On 23 March 2016 at 19:07, sankarshan <foss.mailinglists@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Mar 23, 2016 at 5:24 PM, rajat arora <rajatarora216@gmail.com> wrote:
We had some suggestions in our feedback last year to do away with the beginner track talks and workshops as they seem to lower the quality bar for the conference.
I would think that this line of reasoning has a flaw. The quality of a conference in terms of content is shaped by the rigor, discipline and consistency applied by the editors (and the selection committee). Talk proposals with robust content that introduce the (well defined) target audience to a concept is as acceptable as well designed content intended for niche/advanced users.
I agree with some points that various people have made: * Improving the quality of the talks is imperative * A focus on better quality does not mean that beginner-level talks should be rejected out of hand. However, I really would like to weed out talks along the lines of: "Hey, I just used this wonderful Python package, and would like to talk about it". IMHO, something that could be picked up in a week by a reasonably-skilled developer should not qualify for a PyCon talk. * Likewise, we should expect more out of our audience. We should not be spoon-feeding them with material that they can, and should, learn out of a technical blog. IMHO, even beginner-level talks at PyCon should go beyond "Here is how Python works", or "Here is how to set up a first website with Django". The speaker should be bringing something to the table that is not already available on the Internet, and that's not an easy task. * Think that the way to bring about such improvements is through a more active engagement of the organising committee with prospective speakers. We need to push people to organise their talks better. Besides the quality of the content, they should also focus on how to present it to their targeted audience. Regards, Gora