also sprach Patty Langasek <harmoney@dodds.net> [2013.09.27.1928 +0200]:
> Good morning, everyone!
Good evening.
> Right now, we know we have the dates 24 Aug - 30 Aug, with
> departure of no later than 1 September 2014 for our official
> venue.
Traditionally, the conference starts Sunday morning (24 Aug) and
ends Saturday night (30 Aug), with departure on Sunday (31 Aug). I'd
think this is wise specifically due to Labor (Mon)Day, which will
make travel a hassle and expensive too.
> 1. Daytrip - yes or no? And when? During the week is ideal, as
> there will be less traffic and less conflict with other
> tourists/weekend travellers.
Traditionally, that was Wednesday, and yes, I think we should have
a Day Trip because of its social value.
I think it's also not a bad idea to combine day trip with conference
dinner to maximise the number of work time ("separate hacking time")
in the evenings on the other days (see below).
> 2. DebCamp - yes or no? We do not have official venue (talk rooms)
> for the week prior to our reserved dates (or the week after).
> If we do have DebCamp, it will need to be restricted in number
> and time (it won't be a week long).
I think we should stick with DebCamp and we should try as hard as
possible to make it as long as possible.
We do not need talk rooms for that, but we do need hack space for 80
people or thereabouts (with whiteboards ideally). And accomodation
and food.
> 3. Separate Hacking Time - yes or no? One thing the organizers
> would like to see is hacking and collaborating time (different
> from DebCamp) that doesn't conflict with the Talks Schedule.
Isn't that what starts at 18:00 every day?
But see below: especially with three talk tracks and maybe
a schedule that runs until 19:00, make 12:00–16:00 be
lunch+collaboration time.
> 4. Talks - Call for Team! - We need to decide when the talks
> start, when they end, tracks, what days, how many, etc. This is
> key to declaring our dates.
This chicken and egg problem could be resolved using previous
DebConfs as a basis to jump off.
One discussion point has been the starting time in the morning.
While I think 09:00 is fine, I think we will have more people show
up at 10:00.
I would vote for a plenary session in the main talk room at 09:30
for announcements, jokes, local wisdom, riddles, prices, whatever.
Just make people get together, which makes organisation a lot
easier. Cf. LCA.
We need two hours for lunch.
Each talk lasts 45–50 minutes and we need 10–15 minutes of time
between them to change venues.
This means that if we have a 10–18 schedule, we can do two talks in
the morning and four in the afternoon (14, 15, 16, 17). Multiply
that by two or three tracks (traditionally we had two, but I think
three would be doable, e.g. "sysadmin & cloud", "community
& social", "debian tech". This would give us 12 or 18 talks per day,
and we have So,Mo,Tu,Th,Fr,Sa == 6 days, i.e. 72 or 108 talks.
That's quite a nice number. And we could easily run until 19:00,
especially if the lunch break is extended with "hacking time".
My 2 US¢ simply because I didn't want to work on the other stuff
I have to do tonight ;)
--
.''`. martin f. krafft <madduck@debconf.org>
: :' : DebConf orga team
`. `'`
`- DebConf14: Portland, OR, USA: http://debconf14.debconf.org
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