[Chicago] selecting talks Re: [PyCON-Organizers] Talk slot durations (was: FWD: Re: Pycon disappointment)

[John Melesky]

On Mar 23, 2008, at 11:08 AM, Atul Varma wrote:
> I'm not sure if this idea is along the same lines as what you're  
> saying here, but what if the way to choose what talks get busted is  
> based purely on a completely democratic voting process within the  
> community?  For instance, once all the talks are turned in, they're  
> all publicly viewable on the PyCon website; they could even have  
> comment threads where discussion could take place, e.g. potential  
> audience members could ask the potential presenter in advance about  
> their proposal, people who have heard the presenter talk before  
> could provide comments, etc.

This sounds alot like the way BarCamp Milwaukee handled it.


> Then each community member is given a pool of, say, 50 points, that  
> they can distribute between proposals however they like (or a  
> different voting system could be used, I dunno).

Except for this part. Instead of 50 points, every registered user  
could vote a talk up or down if they wished (in a reddit/digg-like  
fashion). No real need to limit people.

Upsides of doing things thiswise:
- Easier to gauge interest in talks, and so plan different-sized  
spaces accordingly
- More participatory

Possible downsides:
- Puts perhaps even more weight on the talk summary/abstract than the  
committee method does
- Presenters can psyche themselves out looking at high or low vote  
counts for their talks
- Should we let the masses choose their own talks?


-johnnnnnnnn