Re: [EuroPython] conference length
That sounds great :-) This February's DjangoWeekend in Cardiff was a great example of how awesome such a small event can be. IIRC PyCon UK has also been sized down in recent years (sadly couldn't attend since 2008). -- Horst On 24 Apr 2014, at 20:40, M.-A. Lemburg wrote: Just as teaser: The EPS has some ideas on a new additional format to complement the main EuroPython conference. The idea is to have a format which does not require huge rooms, but rather several smaller ones, so that the event can be held at venues such as universities, colleges, etc. At this time, it's all still up in the air, so don't expect announcements any time soon :-) Cheers, -- Marc-Andre Lemburg Director EuroPython Society http://www.europython-society.org/ ___ EuroPython 2014 - July 21th-27th in Berlin EuroPython mailing list EuroPython@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython ___ EuroPython 2014 - July 21th-27th in Berlin EuroPython mailing list EuroPython@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython
Re: [EuroPython] conference length
On 04/23/2014 11:18 PM, Carl Karsten wrote: We all have ideas about what is good. bottom line: it's complicated. There are no unit tests, just personal judgment. Some group of people plan and run an event = good. To this year's team, and really all PyCon's I have been aware of, keep up the good work. I am not aware of any event that should not have happened. People come, they learn, they leave and post about how amazing it was. If some other group of people want to run some different event, that's good too. You will get support and advice from the 100's of us that have helped in the past. And you are welcome to ignore any and all of it. I see lots of effort into trying to tune a single event to make it better. I think it wold be better if that effort was put into creating another event. I'm trying to understand the intent your email. Are you telling some of us to just go away and do our own thing? This isn't an us versus them. We're not outsiders barging in; we're old friends. I do count as one of the people who has helped organize EuroPython in the past, just like you. So does Laura. Just to be clear: this is intended to be a conversation, not an attack. And just to be clear again: I'm not suggesting we should change EuroPython 2014's schedule; I don't think anybody is. We're talking about EuroPython in the future. We're having a discussion about the conference length. We learn from each other's perspectives. I learned a lot more about the motivations to make it 5 days and have talks and trainings in parallel. Perhaps someone else discovered from this conversation that 5 days of conference proper is in fact a bit long for some people, and that historically actually EuroPython wasn't a 5 day conference. I think it's good to learn these things, and it's good to discuss what this conference is trying to be once every while. If we want to learn more to inform future decisions, it makes sense to do some kind of survey. Laura is suggesting some ways to get fair feedback on this topic. It's human psychology that people who just invested time in something will be biased towards being approving of it, and it makes sense to take this into account. Her suggestion to try to contact past attendees is an interesting idea, I think. Regards, Martijn ___ EuroPython 2014 - July 21th-27th in Berlin EuroPython mailing list EuroPython@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython
Re: [EuroPython] conference length
On 24.04.2014 12:17, Martijn Faassen wrote: On 04/23/2014 07:13 PM, M.-A. Lemburg wrote: On 23.04.2014 16:20, Martijn Faassen wrote: I would also account for the fact that almost 900 people joined EuroPython in Florence last year, with more than a 2x boost in 3 years, and the general feedback has been overwhelming positive. It's possible that the longer conference accounted for the increase in attendance, but PyCon is not a whole week and even bigger, so I don't think it's safe to conclude this. FWIW: PyCon US is a 9 day conference (2 days trainings, 3 days conference, 4 days sprints). EuroPython uses 7 days (one day keynotes, 4 days talks and trainings, 2 days sprints). EuroPython has more talks/trainings than PyCon US. Yes, I understand PyCon US is more like EuroPython back in 2009, with 3 days conference proper, 2 days training. I've been talking about the actual conference days. Yep, but the total length is two days more. For many attendees of PyCon, the sprints are the most important part. Judging from the lunch attendance at this years PyCon, about 1/4 - 1/3 of the attendees stayed for the first sprint day. I don't think the length of the conference has a major effect on its popularity. Both PyCon US and EuroPython have been sold out in recent years. I agree. For a historical overview of the EuroPython conference structures and attendee counts, have a look at: http://www.europython-society.org/europython Cool, see also my analysis elsewhere in this thread. I'll try to add that data to the page as well. Concerning EuroPython 2005; it says the conference was from *june* 6 until *july* 7? That can't be right. :) The brochure has monday june 27 - until wednesday june 29. Thanks. I've fixed the dates now. The 2005 edition had conference days on June 27 - 29, with sprints from June 30 - July 3. The tutorials were mixed into the conference talk days, just like is done now. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find attendee counts for the years 2004 - 2007. -- Marc-Andre Lemburg Director EuroPython Society http://www.europython-society.org/ ___ EuroPython 2014 - July 21th-27th in Berlin EuroPython mailing list EuroPython@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython
Re: [EuroPython] conference length
Martijn Faassen: I'm trying to understand the intent your email. Are you telling some of us to just go away and do our own thing? This isn't an us versus them. We're not outsiders barging in; we're old friends. I do count as one of the people who has helped organize EuroPython in the past, just like you. So does Laura. I'm not trying to put a dent in this, but I understood Carl in the sense of: there might not be any ideal solution to please all. So, instead of searching the one ideal solution that (as we know) doesn't exist, one could also try out other solutions optimizing a different set of criteria. Which would bring us nicely back to the current theme of diversity, again. After all, yes, it's good to discuss people's experience and match it with own's own and learn from that. But the purpose of learning something is doing (or not doing) something. And some people say that one can learn more from making mistakes than from not making them. And no, we don't build nuclear power plants. And yes, they haven't been discussed enough before they were built... And wow, there could be EuroPython barcamps and unconfs and hackathons and events not invented yet, if we can imagine them... I-cannot-see-the-value-of-a-GIL-for-EuroPython-events'ly, Dinu ___ EuroPython 2014 - July 21th-27th in Berlin EuroPython mailing list EuroPython@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython
Re: [EuroPython] conference length
On 04/24/2014 01:13 PM, M.-A. Lemburg wrote: [snip] Yes, I understand PyCon US is more like EuroPython back in 2009, with 3 days conference proper, 2 days training. I've been talking about the actual conference days. Yep, but the total length is two days more. In 2009 at EuroPython I participated in the sprints for I think 3 days too. So there were 8 days in all I think. (with a much smaller attendance for sprints) For many attendees of PyCon, the sprints are the most important part. Judging from the lunch attendance at this years PyCon, about 1/4 - 1/3 of the attendees stayed for the first sprint day. Yes, that's what I expressed early on in this discussion; I do value the sprints at EuroPython a lot, and if you add 5 days conference proper before it, the whole thing becomes rather long at a stretch, for me, as an individual attendee. So it's a matter of capacity, and goals. I can fully see there's not enough capacity to organize a 9 day sequence of events. For someone who likes trainings this program is probably better than a training/conference split, I can see that. For someone who likes sprints this is a rather heavy program. Thanks. I've fixed the dates now. The 2005 edition had conference days on June 27 - 29, with sprints from June 30 - July 3. The tutorials were mixed into the conference talk days, just like is done now. Looks like EuroPython had a lot of different formats over the years! Regards, Martijn ___ EuroPython 2014 - July 21th-27th in Berlin EuroPython mailing list EuroPython@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython
Re: [EuroPython] conference length
On Thu, Apr 24, 2014 at 6:19 AM, Dinu Gherman gher...@darwin.in-berlin.dewrote: Martijn Faassen: I'm trying to understand the intent your email. Are you telling some of us to just go away and do our own thing? This isn't an us versus them. We're not outsiders barging in; we're old friends. I do count as one of the people who has helped organize EuroPython in the past, just like you. So does Laura. I'm not trying to put a dent in this, but I understood Carl in the sense of: there might not be any ideal solution to please all. So, instead of searching the one ideal solution that (as we know) doesn't exist, one could also try out other solutions optimizing a different set of criteria. Which would bring us nicely back to the current theme of diversity, again. After all, yes, it's good to discuss people's experience and match it with own's own and learn from that. But the purpose of learning something is doing (or not doing) something. And some people say that one can learn more from making mistakes than from not making them. And no, we don't build nuclear power plants. And yes, they haven't been discussed enough before they were built... And wow, there could be EuroPython barcamps and unconfs and hackathons and events not invented yet, if we can imagine them... Well put. Except I am fairly confidant that there is *no* solution that will please all. ;) -- Carl K ___ EuroPython 2014 - July 21th-27th in Berlin EuroPython mailing list EuroPython@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython
Re: [EuroPython] conference length
Just as teaser: The EPS has some ideas on a new additional format to complement the main EuroPython conference. The idea is to have a format which does not require huge rooms, but rather several smaller ones, so that the event can be held at venues such as universities, colleges, etc. At this time, it's all still up in the air, so don't expect announcements any time soon :-) Cheers, -- Marc-Andre Lemburg Director EuroPython Society http://www.europython-society.org/ ___ EuroPython 2014 - July 21th-27th in Berlin EuroPython mailing list EuroPython@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython
Re: [EuroPython] conference length
Hey, On 04/17/2014 04:40 PM, Giovanni Bajo wrote: At the end of the day, more talks for more days seems like a better overall solution, and people are welcome to consider it a 3-days conference if they feel so. Consider that the submissions far exceed even the current schedule, so it’s not like “anything gets in”. With this argument a 3 week conference would be automatically better than 1 week conference given enough submissions, but nobody is suggesting that. There are other factors that tie into this, such as people's attention span, costs for attendees, cost of organization, etc. Notice also that we got lots of positive feedback for the 1-week formula; the hallway track is far better because you have more time to meet people, talk to them, remeet them a second time, schedule a meetup, go out for a dinner or a beer. In a 2-and-a-half conference, it’s much harder, especially at the size of EuroPython. That argument works a lot better. The question is whether this is really true for most people; a survey might help. I would also account for the fact that almost 900 people joined EuroPython in Florence last year, with more than a 2x boost in 3 years, and the general feedback has been overwhelming positive. It's possible that the longer conference accounted for the increase in attendance, but PyCon is not a whole week and even bigger, so I don't think it's safe to conclude this. It might be the conference grew due to other factors, including factors not directly to do with aspects of its organization such as the popularity of the Python language. As for the trainings: [snip] I buy the arguments surrounding trainings. It then depends on the priorities of the conference on how important trainings are supposed to be in the overall picture. If EuroPython's goal is to attract people who are relatively new to Python and its community (sounds like a good goal), trainings like the way you do them seem like a good idea. So, while I’m personally always open to experimenting new formats and playing with new ideas, I would say that we have an overwhelming majority of positive feedbacks on the new structure, and it incidentally works much better cost-wise. Is this feedback data available somewhere? Or is this more anecdotal? I have a minor issue with the way my suggestion is presented as experimenting with new formats. There is the implication that I'm suggesting something rather new and experimental. That's untrue; elsewhere I've given a historical overview of how EuroPython worked on its 3 day program for years before the shift to a 5 day program in recent years, and how it got to be this way step by step. I'll also note that a 3 day format for the conference proper is closer to the format of PyCon US. I understand the cost argument and I understand the training in parallel argument both from an attendee and cost perspective. It's clear to me that the audience for EuroPython has been shifting, probably creating a heavier emphasis on trainings as a result, and that this necessitates change too. I will have to give it all a try. But I think the only way to know whether this format is ideal is to get data from the audience that EuroPython is interested in attracting. Who knows, perhaps it turns out 3 weeks *is* the ideal conference length. :) Regards, Martijn ___ EuroPython 2014 - July 21th-27th in Berlin EuroPython mailing list EuroPython@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython
Re: [EuroPython] conference length
In a message of Wed, 23 Apr 2014 19:13:56 +0200, M.-A. Lemburg writes: snip We should probably put the question of which format is preferred on the conference feedback form and then see whether a change would be worthwhile to improve the attendee experience. You have to be careful with this. If there is any bias to be found -- and there may be none, of course - the people who attend a conference can be assumed to be biased in favour of feature X where feature X is something that the conference just did. After all, they are the people who just voted with their wallets and their feet. The people you would like to poll are the people who didn't attend this years EP, especially those who attended in the past, to find out why it is that they didn't. If it turns out that they hate feature X enough to stop coming, then the conference organisers will have some hard decisions to make. The demands to grow the conference and have more people attending are fundamentally incompatible with the hatred some people have for large conferences. A desire to reach out to new programmers is incompatible with a desire for many fewer introductory talks. Organising a conference is hard work, in part because you have to try to balance these demands. But if you ever miss the mark, badly, in your balancing act it won't be among the people that attended that you will find out where it was you went wrong. Laura ___ EuroPython 2014 - July 21th-27th in Berlin EuroPython mailing list EuroPython@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython
Re: [EuroPython] conference length
We all have ideas about what is good. bottom line: it's complicated. There are no unit tests, just personal judgment. Some group of people plan and run an event = good. To this year's team, and really all PyCon's I have been aware of, keep up the good work. I am not aware of any event that should not have happened. People come, they learn, they leave and post about how amazing it was. If some other group of people want to run some different event, that's good too. You will get support and advice from the 100's of us that have helped in the past. And you are welcome to ignore any and all of it. I see lots of effort into trying to tune a single event to make it better. I think it wold be better if that effort was put into creating another event. On Wed, Apr 23, 2014 at 3:10 PM, Laura Creighton l...@openend.se wrote: In a message of Wed, 23 Apr 2014 19:13:56 +0200, M.-A. Lemburg writes: snip We should probably put the question of which format is preferred on the conference feedback form and then see whether a change would be worthwhile to improve the attendee experience. You have to be careful with this. If there is any bias to be found -- and there may be none, of course - the people who attend a conference can be assumed to be biased in favour of feature X where feature X is something that the conference just did. After all, they are the people who just voted with their wallets and their feet. The people you would like to poll are the people who didn't attend this years EP, especially those who attended in the past, to find out why it is that they didn't. If it turns out that they hate feature X enough to stop coming, then the conference organisers will have some hard decisions to make. The demands to grow the conference and have more people attending are fundamentally incompatible with the hatred some people have for large conferences. A desire to reach out to new programmers is incompatible with a desire for many fewer introductory talks. Organising a conference is hard work, in part because you have to try to balance these demands. But if you ever miss the mark, badly, in your balancing act it won't be among the people that attended that you will find out where it was you went wrong. Laura ___ EuroPython 2014 - July 21th-27th in Berlin EuroPython mailing list EuroPython@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython -- Carl K ___ EuroPython 2014 - July 21th-27th in Berlin EuroPython mailing list EuroPython@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython
Re: [EuroPython] conference length
Hi, I think, and here read, that there are a lot of different opinions to the perfect conference length and structure and I can follow all your arguments. I do not want to state my opinion here too, but point out that a streaming and recoding of nearly all talks is planned. This allows everybody who feels overwhelmed from the offers of EuroPython 2014 to concentrate on the more interactive parts. This definitely it not a perfect compensation for attending a talk live, but it might help some of you to consider this. I personally use this a lot on conferences which offer streaming and/or recordings. Okay, I now I gave my two cents. But this shall be enough. :) Best regards Carina -Ursprüngliche Nachricht- Von: EuroPython [mailto:europython- bounces+carina.haupt=dlr...@python.org] Im Auftrag von Martijn Faassen Gesendet: Dienstag, 15. April 2014 23:29 An: europython@python.org Betreff: Re: [EuroPython] conference length Hey, On 04/15/2014 10:33 PM, Horst Gutmann wrote: Every conference I've attended so far had at least on or two time slots each day where none of the talks appealed to me and so I went to explore the city or just got some sleep at the hotel. This way the event stayed fresh and exciting to me and I didn't feel bad for skipping some talks if I simply didn't feel like it. That naturally only works to a certain extend and eventually I just want to get out of the conference again. I guess that's one way to deal with it (especially in Florence!). But I wonder whether that's a way to cope with a problem: should there be time slots at a conference with 3 or 4 or more parallel tracks where none of the talks appeal to an attendee? Of course you can't please everyone, but if it happens to a lot of people you might have a problem. When I'm at a conference I tend to want to focus on it. At the third day of a three day conference I typically notice I am getting tired. I'm glad that lightning talks tend to be slotted in then at EuroPython, because that's always a nice variety of things. Then there's the potential issue of people who simply don't have time (or resources) to go to a conference of that length. They can of course attend it for a couple of days, but people may instead elect to go to a shorter conference instead where they can have the full experience. It's hard to get a feel for that though; EuroPython certainly has been growing in attendance, so that's an argument against that. [snip] 5 days is a really long time, so perhaps the orgas and the EPS would be willing to experiment here with the format a little bit I the future? :-) It seems to have been a slow change. From the beginning in 2002, it had been a 3 day conference; in Charleroi, in Gothenburg, in 2006 at CERN and in 2007 and 2008 in Vilnius there was a 3 day conference too. In 2009 in Birmingham there were 3 main conference days, plus 3 tutorial days before it. This might be the introduction of the tutorial days; it's possible there were tutorial days at some previous EuroPython, but certainly not all the time -- I find it hard to google up the schedules now. I misremember EuroPython 2010 in Birmingham (the last time I attended); I thought it was like 2009, but best I can find now it had 4 days of main conference, plus two days of tutorials in the weekend before it. But I cannot Google up the time table so I'm not 100% sure. I can find an announcement from 2010/11/18 for the conference in 2011 where the tentative schedule was 2 tutorial days with 4 conference days, the same as in 2010 in Birmingham. Then the dates were shifted (2011/02/17) to have everything from monday to friday (5 days, talk days in parallel with tutorial). Since I last attended in 2010 and actually forgot it was 4 days in Birmingham and was used to 3 day conferences before it, the 5 day massive schedule looked rather sudden, but it was not. Each new format was a reasonable small change from the format of the year before. Each change had a motivation, but I wonder whether the final effect was entirely intentional. Regards, Martijn ___ EuroPython 2014 Berlin, 21th27th July EuroPython mailing list EuroPython@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython ___ EuroPython 2014 Berlin, 21th27th July EuroPython mailing list EuroPython@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython
Re: [EuroPython] conference length
Hey Carina, On 04/17/2014 10:24 AM, carina.ha...@dlr.de wrote: This definitely it not a perfect compensation for attending a talk live, but it might help some of you to consider this. I personally use this a lot on conferences which offer streaming and/or recordings. Okay, I now I gave my two cents. But this shall be enough. :) That's a good point, of course, thank you. I think it would be good to take stock at some point though, and see whether in 2015 and beyond we may want to go back to the previous duration of the conference or make other adjustments. As Andreas suggested, we could to some type of survey, though I wouldn't do it *just* at the conference itself, as you'd only catch those willing to show up for 5 days there. :) Regards, Martijn ___ EuroPython 2014 - July 21th-27th in Berlin EuroPython mailing list EuroPython@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython
Re: [EuroPython] conference length
Il giorno 17/apr/2014, alle ore 14:29, Martijn Faassen faas...@startifact.com ha scritto: Hey Carina, On 04/17/2014 10:24 AM, carina.ha...@dlr.de wrote: This definitely it not a perfect compensation for attending a talk live, but it might help some of you to consider this. I personally use this a lot on conferences which offer streaming and/or recordings. Okay, I now I gave my two cents. But this shall be enough. :) That's a good point, of course, thank you. I think it would be good to take stock at some point though, and see whether in 2015 and beyond we may want to go back to the previous duration of the conference or make other adjustments. As Andreas suggested, we could to some type of survey, though I wouldn't do it *just* at the conference itself, as you'd only catch those willing to show up for 5 days there. :) On the other hand, asking to people that didn't attend one of the 5-days conferences is not very useful as well. I think the best target would be people that attended both formats. Thanks for your feedback. I’ll get back to your first message: 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. This quoted part gets to the point. If the conference was 3 days long, it might well be that that specific talk on day 2 wouldn’t make it to the schedule, because the schedule would contain *less* talks, so you wouldn’t get to see that talk anyway. Of course, a point could be made that you would get a better selection of talks in only 3 days, but, on the other hand, it would be more likely to have a schedule conflicts between such talks. It’s not an easy cut, and I’m sure we agree that there’s no solution that fits everybody. At the end of the day, more talks for more days seems like a better overall solution, and people are welcome to consider it a 3-days conference if they feel so. Consider that the submissions far exceed even the current schedule, so it’s not like “anything gets in”. Notice also that we got lots of positive feedback for the 1-week formula; the hallway track is far better because you have more time to meet people, talk to them, remeet them a second time, schedule a meetup, go out for a dinner or a beer. In a 2-and-a-half conference, it’s much harder, especially at the size of EuroPython. I would also account for the fact that almost 900 people joined EuroPython in Florence last year, with more than a 2x boost in 3 years, and the general feedback has been overwhelming positive. Even sponsors found the 1-week format acceptable for the exhibition, though it is obviously not a standard. Once they join, they see that they get to talk to people during the 5 days, it’s not like they have lots of people in the first day and nobody in the following days; and even for sponsors, it’s OK if they join only 3 days if they feel so and they want to keep the budget tight. As for the trainings: participation in trainings has very much exceeded any previous figures, when the trainings were in separate days. Separate days is a worst solution under any point of view: it requires a different conference pass and for different days, so people need to evaluate whether they want to join more days (= more hotel costs) with an additional cost for the pass, “just” to join 3-4 trainings (maybe). Maybe you really only want a 4-hour dive into *1* specific topic, not 4 of them; would you pay the full training ticket for just 1 or 2 trainings you really care about? Figures say most people don’t. Even in PyCon USA, there is a very large difference between attendance to the conference and attendance to trainings, and that’s a shame. It’s also a big loss for conference organizers, because they have a severely under-used venue; venues are quite expensive and give the best value for the money when they’re almost full (let’s say, at least 80% full). If you use a venue at 30%, it’s a loss of money and you could as well use another venue in those days, and this makes organization more difficult. Making them parallel to the whole conference has been a serious won for everybody. So, while I’m personally always open to experimenting new formats and playing with new ideas, I would say that we have an overwhelming majority of positive feedbacks on the new structure, and it incidentally works much better cost-wise. -- Giovanni Bajo Python Italia APS EuroPython Society signature.asc Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail ___ EuroPython 2014 - July 21th-27th in Berlin EuroPython mailing list EuroPython@python.org
Re: [EuroPython] conference length
There is people that organized his (family) holiday around EP. Moving across Europe for just 3 days in the middle of July will reduce the appeal of tech-tourism and make things like partner-program less effective. My 2¢. Peace, R. -- Roberto Polli Community Manager Babel - a business unit of Par-Tec S.p.A. - http://www.babel.it T: +39.06.9826.9651 M: +39.340.652.2736 F: +39.06.9826.9680 P.zza S.Benedetto da Norcia, 33 - 00040 Pomezia (Roma) CONFIDENZIALE: Questo messaggio ed i suoi allegati sono di carattere confidenziale per i destinatari in indirizzo. E' vietato l'inoltro non autorizzato a destinatari diversi da quelli indicati nel messaggio originale. Se ricevuto per errore, l'uso del contenuto e' proibito; si prega di comunicarlo al mittente e cancellarlo immediatamente. ___ EuroPython 2014 - July 21th-27th in Berlin EuroPython mailing list EuroPython@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython
Re: [EuroPython] conference length
For those who prefer a shorter Python conference, may I recommend the excellent PyConUK in September (and presumably other national conferences - in quotes because there's a good spread of nationalities present in my experience). See http://2013.pyconuk.org/#Agenda for an idea of the schedule from last year. And see http://pyconuk.org/ for this year where you can now book tickets - some early birding may still be possible! On 15 April 2014 22:28, Martijn Faassen faas...@startifact.com wrote: Hey, On 04/15/2014 10:33 PM, Horst Gutmann wrote: Every conference I've attended so far had at least on or two time slots each day where none of the talks appealed to me and so I went to explore the city or just got some sleep at the hotel. This way the event stayed fresh and exciting to me and I didn't feel bad for skipping some talks if I simply didn't feel like it. That naturally only works to a certain extend and eventually I just want to get out of the conference again. I guess that's one way to deal with it (especially in Florence!). But I wonder whether that's a way to cope with a problem: should there be time slots at a conference with 3 or 4 or more parallel tracks where none of the talks appeal to an attendee? Of course you can't please everyone, but if it happens to a lot of people you might have a problem. When I'm at a conference I tend to want to focus on it. At the third day of a three day conference I typically notice I am getting tired. I'm glad that lightning talks tend to be slotted in then at EuroPython, because that's always a nice variety of things. Then there's the potential issue of people who simply don't have time (or resources) to go to a conference of that length. They can of course attend it for a couple of days, but people may instead elect to go to a shorter conference instead where they can have the full experience. It's hard to get a feel for that though; EuroPython certainly has been growing in attendance, so that's an argument against that. [snip] 5 days is a really long time, so perhaps the orgas and the EPS would be willing to experiment here with the format a little bit I the future? :-) It seems to have been a slow change. From the beginning in 2002, it had been a 3 day conference; in Charleroi, in Gothenburg, in 2006 at CERN and in 2007 and 2008 in Vilnius there was a 3 day conference too. In 2009 in Birmingham there were 3 main conference days, plus 3 tutorial days before it. This might be the introduction of the tutorial days; it's possible there were tutorial days at some previous EuroPython, but certainly not all the time -- I find it hard to google up the schedules now. I misremember EuroPython 2010 in Birmingham (the last time I attended); I thought it was like 2009, but best I can find now it had 4 days of main conference, plus two days of tutorials in the weekend before it. But I cannot Google up the time table so I'm not 100% sure. I can find an announcement from 2010/11/18 for the conference in 2011 where the tentative schedule was 2 tutorial days with 4 conference days, the same as in 2010 in Birmingham. Then the dates were shifted (2011/02/17) to have everything from monday to friday (5 days, talk days in parallel with tutorial). Since I last attended in 2010 and actually forgot it was 4 days in Birmingham and was used to 3 day conferences before it, the 5 day massive schedule looked rather sudden, but it was not. Each new format was a reasonable small change from the format of the year before. Each change had a motivation, but I wonder whether the final effect was entirely intentional. Regards, Martijn ___ EuroPython 2014 Berlin, 21th27th July EuroPython mailing list EuroPython@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython ___ EuroPython 2014 Berlin, 21th27th July EuroPython mailing list EuroPython@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython
Re: [EuroPython] conference length
On 04/16/2014 10:24 AM, Tom Viner wrote: For those who prefer a shorter Python conference, may I recommend the excellent PyConUK in September (and presumably other national conferences - in quotes because there's a good spread of nationalities present in my experience). See http://2013.pyconuk.org/#Agenda for an idea of the schedule from last year. And see http://pyconuk.org/ for this year where you can now book tickets - some early birding may still be possible! Yes, I was already considering going to more national conferences. I was at PyCon DE last year and enjoyed myself! But I do like EuroPython where I can meet up with a lot of old friends again. Regards, Martijn ___ EuroPython 2014 Berlin, 21th27th July EuroPython mailing list EuroPython@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython
Re: [EuroPython] conference length
+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.comwrote: 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 ___ EuroPython 2014 Berlin, 21th27th July EuroPython mailing list EuroPython@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython
Re: [EuroPython] conference length
On 15/04/14 20:48, Andreas Jung wrote: You will not reach _all_ different stakeholders through this list. An open-space at the conference, a public survey at the conference …something like that would be representative…but peace (but there was no war) :-) Andreas Am 15.04.2014 um 15:46 schrieb roberto.polli roberto.po...@babel.it: Except of course for all those that were unable/unwilling to attend for one reason or another! Gadget/Steve ___ EuroPython 2014 Berlin, 21th27th July EuroPython mailing list EuroPython@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython
Re: [EuroPython] conference length
On 04/15/2014 08:56 PM, Andreas Jung wrote: I think it is neither the right place Oh, sorry, what is the right mailing list to bring this up? nor the right way You don't want feedback with constructive intent? nor the right time to discuss Should I have brought it up earlier or later? What is in time for 2015, say? what the reasonable length of a conference is. There are geeks that want to spend a lot of time at the conference with talks and sprints, there are people that are only interested in the talk but in sprints, there are python dev that come for training and talks and perhaps not sprints…..too many different expectations. I didn't realize the research on this was done. Could I see it? I'm also confused as to why you're making an argument in this discussion when this is not the right place, right way or the right time to discuss this. You will never bring all expectations under one hood. Okay, in this case my proposal is that each year we do a random.randint(1, 6) (a 6 sided die) and that's the length of the conference. Sarcasm aside, more seriously: Andreas, I realize you're probably feeling overloaded about this conference, but you just told somebody who tried to give constructive criticism and bring up a topic that ties directly into the speaker selection debate that's going on anyway to shut up and go away. It's not appreciated and I'm feeling strongly inclined to do just that right now. Bye. Regards, Martijn ___ EuroPython 2014 Berlin, 21th27th July EuroPython mailing list EuroPython@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython
Re: [EuroPython] conference length
Hi Martjin, I definitely see where you're coming from having had the same reaction at first when I saw the schedule for the first Europython in Florence a couple of years back. For me personally, though, the idea of making your own conference worked really well in the end. Every conference I've attended so far had at least on or two time slots each day where none of the talks appealed to me and so I went to explore the city or just got some sleep at the hotel. This way the event stayed fresh and exciting to me and I didn't feel bad for skipping some talks if I simply didn't feel like it. That naturally only works to a certain extend and eventually I just want to get out of the conference again. In accordance with Andreas' comment I prefer 4 days of sessions with 3 days of sprints, but these are just my 2c. 5 days is a really long time, so perhaps the orgas and the EPS would be willing to experiment here with the format a little bit I the future? :-) Cheers, Horst On 15.04.2014, at 09:04, 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 ___ EuroPython 2014 Berlin, 21th27th July EuroPython mailing list
Re: [EuroPython] conference length
On 15.04.2014, at 15:58, Martijn Faassen faas...@startifact.com wrote: On 04/15/2014 08:56 PM, Andreas Jung wrote: I think it is neither the right place Oh, sorry, what is the right mailing list to bring this up? nor the right way You don't want feedback with constructive intent? nor the right time to discuss Should I have brought it up earlier or later? What is in time for 2015, say? @Andreas If this is not the right place nor the right time fork constructive discussions about the europython format then please let us know where such a place it to take the discussion there and perhaps rename this mailing list accordingly ;-) what the reasonable length of a conference is. There are geeks that want to spend a lot of time at the conference with talks and sprints, there are people that are only interested in the talk but in sprints, there are python dev that come for training and talks and perhaps not sprints…..too many different expectations. I didn't realize the research on this was done. Could I see it? I'm also confused as to why you're making an argument in this discussion when this is not the right place, right way or the right time to discuss this. You will never bring all expectations under one hood. Okay, in this case my proposal is that each year we do a random.randint(1, 6) (a 6 sided die) and that's the length of the conference. Sarcasm aside, more seriously: Andreas, I realize you're probably feeling overloaded about this conference, but you just told somebody who tried to give constructive criticism and bring up a topic that ties directly into the speaker selection debate that's going on anyway to shut up and go away. It's not appreciated and I'm feeling strongly inclined to do just that right now. Bye. Regards, Martijn ___ EuroPython 2014 Berlin, 21th27th July EuroPython mailing list EuroPython@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython ___ EuroPython 2014 Berlin, 21th27th July EuroPython mailing list EuroPython@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython
