Dear DebConf organizers and participants,
I'm writing this message on behalf of the chair team. We are very sorry
for the time it has taken us to publish concrete proposals for moving
forward on these topics. The timing was not ideal for the three of us
and we have had to discuss a lot to arrive at an agreed approach.
We agree with a lot of Martin Krafft's discussion agenda, so below I
have rewritten our own proposal to incorporate his agenda. The dinner
meetings mentioned by Tincho were just one idea for getting views from
team members who may not be willing to attend long formal meetings about
these topics.
So the format we now propose is a three-phase process:
1. Picking up the pieces — Where do we stand and what do we want?
Open meetings to gather views on how DebConf organization can be
improved. The chairs would lead these meetings over 3 or 4 days to avoid
any individual meeting being too long and so that everyone can be heard
equally. The chair team also plan to actively talk to people we consider
that could bring relevant points to the discussion. Those who are not
present in the conference would also be able to reach us remotely.
2. Compiling days
The chairs would have 2 or 3 days to process what was received as
comments, complaints, suggestions, and then to present a summary in the
following phase.
3. Tying up the ends — where do we go from here?
The chairs would present the result of their work, hopefully with
some proposals to address the issues brought in the previous days.
Again, the stage would be open for comments, and the chair team don't
intend to impose their own current views as the result. It will be a big
challenge for all of us to look for agreement in this final meeting, but
one thing is important to keep in mind: we can go on improving things
later. This process doesn't need and should not end by the end of the
conference.
We are not proposing a series of meetings to 'silo' people from each
other, as has been suggested previously in the list. The problem is that
there are many people with different views about how things have worked
and how they should work, and we want them all to be heard fairly. We
are worried that a single meeting for this would need to be many hours
long, which would be very tiring, especially for non-native speakers,
and would increase the chance we get stuck on tangential arguments. Many
people with views that should be heard will not be willing to attend
such a long meeting on this topic -- we hope that with a series of
smaller meetings those most interested can attend them all, while others
can just turn up once (or, as a second-best option, speak directly to
the chairs between meetings, and we can report back).
Last but not least, for those who think that DebConf would be better
organized without the existence of chairs: We are ready to change
anything, even if it removes the chair positions. The new nominated
chairs agreed before assuming the role that they would try to sort this
stuff out even if it were to mean that the chair position disappears.
We are looking forward to hearing your comments before proposing a real
schedule of meetings.
Best regards,
Tassia
on behalf of the DebConf Chairs
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