Koha Conference Bidding

N.B. This is a proposal / request for comment, it is not the will of the Community. (Yet. Bend! I has chocolate!)

Check the discussion tab up the top.

Overarching Principles

Rule the First: New Zealand ought hold right of first refusal for Conferences falling during Anniversary years (10th, 15th, 25th, et cetera).

The more help someone has in hosting, the more likely the Conference will meet with success, which ought help the bid. However, we like to see new places, and we want to spread Koha to places it might not be utilised. Oh the quandry! What to do?

Charging for registration has cooties; Open Source, Open Conference. Is the current scheme of having a pot full of generous benefactors working well enough to continue this?

While everyone wishes to meet every year currently, is this this right frequency? Would anyone be upset with local Conferences in addition to our World Conference? Would doing so burn possible hosts out?

Rotation of Hosting

France held the first Conference, because they are just that cool. After a short hiatus, Plano hosted us. The Kiwis were right on our tails with KohaCon10.

That means, in theory, that Europe, North America, and the Pacific Rim are covered.

I'm jumping to the wild conclusion that for fairness' sake, folks would like to move the Conference about. We'll see new and interesting things, and some glorious day, it'll be in our own backyards.

How do we want to slice up the world? There are a few ways to slice and dice it.

Let's operate on the assumption that no one save Walter the American ever wants the Conference in Antarctica.

Do we lump North and South America together? Do we lump Africa and Europe together? Do we lump Eastern Europe and Asia together?

As I see it, the benefit of having a 4 continent approach would mean theoretically folks get to rejoice in cheaper travel more often. The downside to this is that folks would have to host more often to make it viable long term. However, with so wide a swathe, more participants should be in the hosting pool.

The strongest pro for a 6 continent approach in my mind is that these are small enough sections that hosts that might not be able to play ball with the big boys would effectively be against fairer competition. That is to say, developing nations would be more like to be pitted against other developing nations than having a 500lb gorilla, like London, take on say the Sudan. (This could be moot if we took a classic 4 continent approach over a modern one.) I don't mean to pick on folks here, but I'm trying to set the stage for summat I think is problematic. Participants would get a definitive local flavour from a 6 continent approach. (This might well apply to both approaches.)

Length of Conference

So far, it's been a 3ish day Conference with a 3-4ish day Hackfest. Is this doing the job?

Minimum Technical Requirements?

The more time passes, the cooler thingamajiggers for capturing Conference sessions become. Is the burden of capture rightly placed on the bid team, or is this summat the community at large can help with?

What's involved in hosting a conference

Can the folks who have already hosted Kohacon previously, put up a section here with the details of the kind of facilities required? May be a minimal set of must haves like n conference halls of y capacity, and a good to have list like live streaming ability etc. So that aspiring bidders can take it into consideration while preparing the bid.

The most important thing is a venue, then the next most important thing is speakers .. you have those two, and the rest is just details --Chris 09:13, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

A facility to accept online donations and payments eg Paypal. --jransom

Further Discussions

Please do check the IRC Meeting section. There was certainly talk at the 6 April meeting that's relevant to this page. There is also older talk related to KohaCon 2011 as well as some general things to keep in mind at the discussion linked to this page from the top tab.