Your Questions for the BOD v.1

The only one I have is the thread I started:

I resubmitted my information, as requested over the past month+, to various emails (today I sent it to web and waterfall).

And I ain't heard shit. What gives? It doesn't make sense to me. There was one list they had, of the people who got approved. Those people resent their info. It has really taken this long? As a office drone I've dealt with such tasks over the years, and I just can't think of any reason for it to have taken so long to match names on list A to names on list B.

But um, that wasn't a question.

Can anyone, please, tell me and everyone else with my situation, that we will be getting the tickets we were approved for?

Ok, it's been five minutes and I'm bored, so I'll get us started.

Q: If you registered on the website but were not selected in Round 1, what should you do?

Q: If you missed registration during Round 1, is there anything you can do to get into Round 2?

Q: How is Round 1 processing going e.g. are we 50% done with processing?

I've decided to summarize all my questions into the most succinct form possible.

"If it wasn't broken, why did you fix it?"

I was gonna say: "Why did you expend time and effort to create this bizarre deceptive insecure clusterfuck trainwreck of a ticket system that pissed off just about everyone (including the guy who WROTE IT) when everything was fine with ticket sales for the last several years?" but that seemed a bit too wordy.

P.S. What happened to the 150 tickets? And how do I get one?

Folks, I'm going to close this round of questions tomorrow (Monday) night so we can has reasonable turn-around.

Get 'em in!

Q: If you paid for your tickets weeks ago and have still not received your gate codes, what should you do?

I have a question:

Has the BOD considered taking on more members?

It seems to me that the more people you have running things, the less stress and overwork for each individual member. Division of labor and whatnot....plus having new blood in the mix helps keep the process fresh and keep it from turning into a "good 'ol boys club".

Just wondering...

We originally registered, got approved, re-registered after the site came back up and went to go pay for 2 tickets. the site recognizes the new registration, says welcome back, we'll let you know when you can buy tickets and if you haven't heard from us, email invites. We've emailed invites 3 times!!!! No response. This was from my fiance's email account. When I email, they ask me if I want to give him my ticket, and I have to tell them no, his tickets are his, mine are mine, I just have the paypal account, send him his invite to buy his tickets. Still no response to his email. We made plans to camp with kids and friends and now it's looking like we're f*cked!! I really hate this and if I see Mustang, his ass is grass and I'm going to be the lawn mower!! (as my delicate flower of a mother would say)

First, I would like to apologize for the long time it took me get this out. I hoped to release this before the first round closed. Unfortunately the members of the BOD have been washed over by a tide of crises, and it's frankly amazing that they've accomplished what they have. They've been concentrating very hard on the most critical tasks e.g. ticketing. For them, finding time to produce a united response to our questions was obviously difficult. Currently many of the BOD members are facing personal challenges unrelated to Transformus and are still forging on, although at a slower pace. Out of respect I won't list those challenges here.

While I've got the microphone here, I'd like to address some ridiculous behavior I've been seeing from some in the Transformus community. First, it seems that there is a growing "Us vs. Them" thing going on. I almost started leaning that way myself, until the work/play weekend, when I discovered that the BOD was actually just a small group of people, very much like me, who have been nice enough to repeatedly bust ass and make transformus happen. I assure you that the energy they put into building Transformus every year could have built them a small business, or any number of other more 'profitable' things. So please keep that in mind when engaging in public communication. The things you write are read by many people; negativity brings everyone down. Stop with the bitching. Start with the volunteering.


On to the questions:

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Q: If you registered on the website but were not selected in Round 1, what should you do?

A: Hope to get selected in Round 2. Failing that, hope to get a ticket from the community.

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Q: If you missed registration during Round 1, is there anything you can do to get into Round 2?

A: Nope. Hope for a ticket from the community.

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Q: How is Round 1 processing going e.g. are we 50% done with processing?

A: Done. Release of Round 2 has begun!

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Q: If you were selected for Round 1 and have resubmitted your info, but have not gotten your gate codes OR heard from a human, what should you do?

A: Send an email to invites@transformus.com for more details.

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Q: If you were selected for Round 1, the deadline to pay passes, you've resubmitted your info, and still haven't heard from anyone, should you write this life off as a loss and head for the next one?

A: Send an email to invites@transformus.com, then realize there are other things to do with your weekend.

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Q: When and where will the financial info (that Vespa was working on) be posted on the Transformus.com web site? Update: a new page was posted on the website that doubtless represents hours of work. But the names are unclear (what falls under "Professional Relations") and whether an item is a debit or credit is unclear. Could we get a clarification in writing on how to interpret the chart?

A: Vespa is aware of the problem and working on it. He's wearing many hats, and right now ticketing is 1st priority.



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Q: What drove the BOD's decision to change the ticketing process?

A: (Stan Devi)
This is an interesting question. Which change are you referring to? I don't know, so I will presume that you are referring to changing from last year's system. Several things drove that change, but mostly the phenomenal increase that we continue to experience in terms of people trying to get invitations to Transformus. The old system depending on someone sitting on the website and counting the number of invitations that had been purchased and manually closing the invitation page when we had reached the cap. The reason for this was the type of paypal account we had and because it had not been a problem in previous years, due to the speed at which tickets had been purchased, we didn't realize it was a problem until it happen, until we sold over 180 extra tickets within five and a half minutes of tickets going on sale for round 2 last year. Recognizing that the demand this year would only be greater, we knew we had to change the system. Another problem we had was that key individuals who had done large quantities of work to make the event happen and whose knowledge would be required at the event to run those teams were getting locked out because they didn't get online in time. This was compounded by what I consider overwhelming input from the community members at large suggesting that our invitation system be based on actual participation rather than being random. Mind you in the past that random had been no problem because we had more tickets than we had people coming. Once demand exceeded supply, 100% random is no longer possible because it no longer ensures the safety and operations of the event.

We discussed as a board several different invitation system based on input and ideas we had gotten from community members, and based on our experience and ideas. He-who-shall-not- be- named flat out refused or told us we could not actually use the first three ideas that we actually voted to use as a board. The final system ending up being, in large part, the creation of he-who-shall-not-be-named while retaining certain elements from the systems the board had voted on.

And I will say personally, that I believe the board was set up by he-who-shall-not-be-named and that he very likely intended to kibosh the system from the beginning. Again, that is my personal opinion.

A: (Kitten)
It always sucks. Demand outstrips supply. We tried a way to make it a little more fair than who can click the fastest on the internet.

A:(Kelly)
Demand/Supply/need for critical volunteers. We tried to come up with a system that was completely random except for critical volunteers. We have to ensure that we have a safe event above all else and that was the motivating factor in our decision to try the method we tried.


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Q: Was the ticketing change decided by vote, rock-paper-scissors, or absinthe and a Ouija board? Explain.

A: Stan Devi
Voted on. See above. Many members of the community, team leads, etc gave us unsolicited input which was welcomed. I believe we each heard from some of the same people, and many different people, and so we each came to the table with one or two ideas of what we thought was an appropriate system. Some systems were more heavily weighted towards total randomness while others were more heavily weighted based on actual participation. Ultimately, each of the ideas was discussed, whittled down to one that was vote upon and when we were told that would crash the computer system we went to our second choice and were told that that would not work for some computer reason, we went to our third choice. From there, reference above.
In hindsight, absinthe probably would have better been a choice of route! :)

A: Others
Majority Vote


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Q: Rumor has it that there are 150 tickets that will not be sold through the regular process. What are those for? Explain.

A: Stan Devi
Transformus is a burn. Burns are predicated around the concept that everything is run by volunteers. The reality is, we have never had enough volunteers. Especially for vital safety teams such as Rangers, FRT, EMS and DPW. As a board, it is our responsibility to do everything in our power to ensure the safety of the event. Yes, this is in part a selfish move because if we do not provide these essential safety teams then our insurance policy is void and any accident leading to a lawsuit,would thus mean the garnishing of our real-life wages or the taking of our homes or other real-life property because as the BOD, we are the ones who would be held liable. Therefor, we have learned from our own experience and from other burns that we have to take measures to make sure those teams are properly staffed. If the members of the community who have been awarded invitations step up and fill those critical roles, many of which require specific training, then we can award those 150 tickets in a third round. However, if those positions are not filled, we have to have those invitations to be able to offer for purchase to trained personnel from other burns or wherever we can find other properly training individuals willing to come to our event to make sure Mysteria is safe or there is no Transformus.

A: Kitten
We reserved 150 "just in case" - no that doesn't mean for our friends. It means Rangers or EMS teams aren't staffed - we have people willing to staff them, but those people need invites. We should know what's needed of these SOON (as soon as tickets are processed) and be able to release unneeded.

A: Kelly
To ensure that our critical teams are staffed and that we have a well run and safe event.

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Q: When can we see our cool art-project and theme blurbs back on the web?

A: Fun stiff like theme camp info etc. is secondary to tickets and other critical things. So, ASAP.

A: Stan Devi
After the webteam has finished pouring untold hours of time into completing the invitation system, after they have gotten theme camp registration running, basically, once everything that is essential to making the event actually happen, then the web team can start putting the non-essential, but oh-so awesome stuff like art projects and theme blurbs back. More volunteers joining the webteam would make this happen faster :)