also sprach Asheesh Laroia <asheesh@asheesh.org> [2016-02-14 09:32 +1300]:
> If people have ideas for tracks, I could possibly be convinced to
> do "own" one such track, which would mean doing the work of
> finding speakers who canA talk interestingly on topics within that
> track. I'd love to hear about people's ideas for tracks.
It's a great idea to explore, I think. The reason why I questioned
the need for tracks is because I (personally) don't see much of
a value of using tracks only to colour-code the schedule, and if
that were our only use, I'd rather leave out this additional form
field and data point. However, if we are ready to explore "owning"
tracks as you suggest, then adding the functionality is well worth
it.
Allow me to mention linux.conf.au (LCA) in this context. The
conference runs for only 3 days, but is preceeded by 2 days of
"miniconfs". For the main conference, keynote speakers are
actively sought, the rest is submissions-based. Since the
conference enjoys a very good reputation, the organisers regularly
get flooded with submissions, and they've made it a habit to pass
off rejections to miniconfs, if there is a match. My proposal this
year was passed on to the sysadmin miniconf, for instance.
Miniconfs on the other hand are similar to the idea of "owned
tracks". There's a chiefly responsible person setting the theme
and drafting up a schedule, inviting speakers and vetting
submissions passed over from the main conference.
In the past few years, we've provided a list of possible tracks in
the call-for-submissions, as a means to help people to come up with
ideas. This list hasn't really changed, and I am not sure we'll
be able to reap much of a benefit if we keep the entries static as
they are and try to find people to take responsibility for each.
That seems a bit like creating arbitrary subtasks and assigning them
to people, which isn't particularly motivating, if it even works.
But how about opening this list and calling for track idea
submissions early enough in the cycle, such that people are
motivated to make "their" idea happen, while also bringing fresh
ideas to the conference, continuously? We'd still have to have
a couple of standard tracks, of course…
Assuming we get a few ideas back, the conference organisers could
then pick some and include them in the call-for-submissions.
Meanwhile, the track owners would also seek for themselves, and when
submissions come in to the content team, they'd refer to the
appropriate track owners.
It'd mean allocating slabs of space in the schedule and bestowing
responsibility of the scheduling to the owners. It might not work
right away, but long-term, this could take quite the burden off the
content team.
So Asheesh might have proposed the "Applying Debian values and
techniques to the Web" track, someone else might suggest
a "Packaging with Git" track, and there might be a "Creative
content with Debian" theme, or "Debian for kids", etc.. Add
these to the standard "bits from Debian teams" group of talks, as
well as the "miscellaneous" pool.
The next year might be all different.
And we'd be able to advertise a whole lot of content (general
ideas anyway) well before finalising the schedule.
I am all in favour and I'd be willing to take ownership of a track,
if this is something we think we can still hammer to shape for DC16…
--
.''`. martin f. krafft <madduck@debconf.org> @martinkrafft
: :' : DebConf orga team
`. `'`
`- DebConf16: Cape Town: https://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf16
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