CampTix: Too many emails about special accommodations for large events

[coreymckrill]

Perhaps this is an edge case that only applies to large online events with free tickets. But when the tickets number in the thousands, and some percentage of the attendees are saying "yes" to the question about special accommodations, it's a lot of email notifications for organizers.

One way to mitigate this might be to set up a cron job and batch the email notifications, instead of sending a separate one for each ticket.

Pros: a maximum number of email notifications per day.
Cons: could be harder to keep track of the numbers, and could be harder to ensure proper follow up, especially if each email becomes a "to do" task that is archived once it has been completed.

[andreamiddleton]

It might have been an edge case before we started organizing online WordCamps, but I think it's likely to crop up more often now. I think you're right that one email notification per accommodation flag is probably too vulnerable to abuse right now.

The "con" that worries me most is the potential to "bury" real accommodation requests and make them harder for organizers to respond to. Is there a way to "validate" special accommodation requests, perhaps, that will help organizers find the real requests? Maybe an email confirmation that the requester has to click on, proving they're not a robot?

[coreymckrill]

Maybe an email confirmation that the requester has to click on, proving they're not a robot?

I was wondering if we should do something like this for all free tickets, since there's no financial transaction to "confirm" that the ticket requester is real. That would also be more fair than only requiring people who have accessibility needs to prove they're a human.

[andreamiddleton]

That would also be more fair than only requiring people who have accessibility needs to prove they're a human.

Oh gosh, you're completely right. Should this be elevated to a discussion on make.wordpress.org/community? Seems like an idea for a consequential change that should be discussed more widely.

[timiwahalahti]

Should this be elevated to a discussion on make.wordpress.org/community?

I'm planning to write soon(ish) P2 post about these notifications :)

Adding one idea: what if dashboard would support filtering attendees based on these questions, marking if orhanisers have already reached out and as well place to add notes if needed.

[ryelle]

Moving another suggestion over from #605:

Instead of sending two emails would it be possible to have one email and one notification in the WordCamp website dashboard?

[ryelle]

Adding one idea: what if dashboard would support filtering attendees based on these questions, marking if organisers have already reached out and as well place to add notes if needed.

I think this is a good idea for management, but maybe can tip into personal info that we don't want to track in our database/don't want all organizers to have access to (though any organizer who can export CampTix CSV can see who answered the questions). So I think we could have "boolean"ish fields, "requested accommodations": Y/N, "contacted for a11y": Y/N, no notes. And then maybe a dashboard widget with a count of people who have requested accommodations, but haven't been contacted? That could link off to a filter showing those tickets/attendees… only visible to site admins? /brainstoming

In any case, this should be a wider discussion 🙂

[timiwahalahti]

Recent workflow changes have made this a lot better for organisers.

When this issue was opened, we sent an automated email, AND Central sent a follow-up reminding organisers to take action.

Since then, we have stopped sending the follow-ups, #948 ensured that the automated emails go only once if tracker has the same address multiple times and #992 add the attendee filter on dashboard.

Given that, I'd close this.