[ale] Re: More for the ALS record

[tfreeman at intel.digichem.net]

On Wed, 13 Aug 2003, Marc Torres wrote:

> 
> On Tue, Aug 12, 2003 at 05:01:22PM -0400, tfreeman at intel.digichem.net wrote:
> > IIRC, ALS grew to a size where the volunteers couldn't handle the job and
> > pay their bills, much less have a life.
> 
> This is more or less true.  Some things scale as they are reproduced
> year to year and become easier- but others do not.  Backoffice work
> like contracts, receipts and accounts receivable just get bigger.  
> 
> On the flip side of the scale question, it was also 5 years of effort 
> and many just needed to move on to other things in their lives.
> 
> > Hence selling out to a larger organization with professional staff.
> > Didn't work.
> 
> Ok... Flat out... ENOUGH of the Weekly World News version of ALS info.
> I will not stand for the slander of hardworking people.

Marc - my deepest appologies. I meant no disrespect/slander of hardworking 
volunteers, nor disrespect of the decision itself, nor disrespect to the 
staff of USENIX. I was attempting to be very brief in summary, and managed 
to screw it up instead.

My intention was (and hopefully it comes out better this time) to indicate 
that the transition from volunteer to full-time staff was both rational, 
and regretably less than successful. Admittedly I did not know enough of 
the details to fill in elements of the transition.

Again, I appologise for giving offense when I know the level of dedication
involved in putting on such a convention.

<<snip well stated history>>

> 
> > It is possible to put on a major show with almost exclusively volunteer
> > labor, check out PitCon next time it comes to Atlanta for an example.
> 
> Yup it is, we did it in 1997-1999 :-)

And did a wonderful job that I was foolish enough to not be able to 
attend.

<<snip>>
-- 
=============================================
If you think Education is expensive
Try Ignorance
                   Author Unknown
============================================

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