[OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4G 2007 Workshop Submission
Jeroen, I appreciate your frustration, and I know it is shared by many others, as only 12 of the 34 3-hour workshop submissions could be hosted. The criteria the workshop committee used in their evaluation are here: http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/ FOSS4G2007_Workshops#Criteria_used_by_the_workshop_committee_to_review_w orkshop_submissions All the committee members ranked the submissions on those criteria and the rankings were averaged. Two workshops in the top 12 that were topic duplicates were removed and the next-lowest-ranked non- duplicates were moved up. It appears that being on the committee is no guarantee of satisfaction with the final result. The average of a bunch of lists people want is a list that no one is 100% happy with. Paul On 28-Mar-07, at 10:36 PM, Jeroen Ticheler wrote: Dear people, Thank you for your information. I have to say I find that pretty frustrating and annoying knowing that GeoNetwork opensource is one of the incubator projects of OSGEO, the number of OSGEO projects is (still) limited and FOSS4G is the OSGEO conference. Participating with the project in OSGEO has multiple reasons, one of them being that it provides opportunities to work on synergies and work on marketing the OSGEO software stack. Now how does the intent of OSGEOs mission fit with refusing a (single) workshop on one of its projects. Maybe I miss something, but I'd assumed there was at least some kind of a relation!? Looking forward to some good feedback and discussion on this, also on the OSGEO mailing list as I consider that discussion very relevant in the further development of outreach strategies for ourselves and the OSGEO foundation through conferences. Core question: Should OSGEO projects have guaranteed workshop and presentation space for at least one session? Regards, Jeroen On Mar 28, 2007, at 5:58 PM, FOSS4G 2007 wrote: Dear Jeroen Ticheler, We regret to inform you that we will not be able to accept your Half Day workshop, Using the GeoNetwork opensource Spatial Data Catalog, for the FOSS4G 2007 program. We had a very large number of submissions this year, and have been able to accept less than half of them . We hope you will consider bringing some of your ideas to the conference in the form of a presentation. The Call for Presentations is currently open, and there is room for 120 presentations at the conference this year . http://www.foss4g2007.org/presentations Yours, The FOSS4G 2007 Conference Committee ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4G 2007 Workshop Submission
Paul and others, I too was disappointed to be in the 22 of 34 workshop proposals that were turned down and would like to suggest that the conference organizers re-think the approach to include more workshops. At FOSS4g2006, I found the workshops to be perhaps the most useful element of the conference. For a highly technical meeting, the value of a 1.5 to 3 hour hands-on workshop versus a 20 minute pre-canned powerpoint presentation can not be overstated. Our project (and I suspect many others) has tried to embrace the concept of the FOSS4g venue as an alternative to hosting our own separate conference. Certainly this concept was encouraged by last year's conference organizers. However for this to work there needs to be the opportunity to present our workshops. May I suggest the following two changes: 1) Reallocate time for more workshops. 2) Let the registrants decide which workshops stay. In other words, post a list of 34 workshops and keep only those that meet a minimum number of committed/paid attendee registration fees. I suspect that every one of the 22 rejected workshop proposers could argue that they easily meet all of the four criteria listed here: http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/FOSS4G2007_Workshops#Criteria_used_by_the_workshop_committee_to_review_workshop_submissions Hence letting the broader community vote with their registration dollars would seem to be a more free and open approach. It would be unfortunate to see this as the beginning of a general culling process where instead of trying to attract new projects, the FOSS4g community begins to become more exclusionary. Dan Daniel P. Ames, PhD, PE Idaho State University Geospatial Software Lab On 3/29/07, Paul Ramsey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Jeroen, I appreciate your frustration, and I know it is shared by many others, as only 12 of the 34 3-hour workshop submissions could be hosted. The criteria the workshop committee used in their evaluation are here: http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/ FOSS4G2007_Workshops#Criteria_used_by_the_workshop_committee_to_review_w orkshop_submissions All the committee members ranked the submissions on those criteria and the rankings were averaged. Two workshops in the top 12 that were topic duplicates were removed and the next-lowest-ranked non- duplicates were moved up. It appears that being on the committee is no guarantee of satisfaction with the final result. The average of a bunch of lists people want is a list that no one is 100% happy with. Paul On 28-Mar-07, at 10:36 PM, Jeroen Ticheler wrote: Dear people, Thank you for your information. I have to say I find that pretty frustrating and annoying knowing that GeoNetwork opensource is one of the incubator projects of OSGEO, the number of OSGEO projects is (still) limited and FOSS4G is the OSGEO conference. Participating with the project in OSGEO has multiple reasons, one of them being that it provides opportunities to work on synergies and work on marketing the OSGEO software stack. Now how does the intent of OSGEOs mission fit with refusing a (single) workshop on one of its projects. Maybe I miss something, but I'd assumed there was at least some kind of a relation!? Looking forward to some good feedback and discussion on this, also on the OSGEO mailing list as I consider that discussion very relevant in the further development of outreach strategies for ourselves and the OSGEO foundation through conferences. Core question: Should OSGEO projects have guaranteed workshop and presentation space for at least one session? Regards, Jeroen On Mar 28, 2007, at 5:58 PM, FOSS4G 2007 wrote: Dear Jeroen Ticheler, We regret to inform you that we will not be able to accept your Half Day workshop, Using the GeoNetwork opensource Spatial Data Catalog, for the FOSS4G 2007 program. We had a very large number of submissions this year, and have been able to accept less than half of them . We hope you will consider bringing some of your ideas to the conference in the form of a presentation. The Call for Presentations is currently open, and there is room for 120 presentations at the conference this year . http://www.foss4g2007.org/presentations Yours, The FOSS4G 2007 Conference Committee ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4G 2007 Workshop Submission
Hi Paul, Hard not to be frustrated if I look at the closed ranking/review process, the final list that includes non-OSGEO workshops and the fact that no consultation has taken place with workshop submitters on possible alternatives. Just the blunt email that closes the door. Jeroen On Mar 29, 2007, at 4:29 PM, Paul Ramsey wrote: Jeroen, I appreciate your frustration, and I know it is shared by many others, as only 12 of the 34 3-hour workshop submissions could be hosted. The criteria the workshop committee used in their evaluation are here: http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/ FOSS4G2007_Workshops#Criteria_used_by_the_workshop_committee_to_review _workshop_submissions All the committee members ranked the submissions on those criteria and the rankings were averaged. Two workshops in the top 12 that were topic duplicates were removed and the next-lowest-ranked non- duplicates were moved up. It appears that being on the committee is no guarantee of satisfaction with the final result. The average of a bunch of lists people want is a list that no one is 100% happy with. Paul On 28-Mar-07, at 10:36 PM, Jeroen Ticheler wrote: Dear people, Thank you for your information. I have to say I find that pretty frustrating and annoying knowing that GeoNetwork opensource is one of the incubator projects of OSGEO, the number of OSGEO projects is (still) limited and FOSS4G is the OSGEO conference. Participating with the project in OSGEO has multiple reasons, one of them being that it provides opportunities to work on synergies and work on marketing the OSGEO software stack. Now how does the intent of OSGEOs mission fit with refusing a (single) workshop on one of its projects. Maybe I miss something, but I'd assumed there was at least some kind of a relation!? Looking forward to some good feedback and discussion on this, also on the OSGEO mailing list as I consider that discussion very relevant in the further development of outreach strategies for ourselves and the OSGEO foundation through conferences. Core question: Should OSGEO projects have guaranteed workshop and presentation space for at least one session? Regards, Jeroen On Mar 28, 2007, at 5:58 PM, FOSS4G 2007 wrote: Dear Jeroen Ticheler, We regret to inform you that we will not be able to accept your Half Day workshop, Using the GeoNetwork opensource Spatial Data Catalog, for the FOSS4G 2007 program. We had a very large number of submissions this year, and have been able to accept less than half of them . We hope you will consider bringing some of your ideas to the conference in the form of a presentation. The Call for Presentations is currently open, and there is room for 120 presentations at the conference this year . http://www.foss4g2007.org/presentations Yours, The FOSS4G 2007 Conference Committee ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4G 2007 Workshop Submission
I'm sorry, but I don't have many other doors to open, and I cannot imagine you truly expected me to find alternative arrangements for all 22 3-hour workshops that did not make the 12. For every point (GeoNetwork is an OSGeo project) there is a counterpoint (MapWindow is a popular project you OSGeo guys are ignoring!). I have enough computers for 6 labs, which translates to 12 sessions. In order to make EVEN MORE room we added the short format, now known as labs, which added another 16 slots (2 tracks throughout the presentation portion of the conference). And we gave submitters the option of choosing which formats they felt they could use. The long-format workshops had to be chosen and slotted ahead of registration because people are going to be PAYING for them, and we want them to get what they request. Perhaps next year the organizers can attempt Dan's choose-first-optimize-later approach, which has the benefit of reflecting actual demand from attendees and the drawback of higher organizational complexity. The short format labs are not going to be scheduled until the program is made in July, and therefore subject to more potential change, should someone drop out of that list. Paul Jeroen Ticheler wrote: Hi Paul, Hard not to be frustrated if I look at the closed ranking/review process, the final list that includes non-OSGEO workshops and the fact that no consultation has taken place with workshop submitters on possible alternatives. Just the blunt email that closes the door. Jeroen On Mar 29, 2007, at 4:29 PM, Paul Ramsey wrote: Jeroen, I appreciate your frustration, and I know it is shared by many others, as only 12 of the 34 3-hour workshop submissions could be hosted. The criteria the workshop committee used in their evaluation are here: http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/FOSS4G2007_Workshops#Criteria_used_by_the_workshop_committee_to_review_workshop_submissions All the committee members ranked the submissions on those criteria and the rankings were averaged. Two workshops in the top 12 that were topic duplicates were removed and the next-lowest-ranked non-duplicates were moved up. It appears that being on the committee is no guarantee of satisfaction with the final result. The average of a bunch of lists people want is a list that no one is 100% happy with. Paul On 28-Mar-07, at 10:36 PM, Jeroen Ticheler wrote: Dear people, Thank you for your information. I have to say I find that pretty frustrating and annoying knowing that GeoNetwork opensource is one of the incubator projects of OSGEO, the number of OSGEO projects is (still) limited and FOSS4G is the OSGEO conference. Participating with the project in OSGEO has multiple reasons, one of them being that it provides opportunities to work on synergies and work on marketing the OSGEO software stack. Now how does the intent of OSGEOs mission fit with refusing a (single) workshop on one of its projects. Maybe I miss something, but I'd assumed there was at least some kind of a relation!? Looking forward to some good feedback and discussion on this, also on the OSGEO mailing list as I consider that discussion very relevant in the further development of outreach strategies for ourselves and the OSGEO foundation through conferences. Core question: Should OSGEO projects have guaranteed workshop and presentation space for at least one session? Regards, Jeroen On Mar 28, 2007, at 5:58 PM, FOSS4G 2007 wrote: Dear Jeroen Ticheler, We regret to inform you that we will not be able to accept your Half Day workshop, Using the GeoNetwork opensource Spatial Data Catalog, for the FOSS4G 2007 program. We had a very large number of submissions this year, and have been able to accept less than half of them . We hope you will consider bringing some of your ideas to the conference in the form of a presentation. The Call for Presentations is currently open, and there is room for 120 presentations at the conference this year . http://www.foss4g2007.org/presentations Yours, The FOSS4G 2007 Conference Committee ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Paul Ramsey Refractions Research http://www.refractions.net [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: 250-383-3022 Cell: 250-885-0632 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4G 2007 Workshop Submission
sorry to bung into this conversation given that neither am I organizing, nor presenting, not even being there in person. Nevertheless, I echo Dan's viewpoint about the relative value of 20 mins presentations vs. longer workshops. I have been a few conferences in the lifetime, and I just can't imagine why anyone would spend a thousand plus dollars to spend talking 20 mins about a project that he/she has spent a year or two working on. Sound-bytes can be so frustrating, so TV like, where everyone has a short attention span, almost by design. Hopefully next meeting, wherever it is, will consider a format that allows the presenter and the audience to spend a longer time to delve into the issues and really have a conversation. Of course, that does not obviate 5-min lightning talks on snack-size issues as well. On 3/29/07, Daniel Ames [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Paul and others, I too was disappointed to be in the 22 of 34 workshop proposals that were turned down and would like to suggest that the conference organizers re-think the approach to include more workshops. At FOSS4g2006, I found the workshops to be perhaps the most useful element of the conference. For a highly technical meeting, the value of a 1.5 to 3 hour hands-on workshop versus a 20 minute pre-canned powerpoint presentation can not be overstated. Our project (and I suspect many others) has tried to embrace the concept of the FOSS4g venue as an alternative to hosting our own separate conference. Certainly this concept was encouraged by last year's conference organizers. However for this to work there needs to be the opportunity to present our workshops. May I suggest the following two changes: 1) Reallocate time for more workshops. 2) Let the registrants decide which workshops stay. In other words, post a list of 34 workshops and keep only those that meet a minimum number of committed/paid attendee registration fees. I suspect that every one of the 22 rejected workshop proposers could argue that they easily meet all of the four criteria listed here: http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/FOSS4G2007_Workshops#Criteria_used_by_the_workshop_committee_to_review_workshop_submissions Hence letting the broader community vote with their registration dollars would seem to be a more free and open approach. It would be unfortunate to see this as the beginning of a general culling process where instead of trying to attract new projects, the FOSS4g community begins to become more exclusionary. Dan Daniel P. Ames, PhD, PE Idaho State University Geospatial Software Lab On 3/29/07, Paul Ramsey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Jeroen, I appreciate your frustration, and I know it is shared by many others, as only 12 of the 34 3-hour workshop submissions could be hosted. The criteria the workshop committee used in their evaluation are here: http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/ FOSS4G2007_Workshops#Criteria_used_by_the_workshop_committee_to_review_w orkshop_submissions All the committee members ranked the submissions on those criteria and the rankings were averaged. Two workshops in the top 12 that were topic duplicates were removed and the next-lowest-ranked non- duplicates were moved up. It appears that being on the committee is no guarantee of satisfaction with the final result. The average of a bunch of lists people want is a list that no one is 100% happy with. Paul On 28-Mar-07, at 10:36 PM, Jeroen Ticheler wrote: Dear people, Thank you for your information. I have to say I find that pretty frustrating and annoying knowing that GeoNetwork opensource is one of the incubator projects of OSGEO, the number of OSGEO projects is (still) limited and FOSS4G is the OSGEO conference. Participating with the project in OSGEO has multiple reasons, one of them being that it provides opportunities to work on synergies and work on marketing the OSGEO software stack. Now how does the intent of OSGEOs mission fit with refusing a (single) workshop on one of its projects. Maybe I miss something, but I'd assumed there was at least some kind of a relation!? Looking forward to some good feedback and discussion on this, also on the OSGEO mailing list as I consider that discussion very relevant in the further development of outreach strategies for ourselves and the OSGEO foundation through conferences. Core question: Should OSGEO projects have guaranteed workshop and presentation space for at least one session? Regards, Jeroen On Mar 28, 2007, at 5:58 PM, FOSS4G 2007 wrote: Dear Jeroen Ticheler, We regret to inform you that we will not be able to accept your Half Day workshop, Using the GeoNetwork opensource Spatial Data Catalog, for the FOSS4G 2007 program. We had a very large number of submissions this year, and have been able to accept less than half of them . We hope you will consider bringing some of your ideas to the conference in the form of a presentation. The
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4G 2007 Workshop Submission
On 28-Mar-07, at 10:36 PM, Jeroen Ticheler wrote: Thank you for your information. I have to say I find that pretty frustrating and annoying knowing that GeoNetwork opensource is one of the incubator projects of OSGEO, the number of OSGEO projects is (still) limited and FOSS4G is the OSGEO conference. Participating with the project in OSGEO has multiple reasons, one of them being that it provides opportunities to work on synergies and work on marketing the OSGEO software stack. Now how does the intent of OSGEOs mission fit with refusing a (single) workshop on one of its projects. Maybe I miss something, but I'd assumed there was at least some kind of a relation!? There are some other nuances to the argument that have been somewhat buried. During the past debate about what to name the conference (FOSS4G vs OSGeo Conference), there was very strong interest in keeping the conference much broader than only OSGeo projects - hence the re-use of the FOSS4G name, to show it was not just OSGeo. Had the committee chosen to give OSGeo projects a priority, then many of the folks from the historic FOSS4G (and other) conferences would have felt usurped. Now if it was not called FOSS4G perhaps that constraint would be less of a concern. Also, if a majority of workshops ended up being for OSGeo projects, then this would really only be an outward facing event - marketing outside of our known group of users/members. By having other projects represented in workshops, it provides our community opportunities to learn about other projects outside the normal fold. That said, with my marketing hat on, I'd love to see all OSGeo projects get a priority in workshop submissions. How would this look from year to year? Does it just become same old projects doing same old presentations year after year? Or would we only give newly joined projects from the last year the opportunity to showcase in a workshop? Better yet, how about projects that have recently graduated from incubation! Then there is some more incentive to get through it. Now I think we're on to something Tyler ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4G 2007 Workshop Submission
I've seen a lot of workshops and conferences over the years, both geo and non-geo: tradeoffs have to be made when organizing these things, and in the end Paul and his team will not be able to satisfy everyone. To take just four questions off the top of my head: * Would you rather attend 6 half-hour talks covering a variety of different topics, or 1 three-hour in-depth talk? * Would you rather have commercial sponsorship, or leave it completely independent and self-funded? * Would you rather have more space for exhibitors and booths, or more space for big (100+) talks, or more space for small (20+) talks? * Would you rather have attendees be from the core open source geo development community, or from the potential user community? I suspect most of us would answer some of each to those questions, and it is the job of the organizing committee to figure out that balance. The organizing committee, chosen by a RFP process, was tasked with this difficult job and they're already deep into it. Talk has already started about making proposals for FOSS4G '08; I'd strongly encourage everyone to participate in those discussions. -mpg From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Daniel Ames Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2007 8:08 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4G 2007 Workshop Submission Paul and others, I too was disappointed to be in the 22 of 34 workshop proposals that were turned down and would like to suggest that the conference organizers re-think the approach to include more workshops. At FOSS4g2006, I found the workshops to be perhaps the most useful element of the conference. For a highly technical meeting, the value of a 1.5 to 3 hour hands-on workshop versus a 20 minute pre-canned powerpoint presentation can not be overstated. Our project (and I suspect many others) has tried to embrace the concept of the FOSS4g venue as an alternative to hosting our own separate conference. Certainly this concept was encouraged by last year's conference organizers. However for this to work there needs to be the opportunity to present our workshops. May I suggest the following two changes: 1) Reallocate time for more workshops. 2) Let the registrants decide which workshops stay. In other words, post a list of 34 workshops and keep only those that meet a minimum number of committed/paid attendee registration fees. I suspect that every one of the 22 rejected workshop proposers could argue that they easily meet all of the four criteria listed here: http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/FOSS4G2007_Workshops#Criteria_used_by_th e_workshop_committee_to_review_workshop_submissions Hence letting the broader community vote with their registration dollars would seem to be a more free and open approach. It would be unfortunate to see this as the beginning of a general culling process where instead of trying to attract new projects, the FOSS4g community begins to become more exclusionary. Dan Daniel P. Ames, PhD, PE Idaho State University Geospatial Software Lab ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4G 2007 Workshop Submission
All, Why not simply have an all OSGEO conference. No reason not to have or be a part of FOSS4G. But it sounds like there is enough interest in having a conference with a OSGEO bent as well. bobb Tyler Mitchell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 28-Mar-07, at 10:36 PM, Jeroen Ticheler wrote: That said, with my marketing hat on, I'd love to see all OSGeo projects get a priority in workshop submissions. How would this look from year to year? Does it just become same old projects doing same old presentations year after year? Or would we only give newly joined projects from the last year the opportunity to showcase in a workshop? Better yet, how about projects that have recently graduated from incubation! Then there is some more incentive to get through it. Now I think we're on to something Tyler ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4G 2007 Workshop Submission
I'll be lucky to go to one conference a year, let alone two and would imagine others would be in the same boat. Steve On 3/29/2007 at 11:47 AM, in message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Bob Basques [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: All, Why not simply have an all OSGEO conference. No reason not to have or be a part of FOSS4G. But it sounds like there is enough interest in having a conference with a OSGEO bent as well. bobb Tyler Mitchell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 28-Mar-07, at 10:36 PM, Jeroen Ticheler wrote: That said, with my marketing hat on, I'd love to see all OSGeo projects get a priority in workshop submissions. How would this look from year to year? Does it just become same old projects doing same old presentations year after year? Or would we only give newly joined projects from the last year the opportunity to showcase in a workshop? Better yet, how about projects that have recently graduated from incubation! Then there is some more incentive to get through it. Now I think we're on to something Tyler ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4G 2007 Workshop Submission
Bob Basques wrote: Why not simply have an all OSGEO conference. FOSS4G is presented by OSGeo, it is already an OSGeo conference. This has the very real consequence that if the conference loses money OSGeo loses money. They are holding the financial risk bag. If I am not satisfying everyone or being too commercial or talking too often about whether a certain thing will attract delegates, it is because I take very SERIOUSLY my responsibility to OSGeo to make sure this conference does well and does cause a liability for the organization. So I hustle for corporate sponsors of ALL KINDS, I market to ALL KINDS of potential attendees, and I try to make sure that if we do not please all of the people all of the time, we at least please most of the people most of the time. Paul -- Paul Ramsey Refractions Research http://www.refractions.net [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: 250-383-3022 Cell: 250-885-0632 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4G 2007 Workshop Submission
If you make it two hour workshops you can have 18 instead of 12. 2 hours is more than enough IMHO. Best regards, Bart Paul Ramsey schreef: Jeroen, I appreciate your frustration, and I know it is shared by many others, as only 12 of the 34 3-hour workshop submissions could be hosted. The criteria the workshop committee used in their evaluation are here: http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/FOSS4G2007_Workshops#Criteria_used_by_the_workshop_committee_to_review_workshop_submissions All the committee members ranked the submissions on those criteria and the rankings were averaged. Two workshops in the top 12 that were topic duplicates were removed and the next-lowest-ranked non-duplicates were moved up. It appears that being on the committee is no guarantee of satisfaction with the final result. The average of a bunch of lists people want is a list that no one is 100% happy with. Paul On 28-Mar-07, at 10:36 PM, Jeroen Ticheler wrote: Dear people, Thank you for your information. I have to say I find that pretty frustrating and annoying knowing that GeoNetwork opensource is one of the incubator projects of OSGEO, the number of OSGEO projects is (still) limited and FOSS4G is the OSGEO conference. Participating with the project in OSGEO has multiple reasons, one of them being that it provides opportunities to work on synergies and work on marketing the OSGEO software stack. Now how does the intent of OSGEOs mission fit with refusing a (single) workshop on one of its projects. Maybe I miss something, but I'd assumed there was at least some kind of a relation!? Looking forward to some good feedback and discussion on this, also on the OSGEO mailing list as I consider that discussion very relevant in the further development of outreach strategies for ourselves and the OSGEO foundation through conferences. Core question: Should OSGEO projects have guaranteed workshop and presentation space for at least one session? Regards, Jeroen On Mar 28, 2007, at 5:58 PM, FOSS4G 2007 wrote: Dear Jeroen Ticheler, We regret to inform you that we will not be able to accept your Half Day workshop, Using the GeoNetwork opensource Spatial Data Catalog, for the FOSS4G 2007 program. We had a very large number of submissions this year, and have been able to accept less than half of them . We hope you will consider bringing some of your ideas to the conference in the form of a presentation. The Call for Presentations is currently open, and there is room for 120 presentations at the conference this year . http://www.foss4g2007.org/presentations Yours, The FOSS4G 2007 Conference Committee ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Bart van den Eijnden OSGIS, Open Source GIS [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.osgis.nl ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4G 2007 Workshop Submission
Hi Daniel - I agree that workshops are the most valued part of the conference; I was a bit sad personally to do some more developer focused workshops (but looking at the target audience for the conference I did not expect any such applications to be successful). Since I was interested in the conference being balanced I joined up as part of the workshop selection committee - the way it went was we evaluated project on the criteria mentioned by your link, and the available facilities were also taken into account (limiting factors being workstation and budget). There are a couple of alternatives available: - demos (looks like I will be running a separate venue) - code sprint (for the more hands on experience) You are correct that almost all of the workshops met the acceptance criteria (a couple missed the free boat) - there was competition on some of the common topics, and I was sad to see a few holes in scope open up (I had hoped for GeoNetwork as a token catalog component in the osgeo stack and a .net project in order to appeal to that development community). Cheers, Jody Daniel Ames wrote: Paul and others, I too was disappointed to be in the 22 of 34 workshop proposals that were turned down and would like to suggest that the conference organizers re-think the approach to include more workshops. At FOSS4g2006, I found the workshops to be perhaps the most useful element of the conference. For a highly technical meeting, the value of a 1.5 to 3 hour hands-on workshop versus a 20 minute pre-canned powerpoint presentation can not be overstated. Our project (and I suspect many others) has tried to embrace the concept of the FOSS4g venue as an alternative to hosting our own separate conference. Certainly this concept was encouraged by last year's conference organizers. However for this to work there needs to be the opportunity to present our workshops. May I suggest the following two changes: 1) Reallocate time for more workshops. 2) Let the registrants decide which workshops stay. In other words, post a list of 34 workshops and keep only those that meet a minimum number of committed/paid attendee registration fees. I suspect that every one of the 22 rejected workshop proposers could argue that they easily meet all of the four criteria listed here: http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/FOSS4G2007_Workshops#Criteria_used_by_the_workshop_committee_to_review_workshop_submissions Hence letting the broader community vote with their registration dollars would seem to be a more free and open approach. It would be unfortunate to see this as the beginning of a general culling process where instead of trying to attract new projects, the FOSS4g community begins to become more exclusionary. Dan Daniel P. Ames, PhD, PE Idaho State University Geospatial Software Lab On 3/29/07, *Paul Ramsey* [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Jeroen, I appreciate your frustration, and I know it is shared by many others, as only 12 of the 34 3-hour workshop submissions could be hosted. The criteria the workshop committee used in their evaluation are here: http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/ http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/ FOSS4G2007_Workshops#Criteria_used_by_the_workshop_committee_to_review_w orkshop_submissions All the committee members ranked the submissions on those criteria and the rankings were averaged. Two workshops in the top 12 that were topic duplicates were removed and the next-lowest-ranked non- duplicates were moved up. It appears that being on the committee is no guarantee of satisfaction with the final result. The average of a bunch of lists people want is a list that no one is 100% happy with. Paul On 28-Mar-07, at 10:36 PM, Jeroen Ticheler wrote: Dear people, Thank you for your information. I have to say I find that pretty frustrating and annoying knowing that GeoNetwork opensource is one of the incubator projects of OSGEO, the number of OSGEO projects is (still) limited and FOSS4G is the OSGEO conference. Participating with the project in OSGEO has multiple reasons, one of them being that it provides opportunities to work on synergies and work on marketing the OSGEO software stack. Now how does the intent of OSGEOs mission fit with refusing a (single) workshop on one of its projects. Maybe I miss something, but I'd assumed there was at least some kind of a relation!? Looking forward to some good feedback and discussion on this, also on the OSGEO mailing list as I consider that discussion very relevant in the further development of outreach strategies for ourselves and the OSGEO foundation through conferences. Core question: Should OSGEO projects have guaranteed workshop and presentation space for at least one session? Regards, Jeroen On Mar
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4G 2007 Workshop Submission
Correction :-) Hi Daniel - I agree that workshops are the most valued part of the conference; I was a bit sad personally to do some more developer focused workshops (but looking at the target audience for the conference I did not expect any such applications to be successful). I was sad *not* to do some developer focused workshops. I am a developer and frankly I need more developers on the different open source projects I am involved with. I would like nothing more then to set up a workshop to inspire and involve new contributors in lots of 40. My impression is that conference attendees are looking forward to using the completed products ;-) Either as part of mash up or in a SDI Architecture Slot (two very large extremes). Daniel Ames did your developer community talk about a workshop proposal with you before you submitted? I know for GeoTools and GeoServer we had extensive IRC discussions in order to try and choose the right mix (and not overlap). As for any play time with developers (new and old) I am saving my energies for the code sprint. Jody ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4G 2007 Workshop Submission
Jody and others, Thanks for all of the interesting discussion. I must admit it's hard to be too critical of the conference committe having not volunteered to participate on it (maybe next time?). So thank you to all who are working on this. I also understand that any kind of review process is challenging and will have detractors. To answer your question, yes. The MapWindow community is fully behind the development focused workshops since 80% of our active users are developers using our libraries. How many of them are coming to Victoria, I don't know. I told Paul that we have so far had about 200 click throughs on our FOSS4G 2007 logo on the MapWindow.org home page, so the presumption is that some of these folks will attend, tell their friends, and so forth. Maybe some of Franks suggestions could be considered. If not this time, then perhaps next year? Again thanks to those of you who volunteer so much time to give open source geospatial software a fighting chance. Dan On 3/29/07, Jody Garnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Correction :-) Hi Daniel - I agree that workshops are the most valued part of the conference; I was a bit sad personally to do some more developer focused workshops (but looking at the target audience for the conference I did not expect any such applications to be successful). I was sad *not* to do some developer focused workshops. I am a developer and frankly I need more developers on the different open source projects I am involved with. I would like nothing more then to set up a workshop to inspire and involve new contributors in lots of 40. My impression is that conference attendees are looking forward to using the completed products ;-) Either as part of mash up or in a SDI Architecture Slot (two very large extremes). Daniel Ames did your developer community talk about a workshop proposal with you before you submitted? I know for GeoTools and GeoServer we had extensive IRC discussions in order to try and choose the right mix (and not overlap). As for any play time with developers (new and old) I am saving my energies for the code sprint. Jody ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] FOSS4G 2007 Referrals
Daniel Ames wrote: I told Paul that we have so far had about 200 click throughs on our FOSS4G 2007 logo on the MapWindow.org home page, so the presumption is that some of these folks will attend, tell their friends, and so forth. Referrals are fun, and provide an interesting metric on the relative sizing of some of the projects linking to the site. http://www.foss4g2007.org/webstats/usage_200703.html#TOPREFS P. -- Paul Ramsey Refractions Research http://www.refractions.net [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: 250-383-3022 Cell: 250-885-0632 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4G 2007 Workshop Submission
On Thu, March 29, 2007 18:47, Bob Basques wrote: All, Why not simply have an all OSGEO conference. No reason not to have or be a part of FOSS4G. But it sounds like there is enough interest in having a conference with a OSGEO bent as well. bobb Hey, we have satisfied the need for 150(!) workshop attendees in Germany by organizing our own yearly conference (called FOSSGIS) with a total of 350 attendees. It runs under the OSGeo banner all right (i still owe a report, will appear in the Wiki). I suspect that in the long run we will have to spread a little more and recognize that the one big FOSS4G event is going to be just that - the one big event for the meeting of the tribes. It will not be a place to make everybody show their own most important package in all the detail they would prefer and neither to show all and everything. We are currently growing just a little more quickly than we can handle which from another perspective is a good thing. So here I go again: Don't complain but get your ass up and organize your own conference, let it run under the banner of OSGeo, use its brand, press and web presence and get the word out to the people. Invite other projects, peers preferred obviously. If you are a bigun like Paul get your money from Google, if you are a humble one like me let some smallcaps pay 500 bucks for a 10 by 5 booth and let people starve in the first and last day lunch brakes, it helps to sort out the real ones... :-) Need ideas, get them on this list (mpg's mail, etc.). By 2010 we should have 20 or even 50 OSGeo conferences a year all over the world. One of them is the meeting of the tribes and thats the place where I want to drink a beer with Steve Rhyme and personally I don't rally need any workshop to do that. Best regards, Arnulf. Tyler Mitchell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 28-Mar-07, at 10:36 PM, Jeroen Ticheler wrote: That said, with my marketing hat on, I'd love to see all OSGeo projects get a priority in workshop submissions. How would this look from year to year? Does it just become same old projects doing same old presentations year after year? Or would we only give newly joined projects from the last year the opportunity to showcase in a workshop? Better yet, how about projects that have recently graduated from incubation! Then there is some more incentive to get through it. Now I think we're on to something Tyler ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Arnulf Christl http://www.wheregroup.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4G 2007 Workshop Submission
On Thu, March 29, 2007 07:36, Jeroen Ticheler wrote: Dear people, Thank you for your information. I have to say I find that pretty frustrating and annoying knowing that GeoNetwork opensource is one of the incubator projects of OSGEO, the number of OSGEO projects is (still) limited and FOSS4G is the OSGEO conference. Participating with the project in OSGEO has multiple reasons, one of them being that it provides opportunities to work on synergies and work on marketing the OSGEO software stack. Now how does the intent of OSGEOs mission fit with refusing a (single) workshop on one of its projects. Maybe I miss something, but I'd assumed there was at least some kind of a relation!? Looking forward to some good feedback and discussion on this, also on the OSGEO mailing list as I consider that discussion very relevant in the further development of outreach strategies for ourselves and the OSGEO foundation through conferences. Core question: Should OSGEO projects have guaranteed workshop and presentation space for at least one session? Regards, Jeroen Hey Paul, without wanting to break your planning, would it be possible to cut the Mapbender Workshop slot and share it with GeoNetwork (if they are happy with 1.5 hs)? I would be pleased to shorten our part a bit to make some space as I think that metadata actually is a highly important bit. So far I do not see anything else on metadata. I don't want to start shuffling and all but yes, I feel some arguments are right. Regards, On Mar 28, 2007, at 5:58 PM, FOSS4G 2007 wrote: Dear Jeroen Ticheler, We regret to inform you that we will not be able to accept your Half Day workshop, Using the GeoNetwork opensource Spatial Data Catalog, for the FOSS4G 2007 program. We had a very large number of submissions this year, and have been able to accept less than half of them . We hope you will consider bringing some of your ideas to the conference in the form of a presentation. The Call for Presentations is currently open, and there is room for 120 presentations at the conference this year . http://www.foss4g2007.org/presentations Yours, The FOSS4G 2007 Conference Committee ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Arnulf Christl http://www.wheregroup.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4G 2007 Workshop Submission
Jody Garnett wrote: I was sad *not* to do some developer focused workshops. I am a developer and frankly I need more developers on the different open source projects I am involved with. I would like nothing more then to set up a workshop to inspire and involve new contributors in lots of 40. Folks, I'd like to raise (re-raise?) that we are planning to have some facilities available Friday for coding sprints, hack-a-thons, or similar activities by projects. My hope for the GDAL project is to treat this as more of a hack-a-thon (loosely collaberation) with an opportunity for developers who want to learn about GDAL getting involved, as well as existing hard core GDAL hackers. I believe the conference planners expect to provide tables, chairs, power and internet connectivity. Projects should bring laptops, energy, and ideas. I think the Friday code-sprint / hack-a-thon day may be the best part of the conference for developers like me. I'm also hoping with different projects nearby it will be a good day for inter-project efforts. As for any play time with developers (new and old) I am saving my energies for the code sprint. Doh! I see Jody already mentioned this. Oh well, consider this amplification! Best regards, -- ---+-- I set the clouds in motion - turn up | Frank Warmerdam, [EMAIL PROTECTED] light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam and watch the world go round - Rush| President OSGeo, http://osgeo.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4G 2007 Workshop Submission
Arnulf Christl wrote: without wanting to break your planning, would it be possible to cut the Mapbender Workshop slot and share it with GeoNetwork (if they are happy with 1.5 hs)? I would be pleased to shorten our part a bit to make some space as I think that metadata actually is a highly important bit. So far I do not see anything else on metadata. It does break my planning, and it's also totally reactive, and unfair to everyone ELSE who did not receive a slot. This is the first decision point and already people are saying just reorganize the whole conference so you don't have to make any cuts. Well, no, sorry. When I double the number of workshop slots and halve the number of presentation slots and then have to cut 70% of the PRESENTATION submissions in three months, what will the suggestions be then? Five days, 12 workshops, 18 labs, 120 presentations, 28 demonstrations, 20 exhibitors, 1 code sprint, thousands of beers, and hundreds of happy attendees. Let's think positively, it'll all be OK. -- Paul Ramsey Refractions Research http://www.refractions.net [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: 250-383-3022 Cell: 250-885-0632 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
