On 11/27/2012 4:46 PM, Shaun Ellis wrote:
I agree with Tom. If you look at the links Andromeda sent earlier in this thread, both conference organizers reported dramatic increases in the number of under-represented presenters simply by 1) making the proposal authors anonymous during voting
Hmm, is the proposal author a legitimate (or illegitimate) criteria to judge proposals on? I tend to think it's actually legitimate; there are some people I know will give a valuable presentation because of who they are, and others who's expertise I might trust on some topics but not others.
I don't think this is illegitimate, and wouldn't want to take this information away from voters. We are, after all, voting not just on a topic, but on a topic to be presented by a certain person or people.
(I would be quite fine with having some of the program decided upon by the program committee not by the voters at large though! Using a variety of criteria. In addition to issues of diversity in presenters, I think it could also in general improve the quality of presentations and topical diversity as well).
