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Proof of no income? thread
Before nearly every BiCon, there's an argument about something. This was one of the ones from 2004. I don't think any BiCon since 2004 has wanted to ask for proof - in fact, not doing so is now so ingrained that it came as a surprise to me to see that any of the ones before 2003 had! - Ian
Proof of no income? - aegidian - Mon Jan 19, 2004 1:17 pm
The pdf form asks
"[] I am paying the unwaged rate and enclose / will send photocopied proof."
I have no income, and am not signing on. There are other people I know in the same situation. What proof should they send?
Why are you not asking waged people for photocopied proof of their income (payslips for example)?
Are wage people more or less trustworthy than unwaged?
What example of "trust" are you setting?
Evil or Very Mad I thought BiCon had grown beyond this lack of thinking!
(reply) Moved here as belongs in discussions not announcements - softfruit - Tue Jan 20, 2004 6:33 pm
I think this version of the pdf form discriminates unfairly, and could use a LOT of tidying up.
Perhaps you should give the form a little more thought before widely broadcasting its availability.
--
Also, should you need it, running pdf2html over the form gives this page (
dead link removed), which you might want to d/l a copy to your own site and present as an option for printing as an alternative to downloading Acrobat.Last edited by softfruit on Tue Jan 20, 2004 7:19 pm; edited 1 time in total
(reply) - aegidian - Tue Jan 20, 2004 7:08 pm
Jen, have you considered actually replying to a post rather than simply moving and misquoting it.
The link in the original post was to a html-ised version of the pdf form (
dead link removed), I was and am trying to be helpful. You're hindering that.(reply) - softfruit - Tue Jan 20, 2004 7:34 pm
Ah, of course, BiCon runners should not consider eating, sleeping, paying the rent or doing anything else for a full twelve months around running a conference. If this had sat ignored for a serious amount of time I'd consider that fair comment, as it is, far from.
Loss of url link is one of those things that was bound to happen on account of not having tried doing that manouvre before, you're far too keen on the conspiracy explanation Giles!
To return to the points in the moved posting...
... pdf2html very useful, thankyou, could you advise on how to get that done to future versions of the form?
...status was something that as far as i know was only done differently by the 2003 team, and as none of you mentioned this change to us lot so far as i can recall, no great surprise that it passed us by. When I get the chance to talk to some other 2004 people about it I daresay we may follow 2003's lead, we may not, but the 48 hours or so that is likely to take will not make any great difference with 7 months to go.
...form layout is a direct crib of the 2000 booking form, which was happily understood by the 200 people who advance-booked for that bicon, so i don't think it can be that confusing.
(reply) - aegidian - Tue Jan 20, 2004 7:55 pm
Quote:
Ah, of course, BiCon runners should not consider eating, sleeping, paying the rent or doing anything else for a full twelve months around running a conference. If this had sat ignored for a serious amount of time I'd consider that fair comment, as it is, far from.
I think it is far from polite to move and edit posts before replying to them. While I'm sure it wasn't your intent, I felt deliberately sidelined.
Quote:
you're far too keen on the conspiracy explanation Giles!
Let's not be insulting.
Quote:
pdf2html very useful, thankyou, could you advise on how to get that done to future versions of the form?
I'm happy to do it on any revised version, but you may be happier pointing matt at pdftohtml.
Quote:
status was something that as far as i know was only done differently by the 2003 team, and as none of you mentioned this change to us lot so far as i can recall, no great surprise that it passed us by. When I get the chance to talk to some other 2004 people about it I daresay we may follow 2003's lead, we may not, but the 48 hours or so that is likely to take will not make any great difference with 7 months to go.
Well let me give you a heads up on one thing 2003 did you might want to consider.
We stopped and looked again at just about every aspect of BiCon. And made a deliberate decision not to crib from previous forms, policies or texts like the conference programme. While this meant a great deal of extra thought was needed, I think you saw the benefits to many aspects of BiCon.
You can certainly blame us for not producing a post-BiCon report though. It fell victim (in my case) to post-BiCon burnout, and circumstances (Holly) overtook the other organisers. Still, even if you had asked Marcus or any of the other organisers what we did different, given how much we did different, not discriminating against the unwaged on the registration form could well have slipped under-the-radar.
Quote:
form layout is a direct crib of the 2000 booking form, which was happily understood by the 200 people who advance-booked for that bicon, so i don't think it can be that confusing.
No problem with the layout, just the content and the typography (the letter spacing is seriously messed up). I doubt you'd appreciate a detailed critique though, so I'lll leave that to you and your team to rectify.
I got very angry about this issue. Not just because of it's nature, but because of the way I felt treated. You should note that it's better to always respond to the substantive issue first, or very quickly. Then deal with other peripheral issues raised (like whether you want comments in the Announcements board). Not doing this simply increases the aggravation level unhelpfully, which in turn decreases the experience of BiCon, something no-one wants.
(reply) - softfruit - Tue Jan 20, 2004 8:24 pm
To me, replying in the space of about half an hour is reasonably soon after.
However, neither of us are going to be able to change the course of events already taken place, either today or in terms of going back a year in time and putting a 2004 person in on some of the 2003 discussions, which is something else we probably should have done (*), so I suggest we leave that there.
(*) note for the 2004 ChangeLog as something to do where possible in future
(reply) - aegidian - Tue Jan 20, 2004 10:05 pm
Quote:
To me, replying in the space of about half an hour is reasonably soon after.
You'll note that I pointed out it was the order in which you dealt (or failed to deal) with things that was important. The fact that you did not deal with my post or responses to your announcement until they were pointed out to you on livejournal at least a day after they were made is neither here nor there.
Quote:
However, neither of us are going to be able to change the course of events already taken place, either today or in terms of going back a year in time and putting a 2004 person in on some of the 2003 discussions, which is something else we probably should have done (*), so I suggest we leave that there.
I'm happy to leave that there.
Now, answer the question: do you think it's fair to stigmatise the unwaged registrants by asking for proof of their income and not asking waged registrants for proof of their asserting a certain point on the sliding scale?
(reply) - Marcus - Wed Jan 21, 2004 11:10 am
Giles, I thought Jen said the BiCon 2004 team was going to meet and review this? In advance of their deliberations isn't this a bit unfair?
(reply) - Marcus - Wed Jan 21, 2004 11:15 am
aegidian wrote:
Well let me give you a heads up on one thing 2003 did you might want to consider.
We stopped and looked again at just about every aspect of BiCon. And made a deliberate decision not to crib from previous forms, policies or texts like the conference programme.
This, of course, is mistaken. Previous BiCons have produced very excellent texts and several were re-used in the programme booklet.
The accounts are now available online at:
(dead link removed)It should be noted that any comments I make in these forums are on behalf of myself, and not the BiCon 2003 team. The same goes for any other comments made by any other persons (Wink image)
(reply) - softfruit - Mon Jan 26, 2004 11:34 pm
With the votes in from the 2004 team and counted there are two things to note on this...
The first is that (and Giles will be delighted I'm sure) we've struck that line from the booking form and will be taking the trust principle.
However, the second is that there are clearly a variety of arguments on both sides (and indeed more generally around income bands for example) and so it seems best that these matters are debated at BiCon 2004, in a suitable session (rather than a knockabout plenary) to draw them out further and hopefully provide suitable food for thought for the 2005, 2006 etc organisers.
Suggestions on such matters as might be discussed in a "bicon guidelines review" type of session over in the workshops forum please folks!