+1 for going back to the original 3-day length of the conference, not to criticize the organisation, it's just my personal preference.
On Tue, Apr 15, 2014 at 3:04 PM, Martijn Faassen <faas...@startifact.com>wrote: > Hi there, > > I thought I'd give my preferences for conference length in the future. > It's just my point of view, but I had it for a while now, and I figure I'd > better share it to be more constructive. > > For some years, EuroPython was 3 days of conference, with perhaps 3 or 4 > parallel tracks with talks. From what I recall from the early days, we got > about as many talk submissions as we had talk slots available. > > At some point a few training days got tacked on to the beginning. We also > gained a tradition of sprints before or after the conference, later on > getting established at the end, where I think they should be. I myself > greatly enjoy sprints as an opportunity to get to know people better and > work with them. > > In the last few years EuroPython grew to a conference with many more > parallel tracks, and more days of conference proper. 5 or so. And then > sprints. > > I haven't been to EuroPython for a few years for other reasons. But when I > peeked at the massive and long schedule I did feel rather intimidated. It > feels a bit too much like a marathon to me. I prefer my conference to be > shorter. I also feel such a long conference risks diluting the talks anyone > finds interesting over a longer period, making the whole experience less > inspiring. And while I enjoy the hallway track, I prefer doing sprints. > > I take it the training sessions got spread into the main conference and > that's why it's longer. But I wonder whether the ballooning schedule is > also because the amount of talk submissions went up, and following the > pattern of accepting as many submitted talks as possible like we used to > have, the conference felt it had to grow to more days and more slots too. > If this is so, I think we should consider whether this is the right > response to more talk submissions, or whether a better response is to > simply reject more talks. > > I think this relates to the discussion on diversity of talks. On the > preliminary schedule, quite a few speakers have two accepted talks, or even > three. For a more inspiring conference, I'd prefer to see more different > speakers, more viewpoints, not the same speaker multiple times, however > good they may be, and however interesting the topic. > > Perhaps an exception can be made if a particular category of submissions, > like trainings, don't get enough submissions otherwise, but if submissions > > talk slots, I think 1 accepted talk per speaker is a good idea. To avoid > people gaming the system to increase their chances they're accepted, > perhaps 1 *submitted* talk per speaker would be a good idea too. > > For even more diversity of topics, throw in more wild card talks too that > are only peripheral to Python, and not just for the keynote speeches. To me > that's more inspiring. (I haven't studied the schedule in detail yet > though, so it's possible they're there) > > I was told by @europython on Twitter I wasn't required to show up for 5 > days of talks. I can make my own, shorter conference. So do I cut off the > beginning or the end? I'd prefer the sprints, so I guess I should show up > in day 3? What if a talk I submitted gets scheduled to day 2, though? Or if > I actually prefer seeing the talks on day 1 and 2? Now I have to make those > difficult choices myself. > > Nobody has to care about what I want of course if it's just me. But > perhaps I'm not the only one. And maybe bits of my analysis make sense to > others. Nobody will find out if nobody talks about it, so that's why I did > here. > > Thanks for doing all the hard work in organizing this; I know it's not > easy. > > Regards, > > Martijn > > _______________________________________________ > EuroPython 2014 Berlin, 21th27th July > EuroPython mailing list > EuroPython@python.org > https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython >
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