Posted by farriss on September 17, 2009 at 5:43pm
This thread is for all throughts about tracks and session selection. The group came up with the following questions to get the ball rolling:
- How many tracks and sessions?
- What is the right ratio of presentations and BOFs offerings to conference attendees? How do we determine more sessions vs larger rooms for sessions.
- What should the tracks be?
- Should there be track chairs and, if so, what are their responsibilities?
- When should the call for submissions be opened? For how long should it be open?
- How far out from the conference should the schedule be announced?
- What is the right balance between offering popular (e.g. voted) sessions and curated cohesive conference program?
We'll be discussing this topic and the responses listed in this thread as a group at our next IRC meeting, October 1, 2009 from 11am-noon Central time.
Comments
Timing
While a lot of conferences nail down their schedules 6 months in advance, Drupal moves too quickly for that to be feasible, IMO. However, the 2 week (or less) warning for DC Paris was also entirely unacceptable.
As a frequent speaker, I'd want to know at least 6 weeks out what I'm going to be presenting. That gives me enough time to properly prepare, but it's also not so far in advance that what I'm talking about is likely to change drastically. It also should be enough time for people who are waiting to book flights until they know the schedule to do so.
If we give track chairs 2 weeks to get sessions together (yes, we do want track chairs), that means we want all sessions submitted by 8 weeks before the conference. Figuring at least a month for session submissions, that means we open the call for papers around T-minus 3 months at the absolute latest. Expand as needed for each phase.
Track chairs should be responsible for curating the sessions for their tracks to ensure a good distribution of sessions within that track, and work with a session manager who is keeping an eye on all tracks to ensure a good distribution between tracks.
I'm not sure what the proper balance is between popularity and "planned coordinations" for sessions, except that it needs to be made a lot more explicit than it has been in the past. (That is, I don't think anyone knows what the balance is.) It's been suggested before to switch from "+1!" style voting to 5-star-esque ratings, so as to reduce the first-poster bias and the natural win-more problem where the higher rated sessions get noticed and therefore get more votes. I think that would be a very good idea.
I don't think we can reasonably have more than 6 rooms going at once, which is what DC had. More than that and even going to a session every time slot you'll barely be scratching the surface of the content, and DrupalCon is not yet big enough that you can have entirely separate wings with unrelated content a la SXSW. Even 6 is kinda pushing it there, especially if we intend for people to also go to unconference or BoF sessions.
My thoughts
I've been thinking about these issues for some time now, and am grateful for the opportunity to provide my thoughts. To provide some context, I've presented sessions at four Drupalcons, was one of the track chairs for Szeged, and have also presented at other tech conferences, including twice at SXSW Interactive.