Hi Jacob -- Thanks so much for coming to the lion's den and explaining the process.
I'm looking forward to seeing you at PyCon 2013 and I'll buy you a latte! -- Joe Barnhart On Thursday, December 6, 2012 11:11:30 AM UTC-8, Jacob Kaplan-Moss wrote: > > Hi folks -- > > I'm the program chair for PyCon 2013. I can see you've got some questions > about how the talk selection works, so I'm hoping I can chime in and answer > some of the questions. > > First, Joe Barnhart asks "[w]ho in the overall structure of PyCon decides > these things? Do they live in the Bay Area?" > > There isn't a single person who makes decisions; the decision is made by > the PyCon Program Committee. This year we had about 80 members on the > committee. I know we had at least a couple who lived in the Bay Area, but I > think most don't. Membership on this committee is open to anyone who wants > to join. We had a call for membership in July ( > http://pycon.blogspot.com/2012/07/i-want-you-for-pycon-program-commitee.html) > and started our work in August. Everyone on the committee (myself included) > volunteers their time, and the time was substantial -- we met daily for > most of August and all of September and October. > > It's a lot of work, and made quite hard by the volume of submissions we > have to weigh, but it's actually quite fun most of the time. If anyone > here's interested, please consider joining next year. It's a great way to > give back to the Python community! > > Next, let me try to answer questions about how the process itself works. > I'll point you to https://us.pycon.org/2013/pc/guide/, where I've done as > good a job as I can documenting how the review process worked this year. If > anyone has questions about specifics after reading that I'd be happy to > answer them; fire away. > > I do specifically want to address something Massimo claims: he writes that > "one negative vote by a self appointed reviewer could kill a talk". This > isn't true: the decision really is made by the committee. We have several > rounds of voting, and it takes a strong majority of votes to decide a talk > in either direction. It has to be this way: no single person can be counted > on to be totally dispassionate, so when we pull together a large committee > we can hopefully balance out our various biases. > > I understand there's a lot of disappointment about web2py not being on the > program. We had nearly 500 proposals for just over 100 slots on the > schedule, so we simply couldn't fit in all the good talks that were > proposed. We did the best we could, but ultimately some things are always > going to be left out. Many of my favorite topics aren't represented in the > program, either. > > However, the main conference track is just a part of PyCon -- and a > relatively small one at that. We have many other events, including > lightning talks (short, informal presentations), open spaces (ad-hoc talks > and gatherings) and sprints (focused development efforts). For many people, > these less formal parts are actually the highlights. I'm one of them: my > favorite part of PyCon is the annual testing meetup, and event you won't > find on the official schedule because it's far from formal. I expect web2py > to be represented in this spaces, and I'd encourage you to come and help > make that happen. > > In the end, though, I understand your disappointment, and I doubt there's > much I can tell you that'll change that. I hope you'll consider this added > impetus to submit awesome web2py talks to PyCon next year. Ultimately, > that's the only way to make sure your favorite topic is covered: submit > proposals! > > Once again if you've got any more questions I'm happy to answer them -- > either here or in private email ([email protected] <javascript:>). > > Thanks for your understanding, > > Jacob Kaplan-Moss > Program Chair, PyCon 2013 > --
