On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 3:19 PM, Jeffrey Ollie <[email protected]> wrote: > On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 1:26 PM, inode0 <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Being honest we should note that the real point of barcamps is to let >> the attendees choose the talks available to them rather than leaving >> that to a committee of three people who don't know who will be >> attending when the selections are made and may or may not know what >> talks attendees would like to see. Barcamps do have issues and while >> I'm not objecting to dropping them from the program there is a cost to >> doing so. > > I'll admit that I haven't attended many conferences, but the ones that > I have been to that were done barcamp style I felt that the presenters > at barcamps were less prepared than presenters at other conferences. > I'd much prefer a SXSW-like process where presentations were voted > upon beforehand, like Ruth mentioned.
I don't doubt this is true. Many people probably do not prepare as hard when they don't know they will actually be presenting. Paying speakers also likely results in higher quality talks as does only inviting speakers known to be good speakers. As I said I don't object to going in a new direction here but we are discarding a community activity. While it is boring for some to wait for the voting it is also a time when the community is actively doing something together. Even acknowledging the inefficiency of the traditional barcamp pitch/vote dance there is something about the process that makes those present feel they are a part of the event in a way they never feel at traditional commercial conferences. As for trying to vote in advance I have my doubts that is worth bothering with. I'm not going to read 200 or 300 abstracts for talks in order to vote on them and I would be surprised if very many attendees would. While that does allow for some involvement from the attendees in content selection it removes all the immediacy and comradery of the barcamp pitch/vote. John _______________________________________________ fudcon-planning mailing list [email protected] https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/fudcon-planning
