On 15 Apr 2014, at 8:37, Nicholas H.Tollervey wrote:
Yes!
On 15/04/14 10:28, Lynn Root wrote:
- limit speakers to only give one talk.
+100000000
Perhaps too late for this year, but I wish this were the case for
every conference.
First of all I’m glad that after the troubling discussion style in the
not so far past this sensitive topic is approached appropriately. The
consequences of having a diverse speaker roster go much farther than
that it looks good on paper.
I think that blind reviews are problematic if you have an unleveled play
field and are trying to do something about that. The solution is to
accept one has certain biases and fight them instead of trying to avoid
them because that apparently took away a tool you could have used.
***
That said, I don’t think it's too late. The conference is in July and
there’s a few things you can do:
- Get a keynote speaker who is not a white dude.
- Having speakers have 3 slots is ridiculous, 2 should be a very rare
exception. So ask them which talk is more important and there you have
some free slots.
- Reach out to outreach groups. The most obvious one are our PyLadies
but there are more: http://www.callbackwomen.com/reach-out.html Tell
them our blind audition resulted in a roster you’re unhappy with and
we’re trying to fix it. Let some special committee review those
proposals. Keep a few slots free for them and just mark them TBD if you
need to get it out to print.
- And finally walking the walk: my talk is still in the queue and I will
happily retract my proposal if it helps to have a more diverse
conference. I have no interest to be part of an all-male schedule
anyway.
Cheers and good luck,
Hynek
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