Re: Re: Questions after talks at DebConf (idea)
On Tue, Sep 11, 2018 at 08:30:27PM +0530, shirish शिरीष wrote:
> I was afraid of the accents and fast-talk of some people while other
> people whose first language was not English were easier to understand
> as they took time to organize and deliver their questions not just in
> Q&A but also afterwards.
Regardless of whether Q&A is problematic for a first-time speaker, this
*is* a problem, and not just for first-time speakers. Some people in
Debian are native speakers, some aren't. Some non-native people in
Debian have a good grasp of the English language, but their accent is
horrible to the point that it's almost incomprehensible at times. And
some people just don't speak English very well, and will have a problem
understanding anyone who doesn't speak their native language no matter
what.
As such, even if my grasp of English is near-native, I have on occasion
had trouble understanding someone at DebConf, simply because of the
language barrier.
When doing emails, this isn't really a problem, since you can re-read
the mail and use a dictionary if you need to. Not so in live speech.
Given that background, IME it's not usually the case that people will be
offended if you ask them to repeat what they said, or to speak a bit
slower, or something along those lines, but this may be something that
first-time attendees and/or first-time speakers may not be aware of.
How about we create a page specifically for first-time attendees and
people who would like to speak at DebConf, where we state something
along the lines of the following:
- While English is the language expected for official events (talks,
BoFs, etc), apart from that it's perfectly okay for participants to
use other languages too.
- If you have trouble understanding someone due to language barriers or
your own limited understanding of the language in use, it's okay to
ask the speaker to clarify.
- While in the spirit of cooperation we encourage speakers to allow a
short Q&A session after the end of their talk, there may be some
subject matters where such a session would not contribute much to the
Debian community as a whole; in such case, it's fine to skip it.
Audience members considering to ask a question should remember to ask
it in a non-adversarial manner, respecting the dignity of the speaker
and the community as a whole.
This may be part of the DebConf CoC if people think it reasonable?
--
Could you people please use IRC like normal people?!?
-- Amaya Rodrigo Sastre, trying to quiet down the buzz in the DebConf 2008
Hacklab
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