Re: [Debconf-discuss] Talk selection for Debconf 7
Manoj Srivastava dijo [Fri, Jun 09, 2006 at 09:22:27AM -0500]:
> Secondly, I am not sure that going against the martket
> decision is wise, even then: popular debconf speakers do not gain
> popularity because they look like movie stars; they are popular
> because they have done seminal work in Debian (and have thus things
> to convey to the rest of us), have demonstrated sound technical
> judgement, or have demonstrated in the past that their talks are fun
> and instructuve.
>
> Why should we try to put a handicap on these talks? Why isit
> not possible that these people are popular because their talks are
> likely to be good? What justification do you have to show that
> "popular" speakers, if selected for, actually harm the confenrence?
> Surely we have enough slots that good speakers with a track record of
> informative talks do not crowd out deserving candidates?
It depends on what we want to achieve. Let me put a personal example
here: Enrico Zini. His talks are _great_ by any measure, as anybody
attending them will agree. And although he has some pretty deep and
interesting technical ones, he is most often remembered by, i.e.,
"Polygen: A tool to end flamewars" or "Advanced tools for wasting
time" - Not exactly technically advanced, but really appreciated, as
they tackle Debian's social fabric in a funny way.
So, of course, Enrico's talks will always be accepted. However, being
a fan of him as I am, I prefer them being BoFs. Why? Because talks
require presenting a paper. A paper will sometimes spoil the funnier
bits of his talk to some of us. Sometimes it will just be too much of
a bother. His talks, being as popular as they are, are much better off
as BoFs.
Greetings,
--
Gunnar Wolf - gwolf@gwolf.org - (+52-55)5623-0154 / 1451-2244
PGP key 1024D/8BB527AF 2001-10-23
Fingerprint: 0C79 D2D1 2C4E 9CE4 5973 F800 D80E F35A 8BB5 27AF
Reply to: