[wplug-plan] Draft script for hosts

[Vance Kochenderfer]

Thanks for the responses.  I read wplug-plan as a daily digest,
so I apologize if the quoting gets confusing.

"David Ostroske" <eksortso at gmail.com> [DO] wrote:
> Vance Kochenderfer <vkochend at nyx.net> [VK] wrote:
DO> The scripts work well on a verbal level. We might need to add some
DO> seating arrangements or other actions to them, if such steps would
DO> make sense.

Yeah, there's a lot of "choreography" that's not mentioned.

> VK> ANNOUNCE QUESTIONS POLICY
> 
DO> This presupposes that we ask the speaker about their preferences
DO> first.

Yes, this is one of the things the host should do ahead of time.

> VK> [Optional: ANNOUNCE AVAILABILITY OF PIZZA
> VK> {Vegetarians go first.}]
> 
DO> We could mention this while the pizza troll starts going around.
DO> Perhaps we could extend this to other dietary restrictions, e.g.
DO> kosher folks?

I think we could capture this information when the pizza troll
gets everyone's preferences.

DO> My favorite randomizer is this one-liner that uses Perl. I'm paranoid
DO> about older versions of bash not being random enough, and I don't know
DO> how well Python works...

I was optimizing for simplicity and portability, not cryptographic
strength.  :)  Python uses something called a Twisted Mersenne
algorithm, which even if it sucks sure *sounds* impressive...

"James O'Kane" <jo2y at midnightlinux.com> [JO] wrote:
JO> If this was clarified in the parts I skimmed, I apologize. Something
JO> that always bothered me was when the pizza troll was invoked and
JO> he/she started their rounds to collect money while the host was still
JO> talking.

Yeah, there should be a five-minute break inserted somewhere
(probably before either WELCOME NEW ATTENDEES or ANNOUNCE CELL
PHONE POLICY) for this purpose and to give people one last shot
at the restroom, coffee, etc.

JO> It seems possible to tie pizza money collection in with sign-ins. At
JO> least at the beginning of the meeting when the bulk of people arrive.

We might be able to tie this in with Beth Lynn's suggestion below.

Beth Lynn <bethlynn at wplug.org> [BL] wrote:
BL> Some events have a registration table planted right by the door so
BL> that people can sign in, pickup their handouts, make a name tag,
BL> pay for lunch, etc. Now that we have one ingress to the meeting
BL> room, we may be able to implement this. We might want to put a
BL> table in the hallway because we have so little sq foot in 3002.

[David O. and Patrick had similar suggestions]

BL> Staffing this table would be a great co-host duty.

This makes too much sense not to do.  Plus the co-host could then
keep an eye on the front door to let people in.

Vance Kochenderfer        |  "Get me out of these ropes and into a
vkochend at nyx.net          |   good belt of Scotch"    -Nick Danger