> My sense is that the primary reasons for this are
(1) the organizers have our own teaching/research/jobs which still must be
done, and we cannot increase conference fees enough to pay for clerical
help;
David Campbell agrees:
> There's more flexibility and less
work for organizers if arrangements are left to individuals;
> ... [with] up to 7000 people, planning for everyone is hard.
Yes, work-load is probably the main reason. But there wouldn't have to
be "planning for everyone" in order to have an in-between level of helping.
I wonder if there is a way -- with minimal overhead, in terms of the
time it takes to initiate and operate -- to make a web-page where people
could POST their own name & EMail-address (so the organizer wouldn't have
to do this) and then REMOVE their own name/address. // Newsgroups work
this way; I can write-or-cancel my own messages but not the messages
written by others. // Maybe a user-group be set up specifically for a
conference? Or could a web-page be made (with HTML, CGI, Java,...) to do
these things?
I don't know whether there would be much interest in finding roommates,
but it might be a nice service to provide.
**************************************
It looks like I *have* been spoiled by ASA's conference-organizing:
Gary says,
>the ASA meetings are rather unique in their organization. I have only
>attended one national meeting of the ASA... and was impressed...
and David agrees,
>Most conferences I've attended are sort of halfway ...<snip>... not as
>thorough as your description of ASA.
Craig Rusbult