Re: [DRAFT] EmacsConf 2020 Call for Proposals

[emacsconf]

Hi all,

Amin Bandali (bandali@gnu.org) wrote:

> emacsconf@Karl-Voit.at writes:
> 
> > Amin Bandali (bandali@gnu.org) wrote:
> >
> >> 1 Important dates
> >> =================
> >> 
> >>    CFP opens              August 17, 2020          
> >>    CFP closes             September 30, 2020       
> >>    Speaker notifications  October 24, 2020         
> >>    Schedule published     November 7, 2020         
> >>    EmacsConf 2020!        November 28 and 29, 2020 
> >
> > Is there a reason why CfP closing and Speaker notifications are one
> > month apart?
> >
> > If not, as a potential speaker I'd prefer more than one month for
> > preparing the talk.
> >
> > Without knowing your experience from the previous EmacsConf events,
> > I'd say that one week of potential CfP extension and one week for
> > acceptance and notification should be sufficient. At least I'd say
> > that we can manage the acceptance with one or two online meetings.
> >
> 
> The reason is I thought I'd give us more time, compared to last year
> where there was only one week between the CFP closing and sending out
> the speaker notifications.  I thought I'd give us more time this year.
> Did I overcompensate?

What was the issue with last year's decision week? Was there a
specific issue associated?

> Do you suggest we move speaker notifications to October 14, to allow us
> one week even if we end up extending the CFP by one week to October 7?

Yes, this would be my approach. Again: I don't have EmacsConf orga
experience. However, I was in the orga team for https://linuxtage.at
for a couple of years. I try to transfer some experience from this
event to EmacsConf but I don't want to change anything that already
worked out good.

> That would probably be fine by me, especially if we can get started with
> looking at the submissions we receive by September 30, rather than
> waiting for the CFP to fully close before beginning.

True.

> To be sure, can you include a concrete complete timeline with all the
> dates you propose just so we are all on the same page, Karl?

Sure. I just moved the notification date to the 14th of October as
you suggested:

   CFP opens              August 17, 2020          
   CFP closes             September 30, 2020       
   Speaker notifications  October 14, 2020         
   Schedule published     November 7, 2020         
   EmacsConf 2020!        November 28 and 29, 2020 

Optionally, we could decide to move the schedule publishing date to
a prior day as well. I don't know if we expect much conflicts or
effort here. However, with a fixed schedule, we're able to advertise
with specific talks or the whole plan.

Do we expect issues caused by accepted speakers who reject their
talk after being accepted from your experience from past
conferences?

> >> 2 Talk formats
> >> ==============
> >> 
> >>   The following are the main formats for EmacsConf 2020 talks:
> >> 
> >>   - *10 minutes* (Lightning talk): Quickly present a cool project,
> >>     concept, or trick in 10 minutes or less!
> >> 
> >>   - *20 minutes* (Standard talk): Introduce the audience to a new Emacs
> >>     mode, concept, or just talk about something not necessarily shiny
> >>     and new but that you find really neat nonetheless.
> >> 
> >>   - *50 minutes* (Extended talk): Take your time going more in depth,
> >>     and/or do a demo!  Extended talks are a great way of really
> >>     educating the audience about something you enjoy.
> >
> > Did the orga team already discuss the topic of pre-recorded talks?
> >
> > Since there were some technical difficulties last year, from the
> > view point of the organizers, it would be cool to have at least 50
> > percent pre-recorded talks that can be used when live-talks get
> > issues. 
> >
> > If the 50 percent margin is reached, pre-recorded talks can be used
> > between live-talks in any case which gives us more time for speaker
> > set-up.
> 
> We haven't yet discussed anything for this year, but judging by our
> experience last year, I strongly think we should definitely have some
> prerecorded talks.

How hard was it to convince speakers to pre-record? Or were the
pre-recorded talks the preferences of the said speakers?

> I think we ask all Lightning talk speakers to submit a prerecording of
> their talk.  As for Standard and Extended talks, we ask the speakers to
> either submit a prerecording or otherwise do a tech check with us before
> the conference, to make sure we are all on the same page and hopefully
> reduce the likelihood of issues on the day(s) of the conference.
> 
> Thoughts?

I'm not sure if "please do a pre-recorded talk" is a burden which is
too high. I myself have never pre-recorded a talk so far. I'm
interested enough to try but I can think of speaker who do not want
to add this learning experience to the preparation effort.

Therefore, it should probably an optional thing we can ask our
speakers for in the CfP: Would you be able to pre-record your
contribution so that it results in a video?

> >> 4 Submission
> >> ============
> >
> > Is there a policy on orga team members and talk submissions?
> 
> There has not been a concrete discussion, but how we did it last year
> was to have people email <emacsconf-submit@gnu.org> with their
> submission, and it worked out reasonably well.  Sacha and I gathered all
> the emails and went through them and selected/scheduled the talks.
> 
> Our <https://emacsconf.org/2019/organizers-notebook/> from last year
> lists "Consider anonymized conference submissions to reduce bias." as a
> possible improvement.  I agree, and I think we could make that happen.

Certain topics are specific enough that you would recognize my
topics for example ;-)

> So, my thinking is that for this year, now that we have more organizers
> onboard than just me and Sacha, I can act as a proxy receiving the
> submissions sent to <emacsconf-submit@gnu.org>.  I will then collect and
> relay to you all the submissions, but without the name and email of the
> speakers, so the selection of the talks could be done in an anonymized
> way.  As for me, since I will necessarily see the names and emails for
> each submission as I collect and process them, I will not participate in
> the selection of the talks.  Also, I can also keep an eye on things like
> if any of you and up submitting your own talk, I'll make sure to have
> someone else review your submission. :-)

My take would be: organizers are allowed to hand in a talk but must
not be part of the acceptance decision for it.

FYI: I don't know if I do have a suitable topic for this year - I
just wanted to know the policy.

> Also, I wasn't sure how much of the above we should include in the CFP
> and how much we should mention on the site or in separate announcements,
> since the CFP is quite long as is.  I definitely think it will be
> valuable to talk about and post to emacsconf-discuss with details about
> these policies/decisions in the interest of transparency.  For instance,
> SeaGL (the Seattle GNU/Linux conference) published an entry on their
> site about their talk selection process for their 2019 conference:
> <https://seagl.org/news/2019/11/04/talk-selection-process.html>.

I would not mention it on the CfP since all persons that are
affected are reading on this mailing list. In order to make the
policy transparent, I would mention it on the web page only.

> Thanks again for the feedback, Karl; please keep them coming, y'all!

You're welcome. I can't keep my mouth shut anyway ;-)

-- 
Karl Voit

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