On Thu, 2005-07-28 at 20:43 +0200, Martin Schulze wrote: > That's something I've told the debconf people after the announcement > as well. Since it was more than one week after the end of the conference > I didn't feel like we should wait another week until some stuff is found, > so actually released it with a too few information. I hope the organisers > for the next Debconf will collect interesting stuff *during* the conference > that we can use later. Since we're discussing things in retrospect, and since the other organizers seem to be too busy to answer, I might as well comment here. I'm expanding the topic slightly and adjusting the cc list, although I'm answering the points raised. The issue with the press releases has not been lack of awareness of what should be done, or how it should be done. The people involved in the press work for DebConf5 have all worked with the press before, and (at least some of us) have worked as journalists for TV, radio and/or print media. We know what an ideal communication with the press looks like, from the "sender's" point of view, from the press' point of view, and from the audience's point of view. The details that I think joey is looking for *have* been collected prior to, during and after the conference, but merely collecting them doesn't mean they end up in a press release. Rather, it has been a question of having to prioritize tasks and dividing a finite amount of human resources. Speaking for myself, I was quite surprised with the state of planning when entering the DebConf5 project as a member of the Linux-Aktivaattori board. Since Linux-Aktivaattori had already happily accepted the task of representing DebConf5 financially and legally, we obviously were obliged to help out as much as we could, even though the amount of work was multiple times what we had signed up for. A handful of people ended up working nearly around the clock to fix things "behind the scenes": monitoring the food consumption, carrying out tasks within the Comas system, negotiating with the CSD people, reporting to TKY (owners of the dorm buildings), regularly buying more supplies for various needs, finding lost luggage and making sure it got delivered to the right place, and many other invisible (to the guests) tasks that are unavoidable for a conference to be successful or simply required by law or contract. Although things can always be improved, I think we managed to do a fairly good job, which has been reflected in the feedback so far. The feedback we have got directly from the press has also been positive; we know that both press releases in the form they have been published on the DebConf5 website (http://www.debconf.org/debconf5/) have resulted in coverage in the local media and elsewhere -- we even got translations from people eager to help out. Two days ago we were approached by a Finnish computer magazine that needed some details about the conference for an article, and the second press release just happened to include those exact details in the first paragraph, so we were able to fulfill their needs immediately. This shows is a different, and wider, horizon against which to measure DebConf5. I would therefore welcome a more thorough explanation of what could have been improved in the press releases, and how. From my perspective, the only thing that anyone could have done to further improve the quality of the press releases would have been to reduce the workload of the organizers and volunteers by getting involved and doing some work. I'm sure this holds true for the next DebConf as well. Cheers, -- Fabian Fagerholm <fabian.fagerholm@linux-aktivaattori.fi>
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