Agreed. I’m gonna channel my inner Ollie Base here and say “it’s the EAG team’s job to accept and pay for those they think will create the most value by attending”. I think currently if you get accepted go, go joyfully and enjoy the city you go to.
I went to the zoo on the Sunday of EAG Prague. Some of my flights were paid for by CEA because I was cash strapped at the time. I could have decided that was an inappropriate use of the time, but I think it made me enjoy the EAG more, I still talked to lots of people and I would be more likely to fly to another EAGx. Signalling masters, yes, but counterfactual impact is more important. If someone applies to an EAG partly for the holiday, then as long as they intend to take the EAG seriously and are honest on their application, more power to them. CEA can read their application and accept them if they want.
As the real Ollie Base, I agree with this (assuming personal leisure doesn’t add non-negligible costs).
Having skimmed Luke’s parent comment I also agree and upvoted. Anecdotally, I encounter more people who I wish had applied for travel funding (or more funding) than people who applied for too much. This weakly suggests to me we should worry more about making sure people are aware of our travel grant policy (and that’s on us) than free-riders, though I could imagine the latter being more costly from a PR/community health perspective per instance.
Agreed. I’m gonna channel my inner Ollie Base here and say “it’s the EAG team’s job to accept and pay for those they think will create the most value by attending”. I think currently if you get accepted go, go joyfully and enjoy the city you go to.
I went to the zoo on the Sunday of EAG Prague. Some of my flights were paid for by CEA because I was cash strapped at the time. I could have decided that was an inappropriate use of the time, but I think it made me enjoy the EAG more, I still talked to lots of people and I would be more likely to fly to another EAGx. Signalling masters, yes, but counterfactual impact is more important. If someone applies to an EAG partly for the holiday, then as long as they intend to take the EAG seriously and are honest on their application, more power to them. CEA can read their application and accept them if they want.
As the real Ollie Base, I agree with this (assuming personal leisure doesn’t add non-negligible costs).
Having skimmed Luke’s parent comment I also agree and upvoted. Anecdotally, I encounter more people who I wish had applied for travel funding (or more funding) than people who applied for too much. This weakly suggests to me we should worry more about making sure people are aware of our travel grant policy (and that’s on us) than free-riders, though I could imagine the latter being more costly from a PR/community health perspective per instance.
That’s an interesting tie-in to the ‘burnout’ discourse we’ve been seeing lately that I had not even considered.