[Python-ideas] Anonymizing the PyCon review process

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Raymond Hettinger writes:

 > [Terry Jones]
 > > The obvious suggestion is to anonymize the review process.
 > 
 > FWIW, that was tried and the people complained about that too.
 > 
 > Who would you rather hear speak about the future of Python, Guido
 > and someone else?
 > About the state of Twisted, from someone on that team or from a
 > user who read the Twisted book?
 > About UnladedSwallow or AppEngine, someone on Google's team or
 > someone who has played around with it for a while?

That's what invited talks are for.  Guido van Rossum or Alex Martelli,
you invite them to give a keynote.  But you can also salt the regular
sessions with "invited" speakers.  There's nothing that says that
people can't suggest themselves for invitations.

 > Surely, the review process has room for improvements and better
 > balance but anonymizing is a step too far IMO.

Anonymizing is the only way to get a reasonable balance between the
very short-term view you are presenting, and the long-term view of
encouraging new participants with good ideas and discouraging/warning
old-timers whose ideas and views have gone stale, or even started to
stink.  Good proposals have a fairly high correlation with good talks;
although you can't expect to win them all.  You don't have to
anonymize all the sessions/talks, either, but probably at least half
should be refereed blind.