Corey McKrill 5:10 pm on May 16, 2018

Feedback requested: Additional changes to WordCamp tickets and registration

On the heels of the last set of changes, here are a couple more enhancements that have been proposed. Please share your thoughts and feedback!

Make the Attendees Page Opt-In

Currently the public Attendees page on WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. sites is opt-out and the attendee must contact an organizer to request that they be removed from the page manually after purchasing their ticket. The organizer must then edit the attendee information in the WordCamp site admin, checking a box to “hide from the public attendees list”.

This change has been suggested as part of our efforts to improve WordCamp’s privacy policies and data handling ahead of Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation. It would add a required question to the ticket registration form about inclusion on the page, with a Yes/No answer. Here is the proposed wording:

Do you want to be listed on the public Attendees page? Learn more. (Yes/No)

“Attendees page” would be linked to the WordCamp site’s Attendees page if it is published. “Learn more” would be linked to the WordCamp privacy policy, which would detail what information might appear on the Attendee Page, and explain how attendees can change their registration information.

Add a Special Ticket Type for Live Stream

Some WordCamps (including WCUSWCUS WordCamp US. The US flagship WordCamp event. and WCEUWCEU WordCamp Europe. The European flagship WordCamp event.) offer a live stream of the event, and create a special ticket for people to view the streams online. Some of the recently added ticket registration questions, such as those about life-threatening allergies and accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) needs, are probably not relevant for people viewing the live stream, but currently they are included on every ticket type.

The proposal is to add a field to the Edit Ticket screen to designate it as a “Live Stream” ticket, which would allow the irrelevant questions to be omitted. This would additionally make it possible to omit live stream ticket holders from the public Attendees page by default, instead of having to customize the camptix_attendees shortcodeShortcode A shortcode is a placeholder used within a WordPress post, page, or widget to insert a form or function generated by a plugin in a specific location on your site..

Your feedback on both of these proposals is welcome!

kcristiano 6:00 pm on May 16, 2018

I agree that both of these changes should be made.

I do have a question regarding the Privacy Policy and the attendees page. Currently we are not able to control certain information that gets published (Name, website and twitter IIRC) will we now be able to control these fields or will they be covered in the privacy policy?
- Corey McKrill 9:25 pm on May 17, 2018
  
  The privacy policy will describe which information might get published on the Attendees page, because it depends on what the organizers choose to ask and what attendees choose to give.
  
  Regarding the Twitter field in particular, there is a previous discussion about that, with a consensus that we should let people know that their Twitter handle will appear on the Attendees page. I think the privacy policy link in the above proposal would suffice for that.
imath 6:02 pm on May 16, 2018

Hi Corey,

Both are great ideas +1000.
In particular the opt-in feature for the attendees list for any type of tickets.

About specific type tickets (livestream micro-sponsors, standalone Contributors day, etc..), I think another useful feature would be to be able to display them in specific pages thanks to a shortcodeShortcode A shortcode is a placeholder used within a WordPress post, page, or widget to insert a form or function generated by a plugin in a specific location on your site. attribute (or even better a GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. 😉) eg: `[camptix ticket_id=”1″]`.
- Hugh Lashbrooke 11:33 am on May 17, 2018
  
  If I’m not mistaken, that would require some pretty hefty refactoring of the camptix shortcodeShortcode A shortcode is a placeholder used within a WordPress post, page, or widget to insert a form or function generated by a plugin in a specific location on your site.. I definitely think it would be a great idea and breaking the shortcode out of that “only able to work on one page” thing, would be a win, so it’s worth looking into for sure.
  - Corey McKrill 9:26 pm on May 17, 2018
    
    Yep, this is an oft-requested feature, that is unfortunately really difficult to implement because of the architecture of the CampTix pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party.
- bretterer 8:23 pm on June 7, 2018
  
  https://github.com/Automattic/camptix/issues/197 for a reference on how this would work in my opinion
Emanuel Blagonic 8:31 am on May 17, 2018

Do you want to be listed on the public Attendees page? Learn more. (Yes/No)

This is ok, but I would change it to “[checkbox] I don’t want to be listed on the public Attendees page” so people needs to select this if they don’t want to be listed (they would be listed by default). Or if we want them to not be listed by default, this should be “I want to be listed on the public Attendees page”.

“Attendees page” would be linked to the WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. site’s Attendees page if it is published.

As @imath said, this should be a shortcodeShortcode A shortcode is a placeholder used within a WordPress post, page, or widget to insert a form or function generated by a plugin in a specific location on your site., no?

One last thing, is there a way to introduce paging or something (like another shortcode attribute). When you have lots of attendees https://2018.europe.wordcamp.org/attendees/ the rendering is very slow 🙂 (we can manage probably without, it’s not a “high priority” thing, but rather “nice to have”. 🙂
- Corey McKrill 9:39 pm on May 17, 2018
  
  This is ok, but I would change it to “[checkbox] I don’t want to be listed on the public Attendees page” so people needs to select this if they don’t want to be listed (they would be listed by default). Or if we want them to not be listed by default, this should be “I want to be listed on the public Attendees page”.
  
  The intention behind having it be a required Yes/No question instead of a checkbox is that the attendee has to think about the answer and choose one, rather than having a default that they can just skip over. They can’t complete the ticket purchase without making a conscious choice. I can see the arguments for both opt-in and opt-out checkboxes, so this seemed like a compromise (although it’s still more of an opt-in).
  
  One last thing, is there a way to introduce paging or something (like another shortcodeShortcode A shortcode is a placeholder used within a WordPress post, page, or widget to insert a form or function generated by a plugin in a specific location on your site. attribute). When you have lots of attendees https://2018.europe.wordcamp.org/attendees/ the rendering is very slow
  
  There’s an open MetaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. ticket for that:
  
  https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/2282
  - Emanuel Blagonic 6:03 am on May 18, 2018
    
    Personally, although I get where you’re going with this, I don’t believe this should be a required field. We already added more complexity to ticket purchases by asking about allergies and accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility). I don’t think this decision (being on a public page) is in the same level as those two. I’m voting for a non-required checkbox that can be selected for “when you want to be displayed there”. (talking from my experience being a UXUX UX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it. designer)
    
    My $0.02
  - Ian Dunn 7:35 pm on May 23, 2018
    
    I don’t think it should be required either; it’s not a critical field in the same way that life-threatening allergies are. It seems like the easiest thing for attendees would be to pick a reasonable default, and then let them change it if they’d like, but not force them think about it.
    
    A checkbox also feels more straight-forward to me than multiple radio options, and less cluttered.
    
    Either way, I think it’d be bad UXUX UX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it. to phrase the question in the negative, since that can easily confuse people. Something like, “Include me in the public Attendees page (learn more)” seems best to me, accompanied by a checkbox that is checked by default.
Hugh Lashbrooke 11:32 am on May 17, 2018

I’m on board with this – the attendee page opt-in is definitely a win for privacy.

Having a special ticket type for live stream tickets is a great idea – aside from the benefits you mentioned here, it would make it much easier to report on live stream ticket sales vs ‘real’ ticket sales, which is always a good thing 🙂
Mark Root-Wiley 2:28 pm on May 17, 2018

Opting in to the attendees page is a great idea! This has come up just about every year I’ve helped organize a camp. I would possibly consider making the “Show me on the public attendees page” checkbox checked by default, so it’s still opt-out but much easier and more transparent to do so.

As for the live stream ticket type, I would leave the accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) question as you never know what someone might type. Specifically, I could imagine some people requesting captioning of a livestream or a sign language interpreter visible. I know those requests can’t always be accommodated, but people should be allowed to make them.
- Emanuel Blagonic 7:52 pm on May 17, 2018
  
  “Show me on the public attendees page”
  
  If we’re talking GDPR (not an expert but did a lot of adjustments to forms past couple of months, I think that the checkbox needs to be unchecked by default. Ideally, it should be the CTA “Show me on the public attendees page” but if we do it like that it’s a real possibility we’ll loose a lot of people to that. A little “darker” UXUX UX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it. pattern would be to have a checkbox “I don’t want to be displayed on a public attendees page” and unticked by default… a lot of thoughts on this for sure 😀
  - Corey McKrill 9:42 pm on May 17, 2018
    
    In the interest of keeping this all in one thread, see my above comment.
Timi Wahalahti 8:39 pm on May 17, 2018

Both of these suggestions sounds good!
Andrew 8:47 pm on May 17, 2018

I agree with both suggestions. Anything we can do to give users/campers more control with their data is a win-win.
- Courtney P.K. 12:37 am on May 23, 2018
  
  Yes, this! A big +1 from me.
Ian Dunn 7:29 pm on May 23, 2018

I’m in favor of making it easy to opt-out, but I worry that if we make participation opt-in, most new attendees won’t bother clicking the extra button, because the real value of it isn’t immediately obvious. If that happens, then we risk rendering the Attendees page ineffective 🙁

I think participation in the page is an important part of building community. Seeing the faces of other attendees helps to humanize the event, and it communicates that WordCamps are really all about the community. It helps people make connections that they otherwise wouldn’t.

The percentage of attendees who actively want to avoid participating publicly seems very small, and we can make it easy for them to opt-out without hurting our community-building efforts for everyone else in the process.

I think we should go ahead and ask the `Do you want to be listed…` question, but have the default answer be “Yes”.

What do you all think about that?
- kcristiano 7:43 pm on May 23, 2018
  
  @iandunn I am concerned that opt-in will cause issues if ,as I recall, the default attendees short code will display name, website and twitter handle. We will always have issues with scraping of the page fro marketing purposes, but I would rather err on the side of privacy on this one.
  - Ian Dunn 8:50 pm on May 23, 2018
    
    Yeah, the scraping is really annoying/inappropriate/frustrating, and I can understand why you feel that way. Personally, though, i just hate the idea of neutering an important feature because of it.
    
    It doesn’t seem like the problem is severe enough to warrant such an extreme response. It seems kind of like deleting your email account instead of installing spam filters, and accepting that a certain amount of spam is going to get through no matter what.
    
    There are sleazy people in the world, and they’re gonna do what they’re gonna do, but I don’t personally think we should sacrifice things that build our community to avoid them.
    - kcristiano 8:54 pm on May 23, 2018
      
      ~~Beyond being frustrated (which it is), I don’t want to burden organizers with having to remove people manually if asked.~~ Edit I forgot there will be a way for attendees to remove themselves- kjc Perhaps it has been focusing on all issues privacy related, but I do believe we’d be best to have folks opt-in.
      
      Either way would work for me (as long as opt-out is permitted) and I completely understand the reasoning.
      - Andrea Middleton 8:58 pm on May 23, 2018
        
        I agree that we probably don’t need to add this question to all WordCamps’ registration flow (like allergies or a11yAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) needs).
        
        EDIT: It was possibly my idea to require this question in the Camptix work-flow, originally. Thanks for all the suggestions and shared opinions.
        
        We had planned to require this question to give attendees more control over how their participation in the event is displayed publicly, but I agree that we already have so many required questions that this will probably be lost.
        
        If we inform attendees that their information will be added to a public page by default, but that they can change their display settings and remove their names from that list (by clicking the edit token in their confirmation email, I think we’ve put the power in the hands of the people and saved our organizers a lot of time and trouble. What do you think?
        
        Corey McKrill 10:06 pm on May 23, 2018
        
        Regardless of whether the question is opt-out or opt-in, it will be on the registration form, as well as on the Edit Info form that you can get to from a link in your ticket receipt email. So people will be able to make the choice during registration and then also change their minds later if they want.
        
        Ian Dunn 11:17 pm on May 23, 2018
        
        It should be possible to add some logic to only show it on the edit page, if we wanted to, right?
        
        I don’t have a strong opinion either way. On the one hand, it’d be nice to cut down on the number of questions people have to answer, but if we’re already going to have to add a notification that they’ll show up on the page, then it seems like we might as well add the question in both places too.
        
        Corey McKrill 11:31 pm on May 23, 2018
        
        We’ve gotten quite a few complaints in the past about not being able to opt-out during registration, which means the attendee will appear on the public page for as much as 12 hours (due to caching) before their post-registration request to be removed is honored. I’d prefer to keep the question on the registration form as well.
        
        Ian Dunn 12:09 am on May 24, 2018
        
        Ah, that’s a good point.
        
        Andrea Middleton 12:11 am on May 24, 2018
        
        Agreed, that’s a good point.
Junko Nukaga 2:48 pm on June 7, 2018

I agree with both suggestions.
There is WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. which does not provide lunch in our country.
In that case, as well, I feel that the question about allergies is unnecessary.
Jennifer Swisher 4:06 pm on June 7, 2018
Attendees Page Opt-In

I noticed that the attendee page option has been added to the ticket already and that it’s set to yes by default. This concerns me greatly for people whose safety could be put at risk by being identified on the attendees page. People such as:
- domestic abuse survivors who are trying to protect themselves and their families from their abusers
- trans and trans-questioning people who are out in the community but not out to their friends and family
These may seem like edge cases, and maybe they are, but I really do think that there should be no default option for the attendees page question. Yes, the attendee can go in and change this themselves, but as Corey mentioned above, this can take up to 12 hours to update on the frontend because of caching.

Live Stream Ticket Option

I’ll keep this short: Yes please!! 😉
- Corey McKrill 3:41 pm on June 8, 2018
  
  To be clear, the up-to-12-hour wait is if you change your Attendees page preference at a later time, after your ticket has been purchased. With the new checkbox that is there now, if you uncheck it while purchasing your ticket, you won’t ever show up on the Attendees page.
  
  I understand your concern about safety for certain cases, but in this case I don’t think the opt-out checkbox increases anyone’s risk. I suspect that anyone who is concerned about where they appear online is likely to notice that line on the registration form and choose to uncheck the box if they prefer not to be included on the page. And I agree with this comment, that making it opt-in would greatly reduce the effectiveness of the Attendees page as a marketing and community-building tool.
Francesca Marano 3:02 pm on June 8, 2018

A+ to both
Next step: Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/. ticket can be added only if you purchased the regular one and you can copy the info from the regular ticket instead of rewriting everything 😉
Cami Kaos 8:31 pm on August 9, 2018

The proposal is to add a field to the Edit Ticket screen to designate it as a “Live Stream” ticket, which would allow the irrelevant questions to be omitted. This would additionally make it possible to omit live stream ticket holders from the public Attendees page by default, instead of having to customize the camptix_attendees shortcodeShortcode A shortcode is a placeholder used within a WordPress post, page, or widget to insert a form or function generated by a plugin in a specific location on your site..

I love this!
Francesca Marano 9:28 pm on July 14, 2019

@coreymckrill have the changes been implemented?
thanks
- Corey McKrill 4:55 pm on July 15, 2019
  
  The attendees page opt-in has been implemented with the required question described in the original post.
  
  The ticket type has not been implemented, and we may not need to, as WCEUWCEU WordCamp Europe. The European flagship WordCamp event. no longer uses livestream tickets, and WCUSWCUS WordCamp US. The US flagship WordCamp event. won’t be this year either.
  
  I’ll go ahead and mark this post as “Done”.

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Feedback requested: Additional changes to WordCamp tickets and registration

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