When drafting the vote for this coming hackfest, a couple things occurred to me regarding making our events more welcoming and inviting.

First, while I like the fairness of our reimbursement schedule for longer term contributors, I wonder if it might be a bit exclusionary for situations where we do want to encourage newer developers to get involved and join in. It makes me wonder if we should revisit the tiers and make sure the numbers aren't hindering attendance at these events?

Second, the tiers quantify based on patchcount, but many of our developers are making numerous important contributions that can't be measured in git commits. Where we do use a tiered system, it would be beneficial if we could find ways to structure it to recognize that work.

Lastly, I worry a bit that not all types of people may feel comfortable attending a hackfest - language, gender, age, work duties, family requirements, etc. can affect someone's choice to attend. We invest a fair amount of the project's money into these hackfests, but if they are only effectively open to a subset of our membership it makes me wonder if we need to broaden our thinking for other kinds of gathering activities that might suit some of these other participants.

Anyway, nothing here to do regarding the upcoming hackfest, time's too short. But what do you guys think of these ponderings in relation to making our future activities more inclusive of a wider variety of people?

Bryce