[Chat] Collecting general feedback about the conference?

[VM Brasseur]

It's worth mentioning that there's more to building a programme than simply taking any talk available. Yes, many talks were submitted and considerably fewer were put on the schedule. While a very large number of those not-accepted talks would have been of high quality, they did not meet other criteria for inclusion in the programme. And, of course, some of the talk submissions were simply just not good.

So when a slot opens in the schedule, the organizers must try to maintain their vision for the programme. They cannot simply drop in the first available talk, even if it is written, practiced, and ready to go.

In this case it worked out very well, I think. The organizers chose to provide an all-day track just for BoFs, of which there were more than enough to fill the available slots and meeting spaces. That sort of community support & building is part of the reason LCA is as great as it is.

--V

> On Jan 25, 2017, at 02:08, Marc MERLIN via Chat <chat at lists.lca2017.linux.org.au> wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Jan 25, 2017 at 08:28:49PM +1100, Michael Still via Chat wrote:
>> All of these ideas are good, but they've also been tried in the past.
>> 
>> One of the issues is that the conference organizers are focussed on a
>> single year's conference, so they're heads down making that thing happen.
> 
> This reminds me of something that could be improved.
> 
> Too many talks were submitted, a smaller number was taken. After mine
> was rejected, I asked last year and this year if they took backup
> speakers in case they ended up with a hole in the schedule.
> Both times I was told "no"
> This year, there were at least 3 or 4 slots with no talks.
> I've heard some other speakers were asked if they could present at the
> last minute and they had to decline due to lack of time to prepare.
> In the meantime, some of us had a talk that had already been written,
> given, ready to deliver, and were told "no thanks, we don't need backup
> speakers".
> 
> Somehow I think this can be improved :)
> 
> Marc
> -- 
> "A mouse is a device used to point at the xterm you want to type in" - A.S.R.
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> Home page: http://marc.merlins.org/                         | PGP 1024R/763BE901
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