Re: [Debconf-discuss] Registration FAQ
MJ Ray dijo [Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 02:32:47PM +0000]:
> > I think it's pretty hard to expect something really reliable about
> > this. To my experience, there has never been topic grouping in the
> > schedule and, given the way Debconf sets itself up, I'd bet it will
> > not happen.
>
> Thanks for the reply, but note I didn't ask for "something really
> reliable", but for preliminary.
>
> The lack of topic grouping is a bug in debconf set-up, isn't it?
There are too many vectors around which you could end up grouping
talks - it's not as trivial as it looks like. And usually, people are
not just interested in a given "track" - Most people in Debian end up
cherry-picking from quite different topics (both for what they work in
or what they want to hear).
So far, grouping by topic/track has been talked about several times in
the Debconf organization, and so far has been impossible/fruitless. In
any case, it might be interesting to reenable a rating subsystem such
as what we had in Debconf 5 (written by Don Armstrong, who must also
be reading this ;-) ), which intended to minimize the amount of people
thinking, "bugger, my two favorite talks overlap". Of course, this
subsystem was closely tied with the Comas system, which we are no
longer using, and would basically have to be rewritten from scratch
for Pentabarf.
Of course, I do not know if such a subsystem would end up being useful
in the general overview - Would it really be better than
essentialy-random-allocation? How compatible would it be (without
major and inconvenient adjustments) with human-induced changes
(i.e. "I'm scheduled for Monday, but I arrive on Tuesday", or "We all
know $person always fills up any room he gets - Schedule him with no
competing talks!")... Human factors induce stupid amounts of
complexity and frustration.
> > Debconf is, more or less by definition, something that you really
> > benefit from when you participate to the entire event, really.
>
> It's a shame if there's no willingness to make debconf more easily
> accessible to a wider range of developers. It seems likely to lead to
> forking as we grow, with all the drawbacks that involves.
Umh... Well, I was just thinking yesterday that partly it's a shame
that Debconf has become such a success. It has shifted from a very
informal and ad-hoc get-together (I won't insult previous organizing
teams by stating that no organization was needed, but for a fact, it
was much more relaxed and with much fewer rules and formalities). Yes,
it might end up forking or changing somehow - but I doubt it can (or
should!) continue growing. Debconf is meant for work in and towards
Debian. We do not need a 500+ people conference! IMHO, we would lose
more than what we'd win.
Greetings,
--
Gunnar Wolf - gwolf@gwolf.org - (+52-55)5623-0154 / 1451-2244
PGP key 1024D/8BB527AF 2001-10-23
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