RailsCamp 14 Sydney signup is now open.

[Lachie]

Hi guys,

I'm very excited to announce that signup is now open for Rails Camp 14 Sydney, 1-4 November 2013.

http://syd14.railscamps.org

Ticket allocation is once again via a ballot, which closes at midnight on 2 September 2013.

The bus

The bus will run from the Opera Bar, situated on Sydney Harbour below the Sydney Opera House, overlooking the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Sydney!

We thought it would be pretty fun to kill time at the Opera Bar rather than the airport bar, and its very easy to get to from the airport. Return buses will be to both Sydney CBD and the airport.

More details after the ballot has closed.

Scholarships

This year we're offering some scholarship tickets with the aim of encouraging new members of the community to attend Rails Camp. Scholarships are open to anyone who could benefit from a fully paid ticket to Camp.

http://syd14.railscamps.org/scholarship

These tickets will be allocated in consultation with members of the RORO community and the scholarship sponsors, though we haven't worked out the specifics. As more details are finalised I'll let you know.

If you know anyone who you think could benefit from one of these tickets, please let them know!

Sponsorship

If you or your company would like to sponsor Rails Camp or a scholarship ticket, please get in touch.

:lachie

[Lachlan Hardy]

Guys, this is amazeballs and I love you, but again with the giving of credit card details when I may not actually pay you money?

That makes me very sad. Can we please ensure it doesn't happen again for RC15?

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RailsCamp" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to railscamp+...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to rail...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/railscamp.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.

[Paul Annesley]

An opposing point of view:

I was fine with providing credit card details for the Melbourne Rails Camp ballot.

It seemed like a healthy indicator that myself and others were serious about paying.

— Paul

[Lachlan Hardy]

Solid argument, Paul, well made.

But I think people who've never attended before may be less confident about offering up credit card details without guarantee of them being used. 

I've been to 12 Railscamps. I know every organiser personally. I know the people behind, and building, Pin personally. And I'm still uncomfortable with that.

[Daryl Manning]

Yep, I agree with Paul (sorry Lachlan).

If cost to throw your hat into the ring is zero, defections are higher which leads to more admin and attendee overhead to sort out who's actually going then paying when the time comes around, not to mention payments.

Daryl.

PS> And yes, I was an economist in another life... =p

On Tue, Aug 20, 2013 at 3:13 PM, Paul Annesley <pa...@annesley.cc> wrote:

[Lachlan Hardy]

Nice in theory, Daryl. Maybe we can do it my way some time and then compare the number of defections vs the number of refunds that have to be made under the current system. I know Ben and John had significant issues with that for RC13 and eventually just blanket refused to make any more because of the overhead.

I don't want to be that guy replying to every email so I'll probably leave this for a while now to see if anybody else cares.

[Pat Allan]

As someone who's filling out the form, I agree with Lachlan - if you might not need my CC details, I'd rather you don't have them until you actually *do* need them.

But as an organiser of many events, it's definitely easier to grab them now - people are bad at reading emails, let alone acting on them. I'd like to think it wouldn't be the case with Rails Camp, but I wouldn't be betting on that. Perhaps it could be optional (add CC details now *or* later), but then that adds complexity to the process.

(Um. I don't know which side to pick)

-- 

Pat

[Julio Cesar Ody]

Pretend that you paid for it now. I think it's that simple.

Short of believing Pin will lose the details and not compensate you (I doubt that), it's of no consequence if you see it like that.

[Tim McEwan]

I have no problem with the current system.  However, I put my name in, but am not going to plan anything until I know for sure either way; other people may be in the same situation.  Things can change in two weeks (assuming it's drawn on the 2nd) and if you can no longer go but forgot to tell the organisers, your ticket now has to be passed on or refunded.  Processing refunds would add a lot of overhead.

One way out would be to advertise that there are no refunds and you will be responsible for passing your ticket on, should you need to.  Though perhaps it would be better if the acceptance email directed ballot-winners to the payment site, and gave them a 48 or 72 hour timeout before the system notified another winner.  I'd be happy to help code it.

Cheers,

Tim

[Lachie]

Hi everyone

thanks for the feedback, its a bit of a hairy one.

I reckon that if we do a ballot, we need to take CC details (for the organisers' sanity). In this case, you're probably trusting Pin and us as much as you ever would making a purchase, but the transaction *feels* different, as its deferred.

If we go back to first in best dressed Eventbrite style they'd obviously charge your card on the spot. Ultimately you're trusting Eventbrite as much as you would trust Pin but the transaction feels like a normal one, buying a shirt or something else. For example, what if a rogue dev at Eventbrite was saving your CC details somehow?

This is great feedback for the incipient RC15 crew.

:Lachie

:lachie
http://smartbomb.com.au
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lachie/

[Pat Allan]

Tim, perhaps you can lead hacking on this at this camp? :) But definitely worth chatting with existing and upcoming organisers about it.

[Nick Chmielewski]

Personally I'm disappointed with this, as it still doesn't seem to be able to cater to groups.
Being the only guy in the office or my group of friends that gets lucky isn't something that appeals to me.

As for holding my credit card details, I personally don't mind. Any hotel will do this, incase you decided to charge something to the room,

or throw a chair out of a window.

[Michael Pearson]

I figured the groups thing was a deliberate decision to keep numbers down, and encourage individuals who wanted to go rather than companies sending entire teams (which is what we do).

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RailsCamp" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to railscamp+...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to rail...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/railscamp.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.

--
Michael Pearson

[Philip Arndt]

Plus, if all your group doesn't go you kind of have to get to know
other people :-)

[plusplus]

Overall I'm not against getting the card tokens at signup, and if we don't do that, then I think it's really important to make whatever process deals with getting people's money absolutely automated. It seems like something like this might work:

1. No credit card entry for registration.
   
2. After the ballot is done, send out a mail asking ballot winners to pay to complete their registration. There would be a strictly 48 hour time limit. Complete registration in that time or Ba Bow! You lose.
   
3. After the 48 hour period, delete the N incomplete registrations, and choose another N winners to mail out. Same(ish) deal would apply: 48 hours (or maybe 24 this time?) to register.
   
4. Repeat.

I don't think you'd need more than 3 rounds. I'm happy to work on this at the camp, if I get a ballot spot.

[Philip Arndt]

If you do, I’d like to work on it with you if I get a spot as something like this would be useful for the NZ camps (and others, I imagine), too.

And yeah, the current pin set up is very similar to a hotel who I seem to give out my CC details to quite freely so I don’t really have much of an issue with it from that perspective.. and I’m generally all for making organisers’ lives easier.

[Lachlan Hardy]

That's how Brooklyn Beta do theirs, but they only have a 24 hour waiting period and apparently almost nobody ever rejects so their second round is usually only 2 or 3 tickets.

Also happy to help if I score a guernsey this time.

--

[Tim McEwan]

well if we're going all out, we may as well do both:

1) give us your CC deets now - you might get a ticket; no refunds.

2) pay at the time - if you're chosen. note: if you choose this option and don't pay within 48 hours of receiving your notice, you'll forfeit your ticket.

NB: your payment choice has no bearing on whether you're drawn from the ballot.

is that straightforward enough?

​

On Tue, Aug 20, 2013 at 17:29, Philip Arndt <par...@gmail.com="mailto:par...@gmail.com">> wrote:

If you do, I’d like to work on it with you if I get a spot as something like this would be useful for the NZ camps (and others, I imagine), too.

And yeah, the current pin set up is very similar to a hotel who I seem to give out my CC details to quite freely so I don’t really have much of an issue with it from that perspective.. and I’m generally all for making organisers’ lives easier.

--

[Ben Turner]

Just started this thread, thought about a system doing pretty much just what Tim wrote, and then watched the thread breast me to the punch - bah.

I like the simplicity if the system now, but I guess if the new "system" automated the extra complexities, and made the options clear, it would seem to satisfy all needs.

Of course, so far we have no metrics to suggest this is an issue for any more than one of our current users :-)

[Scott Griff]

Hi

Just interested to know a couple of things

1. What level of Ruby / Rails knowledge would you need to benefit from the Rails Camp

2. What age ranges go to these camps

Thanks

Scott

[Ben Schwarz]

Julian, we discussed this strategy for the Melbourne camp — and we decided to keep it simple and ship with the version that you're familiar with. 

I'm sure that given some railscamp hacking (or via pull request) we could make those changes for next time. (ping Tim Lucas [sorry Tim] or myself and we'll be happy to review or help) 

[Lachie]

I think that this work sounds like a great idea.

I don't want to rain on your parade, but I wanted to say, its totally down to the organising team as to what scheme they implement.

I just want you guys to realise that Dylan and his RC15 crew might already have a preferred solution. Dylan's organised other events in the past and he might prefer a non-ballot approach.

It might be a good idea to coordinate before hooking in and then being disappointed when its not used.

:lachie
http://smartbomb.com.au
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lachie/

On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 7:26 AM, Ben Schwarz <ben.s...@gmail.com> wrote:

Julian, we discussed this strategy for the Melbourne camp — and we decided to keep it simple and ship with the version that you're familiar with. 

I'm sure that given some railscamp hacking (or via pull request) we could make those changes for next time. (ping Tim Lucas [sorry Tim] or myself and we'll be happy to review or help) 

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby or Rails Oceania" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rails-oceani...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to rails-...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rails-oceania.

[Matt Allen]

Hi Scott;

1. from complete newbies up to those of us who have been using Ruby and Rails for closer to 10 years than 5

2. from late teens (must be 18? due to drinking … not sure on that) to, well, some of our more senior developers who starting writing code on machines that are older than me.

It's a lot of fun, everyone learns something and I don't think I've ever heard of anyone having a bad time in the 12 out of 13 I've been to.

Matta

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RailsCamp" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to railscamp+...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to rail...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/railscamp.

[Keith Pitty]

+1

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RailsCamp" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to railscamp+...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to rail...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/railscamp.

[Lachlan Hardy]

I believe "18+" is a requirement (for this upcoming camp at least).

[Andrew Grimm]

Just a reminder - the deadline is midnight, tonight!

BTW, do you get an email upon applying, or only after tonight's ballot?

Andrew

[Tristan Smith]

How long before we can get some definite times for start/finish and buses so we can start organising transportation?