Hi Marc, On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 6:54 PM, Marc A. Pelletier <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hello Lodewijk, > > > On 2016-08-06 10:36 AM, Lodewijk wrote: > >> unfortunately I have not spotted a response to this email. Could someone >> from the 2017 team confirm what is the situation at this point? Or who I >> should be talking with? >> > > Sorry, my response had remained a draft that I forgot to complete and > send. :-) Right now, the draft programme does not make distinctions along > the "presentation", "workshop" and "discussions" lines more than the type > of space available (magistral vs tables). I expect the allocation will > remain fluid until we have a better idea of how many of each type need to > be scheduled. > > That said, I expect many of the roundtable discussions would fit > Bird-of-a-feather sessions: those are explicitly set aside for > self-organizing groups that want a session in whichever format meets their > needs and are able and willing to take "ownership" of them. They are > generally more specialized or aimed towards a more precise public, and are > not selected by the programme committee nor curated beyond a simple set of > criteria[1] so they are more free-form. > I am not sure if I understand the above fully. Can you help me please? :) Are we considering to not continue the support for the Discussion Rooms idea as suggested <https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Discussion_Room> in Wikimania London and explored in London, Mexico City, and Esino Lario? If so, can you expand why? Quite a few of the Discussion sessions in Esino Lario were very well attended, the participants took active role in these sessions, and the general sentiment that I got from these sessions was that they were helpful. I realize that from the perspective of the local organizers it may seem that Discussions can fit in Bird-of-a-feather, but unless we have strong reasons to merge them with other sessions or move them under a new umbrella, it is better to keep them in a dedicated track. This will help the team that organizes these discussions to improve the track, build a stronger reputation/brand, and maintain continuity which is key in this context. :) (And needless to say, sorry if the reasons are already documented somewhere and I didn't manage to find them.) Best, Leila -- Leila Zia Senior Research Scientist Wikimedia Foundation
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