Interesting. The thing that pops to my mind is that Debconf has always been a very interactive event. More BOF and panel discussion oriented than broadcast-talk oriented. Which for a "working" event makes a lot of sense.
But I, too, hope we aren't missing useful contributions... Hrm. Bdale On September 8, 2018 4:11:39 AM MDT, Chris Lamb <[email protected]> wrote: >Hi, > >I noticed yesterday [0] that the PyCascades conference [1] explicitly >does not permit any questions and answers after a presentation. > >Finding this intriguing, I followed up to ask for more information and >was given the following reply: > > No live Q&A after talks makes it a more friendly environment for > first time and new speakers. @ericholscher has written about this and > explained it better than I can in a tweet :) [link removed] > > -- https://twitter.com/mariatta/status/1038110484673622016 > >~ > >Here is the salient section from the linked page by Eric Holscher: > > There are two primary audiences that have issues with questions: > > - Speakers > - The audience > > Let's start with speakers. Many first-time speakers that I know have > an intense anxiety around having the audience ask questions. They > think, "I am going to go up and give a talk, and then someone in the > audience will contradict or embarrass me for lack of knowledge > afterward." Audience questions after talks are one of the biggest > sources of stress for speakers. > > Now for the audience. They have chosen to attend a talk to hear from > a specific speaker about a topic they are knowledgeable on. If there > are 250 people in the room, each minute of the talk is over 4 hours > of combined time. When you offer up a microphone to anyone in the > audience, you are now offering 4 hours of peoples life to an > unaudited question and answer that likely only provides value to a > small minority of attendees. This is not a good use of anyones time, > and often audiences feel trapped in a talk room during Q&A time. > > -- http://ericholscher.com/blog/2016/nov/12/questions-at-conferences/ > >~ > >Anyway, whilst I am in no way suggesting DebConf takes an identical >approach (!!), I would be curious to know whether if we are missing any >new contributions this way. > >This is naturally a difficult question to answer on this list as anyone >subscribed is likely a DebConf regular and thus somewhat less likely to >be a first-timer. > >Such an idea could potentially be accomodated in a similar fashion to >the "Record talk? [Y]/n" question for a talk proposal; an "Allow Q&A? >[Y]/n", also defaulting to "yes". > >Just to underline, I'm not suggesting DebConf changes anything, just >sharing an somewhat-random and hopefully thought-provoking idea I >came across. > > [0] https://twitter.com/mariatta/status/1037907132954292224 > [1] https://2019.pycascades.com/ > > >Regards, > >-- > ,''`. > : :' : Chris Lamb > `. `'` [email protected] / chris-lamb.co.uk > `- -- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
