As others said you are doing a "public service" to the rest of the
community and if you give a nice and valuable talk you will get the
recognition of the NANOG community and your colleagues, and we can put
into consideration including a gold star sticker for your service.
Field observations suggest that presenters are more likely to be
heckled than recognized for said service to the NANOG community. (c:
As hard as it can be to find good talks for the program, giving
people incentive to take time out of their busy work schedules to prepare
a good talk does not seem unreasonable.
It will be really unfair for those paying (even if their companies do
it for them or don't care because they have a mountain of cash) if
there is a special benefit for some so they don't pay.
So far the speaker exemption doesn't seem to have been very
contentious unless I've missed something.
--msa
admission fee waived or reduced, all the rest MUST pay, even if you
give a talk or serve in other capacity.
As others said you are doing a "public service" to the rest of the
community and if you give a nice and valuable talk you will get the
You know what I would suggest. Give presenters who committed a sufficient time
in advance an option to have free admission, and an option to pay and donate
their free admission opportunity back.
Whether something is a "public service" or not is a matter of perspective.
Attending and paying admission is presumptively a public service also.
Should one interested in performing one public service be forced to
perform another?
Assume for the sake of argument, it's a more valuable service for a
person to present
than to pay admission, because if there's noone presenting, then interest and
attendance fall.
As long as you are not encountering abuses such as 'faux presenters'
just presenting
for admission.
Not all public service is free to the public. Presumably there must be some
motivation for a speaker to present; sometimes that is altruistic, sometimes
that is not. If that motivation is free admission, but for the
community their
service is still valuable, then who am I to argue with that?
One question you could ask... would the person even be there if they were
not giving a presentation?
If they would not, then making them pay to come donate their time sounds
like a proposition that is more adverse to the presenter.
In regards to 'fairness', waiving admission for a presenter is not unfair, if
any attendee had an equal opportunity for proposing to present; those
paying simply did not avail themselves or perhaps did not have a
meaningful thing to present....