...tha some young fella they donta know il respect. We just teach'hem a bit, right Tino ? Si ! Bravo (De)Nir(o) !
Hobbes, Jun 17, 2006 @ 00:22

That's typical in Geneva =)

A few years ago, I organised regular 'geek' parties with some friends of mine. Some parties had room enough for 500 participants and having a high 'no show' rate was very expensive for us.

We tried making some statistics. After two or three events, we could clearly see that 15% of registered people were noshowers.

Maybe you can analyze your past events and see how many people regularly didn't show?

(well..this doesn't work on all times, I know, but it can help ;)
chinese, Jun 19, 2006 @ 03:28

It varies wildly. The average is about 20%, but some events have gone up to 50%.

If it always a similar %, organisers could plan for it and take a 'safety' margin of people. But the numbers vary wildly.

Nir Ofek, Jun 19, 2006 @ 11:58

Well, for critical events (where something is being paid based on the audience) you still might ask for a little prepay.

Or even set a 'noshower' percentage rate on all profiles ;)
chinese, Jun 19, 2006 @ 17:56

of a way to implement a version of both. We're especially working hard on getting some sort of reputation system, that will show who are the active / less active members, and also also so no shows.

Thanks for the ideas! Would love to hear more...

Nir Ofek, Jun 19, 2006 @ 18:47

I really do not appreciate no shows. I find it unpolite, unfriendly and unfair on organisers and people who couldn't join. But I'm so afraid repression tools just won't change anything, but give a bad wibe within the community. Do we really need that ? Do we really want public "prosecution" on GOL ? How will event organisers feel giving out names of "guilty" members if results are public ? Will they do it ? What if there was some misunderstanding ? What if members didn't get a confirmation message they were expecting, if their SMS was never received or if the organisation was particularily confusing ? Is it as bad not to attend a drink out than a week-end abroad ?

My vision is quite simple. People are supposed to be on GOL to make friends and share common activities. People no showing up at my event without excuses just won't become my friends. And most probably not my friends' friends, as I won't invite them anymore to the next GOL or private events I'll organise. To bad for them. But for me, this is enough.

For all that, I do support the idea to report no show members to the site admin by email, as we would do for spammers or sexually harrassing members. A private warning could then be sent to repetitive no showers. But no public punishment.

As for money, I would personaly prefer sending a bill to no showers afterwards than having to deal with the hassle to collect money from everyone beforehand.
Hobbes, Jun 21, 2006 @ 13:50

Although I am not a member of the 'organisers' (yet), I know I would hate to have spent my time putting together an event and end up with only half of the crowd (however cheerful and nice and friendly the people showing up may be).
But how can you tell the difference between someone who was just keeping all options open, or did not care enough to bother showing up, and the person who could honestly not make it for whatever reason. I'm often stuck in the office for longer than I should, but although this is (for me) a legitimate excuse, it may sound pretty lame/fake to some.
So as Hobbes said previously, even though I agree that regular 'no-shows' should be reported to the site admin, I am completely against the fact that this list may be published. Public flogging isn't going to remedy the 'no-shows' problem and GoL isn't about rewarding 'good' or punishing 'bad' members... the reward comes if you participate, when you do fun things together, meet new people and make friends !!
cheers - nathalie
addaxnat, Jun 21, 2006 @ 18:35

I'd like to clarify something so that the feedback can be more focused.

Our current thinking on the No Shows List is that it will not be made public at this point, and if it is made public in the future, it will only show the people who have "No Showed" for at least 3 activities.

I understand that sometimes people cannot make it to an activity due to lack of communication, or due to unforseen circumstances (No Shows can still notify the organizer that they will not be showing up)

But, if someone pulled a No Show 3 times or more, then he/she is either too busy to be signing up for activities, or they simply do not care about the efforts that the organizers and participants put into the activity.

I think that organizers should know who these people are, and should take their past history into account if they want to join an activity.

What do you think??

Oded
SiteAdmin Oded, Jun 21, 2006 @ 19:04

My opinion is that this list/penalties will just create a climate of suspiscion, denouncing people being too arbitrary (people who don't like other people might also be able to make up some juicy stories). The site should remain simple, I think that this is partly a reason for its success for, not being surrounded by strict rules. I understand the frustration, but once you get to know some people from the site, you know about their reliability to show up or not. Let's give a chance to those we don't know and judge ourselves. Also I think that like everywhere, people talk about other members during drinks, events, etc ... and bad reputations are quickly built. Isn't that enough ?
Eagle, Jun 23, 2006 @ 02:59

GOL is a community website and the Event organisers do the organising, once you start confusing responsibilities and taking on tasks outside of the general charter of the community then you risk alienating users at a fast rate.

Not only that the admin tasks become huge and technically complicated. The ensuing regulation and conditions on the site will drive people away to a simpler environment.

I build community websites for a living, know the psyche of users very well. I would suggest you leave the no shows to the event organisers who can build in the "no show" factor for their type of event, airlines do it all the time. Either that or users will leave faster than you imagine.

You have far more important issues to look at in the site than over regulating and making it another bureaucratic nightmare.

KISS principle is required for the site, keep the good work rolling and watch out for the "one step forward two steps back" syndrome.
accxess, Jun 25, 2006 @ 20:26

I totally agree! I know it is infuriatingly frustrating as an organizer to have to deal with no shows. But that's all part and parcel of wanting to organize an event. I do get angry with people who don't show up, but luckily the people who do show up are such great fun, that they more than make up for the "cry-offs".

I really don't see how making names public is going to help matters any. If anything I would have thought that it would breed resentment and mistrust. Personally, I have learnt to deal with it, and from experience am just wary of people who haven't showed up in the past, but sign-up for any other activity I'm putting together. It's just another "curve-ball" that life throws at you from time to time... And you know how it is... either you live with it or you go postal. And to be frank, I think I have a lot of other things to do (definitely more interesting and fulfilling) than worrying about people whose acts don't match up with their words. Life's waaaay too short to worry about these things.

My 2 and half cents worth of bull there ;-)

keep passing the open windows all,
S.
shadow69, Jun 26, 2006 @ 16:49

I've organised a dinner at my place last friday. 7 people registered. On girl, lets call her Betty, registered over the phone on friday morning. She asked me if she could bring a friend along. I surely said yes. Guest were apected at 20:00. At 20:45, we were all starving waiting for them to arrive. I finally received and SMS from her saying "sorry, I'm not coming. Going out at a bar with some other friends". I just couldn't belive it ! To be honest, I found it rude and irrespectfull and I was quite angry. I didn't reply to her message.

I've met Betty again yesterday night. When she told me "i'm sorry I didn't join" I told her it would have been nice to the other guest not to leave us all waiting for her for 45 minutes. She looked at me we shocked eyes "
- what ? You waited for me ?!?
- yes we did
- wasn't it a pasta party were people get in and out whenever ?
- I cooked some pasta indeed. But it was a proper 2 course meal
- are you kidding me ? :S
- no I'm not
- 8-S I'm sooooo sorry !

During the following discussion I learnt that, where she used to live, when someone says "meet us for some pasta", it's just like a housewarming party. Poeple pop in anytime and don't really register in advance. Now, I'm not mad with her anymore, and I know it's not a proper no show, as I guessed it was.

For all that, I strongly advice that event organisers should get in touch with no shows before reporting them. If done so, 3 times no shows would quite desserve being called not trustworthy in public I guess.


Hobbes, Jun 27, 2006 @ 15:46

The problem with organisers keeping a personal eye on who does no shows for their events is that, well, only THAT organiser knows. That means that the one person can be a no-show-er at 100 events organised by 100 different people, and still be able to do it again!

Most of the community are courteous enough to notify if they can't come. Even if the excuse for not turning up is weak, as long as I hear it before the event starts, I wouldn't report someone as a no-show-er. But having held an event where less than 50% of the participants turned up, I NEVER want to have that happen again.

Organisers give out their personal phone numbers, mobile numbers and sometimes home addresses to event participants. We invest our time and often our own money to run events, and I know make a lot of effort to be contactable so that participants have no excuse not to contact us.

I reckon that after three no-show reports by organisers (and by no-shows I mean people who do NOT notify the organiser at all that they aren't coming), the member should get a written warning.

If they are reported again as having been a no-notice no-show, then

a) they could be publicly outed (so that event organisers know not to trust them when they say they are going to things), or
b) an automated email is sent to an event organiser upon posting an event notice, listing the intransigent no-show-ers, or
c) they are gently, but firmly removed from GOL.

One of the things that I suspect that the fantastic GOL team having simmering in their brain pans is a way for people to register for events from within the members activities page, and some sort of mechanism to help organisers track participants. If they do develop this, then maybe they would be able to simultaneously develop a set up so that people who are reported no-show-ers are banned from being able to register for events for a fixed period.

Kiriel
Kiriel, Jun 30, 2006 @ 14:31

Aren't we brainstorming?

So my input is that we could see it on the positive side. Everytime that someone goes to an event 1 point added to a new section entitled
has participated to : xx events

Like this you will be able to see who regulrly goes to events. And then estimate if you take that person in a next activity.
Now who will rate it? Organizers of preceeding events could report on the one that participated.

This idea can be discussed if it doesn't have already.

Bye for now

Christian
chris22, Jul 4, 2006 @ 17:04

It could be scary indeed ;-)
This idea sounds cool, but I'm somehow reluctant to it, I don't really know why. I'm probably afraid of seing "ranks", "classes" or "gangs" created based on this counter... or just scared to face hard figures about my hectic social / sport / night life ;-)
Hobbes, Jul 5, 2006 @ 13:13

Will there be any way of letting other GOLers know that someone is an untrustworthy organiser?

It is not nice for an organiser if a few people do not show up to an event, but it might be even worse for the participants to an event if the organiser backs out or completely mess up the organisation... and this is not a hypothetical question - it has been known to happen.

just a thought...
LNA__, Jul 10, 2006 @ 16:58

That seems fair enough. Go for it, I say.
Ellen, Jul 15, 2006 @ 18:10