that most of the conferences
have been there, but looking at the weights it suggests that we may want
to consider the Midwest (with big airports at Chicago, Minneapolis,
Indianapolis and St. Louis) as a possibility."

>Somehow, this is the inverse problem of NIMBY -- everyone wants to go to
>a conference and no one wants to travel to go there.  I'm sorry, but
>that doesn't work.

There are a couple exceptions to this.  I realize that living in Santa Fe
I made a deliberate choice that travel would be more difficult/expensive
than if I lived in, say, San Francisco.  I wouldn't want people to come
here solely because I live here.

I did after all say that the Midwest might be an appropriate place (much
as I hated my five winters at the Univ. of Illinois.).  Venue location
isn't that strong of a preference to me, since I have made it to the
two DC conferences.  Except that since I hate being frisked I now strongly
urge not using places in the Northeast.

The other exception is that some people want to go to touristy or
exotic places for a conference.  One such is PSB (Pacific Symposium
for Biocomputing) which meets in Hawaii in early January.  That has
the double advantage of being in a beautiful location and in what is
the middle of a frigid winter for most of the rest of the US.  (Santa
Fe falls in this list as well, esp. for skiers.)

>Travel costs are real, and I don't want to diminish the impact of travel
>costs on people,

The nice thing about the Python conference is that it's in the low
travel season.  I can cross the country for $250.  Distance then isn't
a real concern for me.

>Can we please _not_ answer this half-baked poll right now?  I want us to
>come up with questions, _not_ answers!

Oops.  Sorry.  Though implicit in that answer was that I couldn't answer
the question because I didn't know what label would be applied to the
current conference.  Perhaps you can think of it as usability testing? :)

                    Andrew
                    dalke@dalkescientific.com