On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 12:50 PM, Mrinmoy Das <mrinmoy.das91@gmail.com> wrote:

+1 for development sprints.

Mrinmoy Das http://goromlagche.in/

-1 for the top post. Please read [1] before replying to the mailing lists. [1] http://www.shakthimaan.com/downloads/glv/presentations/mailing-list-etiquett... Kushal -- CPython Core Developer http://fedoraproject.org http://kushaldas.in

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 12:51 PM, Kushal Das <kushaldas@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 12:45 PM, Bibhas <me@bibhas.in> wrote: I am the co-ordinator for the development sprint days in PyCon US. The biggest problem for doing similar level of sprints is the lack of upstream project/developers in the conference. We need more developers from upstream projects to participate for this and I do know we have a few of them in the conference.

​What if we ran a sprint to take up a few projects where some of us are close to, or are already local contributors/maintainers and ran a short sprint? Kushal - you have Retask yourself. Anand has web.py or broadgauge (pythonexpress). There are some of us involved in Flask related third party projects.​ This is a good opportunity to get people involved in understanding what it really takes to become an upstream contributor by being working side by side with us. I like this idea, and would be willing to volunteer to help make it happen. My only caveat is that we should separate this from the conference days since they are already packed with way too much going on. -A

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 1:35 PM, Bibhas <me@bibhas.in> wrote:

On 10/15/2014 01:30 PM, Arvi Krishnaswamy wrote:

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 12:51 PM, Kushal Das <kushaldas@gmail.com> wrote:

...

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 12:45 PM, Bibhas <me@bibhas.in> wrote: I am the co-ordinator for the development sprint days in PyCon US. The biggest problem for doing similar level of sprints is the lack of upstream project/developers in the conference. We need more developers from upstream projects to participate for this and I do know we have a few of them in the conference.

​ What if we ran a sprint to take up a few projects where some of us are close to, or are already local contributors/maintainers and ran a short sprint? Kushal - you have Retask yourself. Anand has web.py or broadgauge (pythonexpress). There are some of us involved in Flask related third party projects.​

Yes. To start with, maybe we can actively look for some projects and ask the upstream to host a sprint. Maybe newcomers will see that and be encouraged to do it next year themselves.

This is a good opportunity to get people involved in understanding what it really takes to become an upstream contributor by being working side by side with us.

I like this idea, and would be willing to volunteer to help make it happen. My only caveat is that we should separate this from the conference days since they are already packed with way too much going on.

Yeah. We also have the workshop day with almost empty venue. How about we move the workshop day to the end of the conference and host it parallel to the sprint? I'm not sure how that'd affect the workshops though. I'm also not sure about the feedback of the workshop day. I have never seen much buzz about it.

Having workshop on first day helps in sorting lots of logistics issues for next day. We can have sprints on the first day in first floor. There is space limitation. 50 to 100 people can easily work. I think there are lot smaller open source projects written by many of us. Not everyone needs to contribute to Django, Flask, Python 3. I think it is good idea to start and improve the quality later.

-A

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-- Regards Kracekumar http://kracekumar.com +91 85530 29521

On Oct 15, 2014 2:54 PM, "Noufal Ibrahim KV" <noufal@nibrahim.net.in> wrote:

On Wed, Oct 15 2014, Kracekumar Ramaraju wrote:

[...]

...

Having workshop on first day helps in sorting lots of logistics issues for next day. We can have sprints on the first day in first floor. There is space limitation. 50 to 100 people can easily work. I think there are lot smaller open source projects written by many of us. Not everyone needs to contribute to Django, Flask, Python 3. I think it is good idea to start and improve the quality later.

[...]

My gut feel is that a buildup is necessary before sprinting. Holding it somehow after the conference would be better no? The workshops are

I also feel that way.

usually a low energy part of the conference.

-- Cordially, Noufal http://nibrahim.net.in _______________________________________________ Inpycon mailing list Inpycon@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/inpycon

On Wed, Oct 15 2014, Abhaya Agarwal wrote: [...]

But that would mean moving the conference days to Friday-Saturday making it harder for many to attend the first day.

[...] Yup. Can't have it all. In one way, this is a good thing. One thing about PyCon India is that it's very easy to attend. It's usually on a weekend, the prices are low, the food is good, the swag is nice. The result is that it attracts a huge crowd. Just statistically, the number of people who don't particularly care but just "drop by" will be high. Now imagine if there were a bar. If it was costly or the days were inconvenient or something else, that automatically acts as a filter, the "don't care much" crowd will drop saying things like "too costly" or "not worth a leave" or something similar. *Most* of the passionate people will still make it and that will improve the audience quality and reduce the quantity. This makes for a more manageable conference which is more beneficial to the people that actually attend. People who crib about a ticket costing a few hundred rupees and not being able to expense it for some reason will simply stay away and that will, I think, make for a better conference. I'm probably in the minority here but I genuinely think we should try to change the event to attract a smaller of number of good/passionate/talented/experienced people rather than a large number of people who simply drop by. The latter might have been a good idea back in the day but now with local user groups and python express, I don't think it's necessary any more. -- Cordially, Noufal http://nibrahim.net.in

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 3:51 PM, Arvi Krishnaswamy <arvi@alumni.iastate.edu> wrote:

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 3:18 PM, Noufal Ibrahim KV <noufal@nibrahim.net.in

...

wrote:

...

I'm probably in the minority here but I genuinely think we should try to change the event to attract a smaller of number of good/passionate/talented/experienced people rather than a large number of people who simply drop by. The latter might have been a good idea back in the day but now with local user groups and python express, I don't think it's necessary any more.

​This. Word.​

+1 but we need to be wary of the criteria we employ. Taking an extreme example, disallowing students would also reduce the number of first timers and beginners significantly but it is not a good criteria to use (not to mention impossible to enforce). The conference has two sets of people - presenters and audience. An experienced/advanced presenters would want a matching audience that can provide feedback. But this expectation is not hampered by the presence of inexperienced audience, only by the absence of experienced ones. The impression of the conference is formed primarily by the presenters. Complaint about the Pycon has not been that people didn't meet other interesting people. Complaint is that the talks were lacking. So I think we should be raising the bar for the presenters. Which will in turn lead to self selection of audience as well (with a delay of one year). Also the correlation between a passionate Python user and the fact that he can make it to a conference on Friday is tenuous at best. :) Regards, Abhaya

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 4:20 PM, Noufal Ibrahim KV <noufal@nibrahim.net.in> wrote:

To atleast try, for a year, to make it a conference for serious users of Python rather than a gathering of first timers whose needs, and I mention this again, are better served by first timer workshops like the ones by in Python express

What is the scope, aims and goals of Python Express? What is PSSI's involvement and commitment to the success of Python Express? -- sankarshan mukhopadhyay <https://twitter.com/#!/sankarshan>

On 15 October 2014 16:26, sankarshan <foss.mailinglists@gmail.com> wrote:

What is the scope, aims and goals of Python Express?

http://www.pythonexpress.in/about

What is PSSI's involvement and commitment to the success of Python Express?

Its no different from how PSSI gets involved for PyCon India afaik. Volunteers come together and run the Python Express. PSSI will provide institutional support as and when possible. This could be either funding support(based on availability) or institutional backing when required. - sree

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 4:32 PM, Sreekanth S Rameshaiah <sree@mahiti.org> wrote:

On 15 October 2014 16:26, sankarshan <foss.mailinglists@gmail.com> wrote:

...

What is the scope, aims and goals of Python Express?

http://www.pythonexpress.in/about

Thank you. I was not aware of the site when I was at PyCon India. My request would be to set out the expectations from trainers and organizations without requiring a sign-up. For example, "If you are interested in organizing a Python workshop, sign up as an organization/institution on the Python Express website." - is this limited to an educational institute or, any form of organization etc

...

What is PSSI's involvement and commitment to the success of Python Express?

Its no different from how PSSI gets involved for PyCon India afaik. Volunteers come together and run the Python Express. PSSI will provide institutional support as and when possible. This could be either funding support(based on availability) or institutional backing when required.

And again, please consider putting in a form of the above statement on the URL above. -- sankarshan mukhopadhyay <https://twitter.com/#!/sankarshan>

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Wednesday 15 October 2014 04:20 PM, Noufal Ibrahim KV wrote:

On Wed, Oct 15 2014, Abhaya Agarwal wrote:

[...]

...

+1 but we need to be wary of the criteria we employ. Taking an extreme example, disallowing students would also reduce the number of first timers and beginners significantly but it is not a good criteria to use (not to mention impossible to enforce).

I'm completely against setting criteria for an audience. I'm saying we structure it so that it attracts people of a certain kind.

I don't think we should structure it so as to attract only the "experienced" people - the cream if you prefer. Then it would be possibly not a complete community conference - but a conference only for the community experts. IMO, we should cater to all levels of audience - Rank newbies, Python rookies, journeymen and masters should find something interesting to listen to and talk about. In short, I don't believe in this philosophy of "raising the level every year". This is wrong. It should be about being more inclusive every year - having the right mix of talks to attract a varied audience.

...

The impression of the conference is formed primarily by the presenters. Complaint about the Pycon has not been that people didn't meet other interesting people. Complaint is that the talks were lacking.

So I think we should be raising the bar for the presenters. Which will in turn lead to self selection of audience as well (with a delay of one year).

When one says "raising the bar", I think there is a tendency to confuse it with "complex topics". I don't think this is the case. For example, there might be interesting things to talk about even in the Python core library in PyCon - so if someone proposes an interesting talk on say this topic - it could be looked into considering other aspects and not thrown away just cuz it looks commonplace. I personally felt this confusion was present in this year's talk selection.

Yes. That was the gist of my earlier email. To atleast try, for a year, to make it a conference for serious users of Python rather than a gathering of first timers whose needs, and I mention this again, are better served by first timer workshops like the ones by in Python express.

Again, I don't think so. We cannot classify audience as people who should attend Python Express as newbies and not PyCon India. That way we seem to be implicitly creating a kind of caste system for audience and slotting them to neat categories of "this unsophisticated guy for Python Express" and "this super expert for PyCon India". I think anyone who is having fun with Python is welcome to PyCon India. Being serious with it is a personal matter. However, I agree we need to improve the conference "recall" - the stickiness of people who attend it to feel coming back for next year. And not just because of the Food ;)

[...]

- -- Regards, - --Anand - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Software Architect/Consultant anandpillai@letterboxes.org Cell: +919880078014 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1 iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJUPlclAAoJEMTxYeOp9eaoXhwIAJ/ZWbAyc3xSAaxKz4uzyCXx w4P+Nh40DH62364x4wZRp2ghQ67e4bIzbKHcpa00xV8UZCBN3VL0Gp00ImUjspVs +bisappNy0IUxj8okQn+rdk4OXPY2cvkRobhWqI8qhyt5gApGMlO4h2sVPlKPz5/ wwjS0l4YkicoGOjOW7K+je2+UC4rvJdEOIdCKxqJK8B941X5IXNTyi2RPo4ID/X8 dUDR1Gy6OW91VhN0cA2XIRcauUDBFv8UQL1RY/vqA0vDDXoXrPY5G+SJ+i75DoG3 /flQf2Pf2qjYcKkaaVaj8w3wWOEqJisb/k1NqLTghAGjZb38QrioMzx1lJiBG6w= =SRWN -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 5:06 PM, Arvi Krishnaswamy <arvi@alumni.iastate.edu> wrote:

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 4:44 PM, Anand B Pillai < anandpillai@letterboxes.org> wrote:

...

every year". This is wrong. It should be about being more inclusive every year - having the right mix of talks to attract a varied audience.

​The challenge is that I dont see the conference currently becoming more inclusive every year. I could be wrong, but from what I see, certain groups are dropping off and it's now mostly beginners. 80% of the audience raised their hands during the keynote to say they were attending for the first time. ​And I also didnt the large number of students who attended in 2013 return this year. I think definitions of inclusive may vary, but to do that we need to make deliberate choices to provide for the target audience that we care about. I dont think anyone wants to exclude beginners. However, we're talking about moving from the current ratio of 10:10:80 (expert:intermediate:beginner) to maybe (20:30:50). The rank beginners to Python would also be welcome, but urged to instead attend pyexpress.

Just to give stats of this year Software Engineer(2-4 years) : 40% , Student: 18% , Senior engineer(more than 4 years: 22% other: 20% Which means more than 60% of them were experience people and many were first timers.

On 15 Oct 2014 12:39, "Noufal Ibrahim KV" <noufal@nibrahim.net.in> wrote:

On Wed, Oct 15 2014, Anand B Pillai wrote:

[...]

...

I don't think we should structure it so as to attract only the "experienced" people - the cream if you prefer. Then it would be possibly not a complete community conference - but a conference only for the community experts.

I think you misunderstand. I'm not saying we should structure it to attract an experts only audience.

I'm saying that we should raise the bar in two ways.

1. Exclude first time speakers and introductory talks by people who have no real world experience with the topic. This improves the speakers.

2. Structure the conference (date, time, days, price etc.) in a way that dissuades disinterested people from attending. Only serious (though not necessarily experienced) people will come. This improves the audience.

...

IMO, we should cater to all levels of audience - Rank newbies, Python rookies, journeymen and masters should find something interesting to listen to and talk about.

I'm contesting the use of the word "cater" here. I'm fine with an introductory talk being given by someone who's used the technology in question heavily and knows it's ins and outs.

I'm against first time or inexperienced *speakers*.

I would say this is a wrong attitude to have. Experienced speakers don't sprout on trees. It takes a long time for someone to get good at it. Also, having expert knowledge about a certain topic does not mean the person would have presentation skills as well. Almost all the Pycons around the world welcome first time speakers, including Pycon US. There should be an avenue for first timers to present and grow. At some point in time, the old will have to make way for the new. :)

Try to please everyone will, I think, mean that we will please no one. In the best case, we'll please the casual newbies who might get a kick out of listening to an "flask for newbies" talk and going home with a new T-shirt never to touch Python again.

...

In short, I don't believe in this philosophy of "raising the level every year". This is wrong. It should be about being more inclusive every year - having the right mix of talks to attract a varied audience.

I'm on the other end. I think the conference should improve quality wise and we should diversify (e.g. Python express) so that first timers who want to learn the basics have other ways of getting what they want.

Even for first timers, it's a good deal. They won't benefit at all from a 30 minute "intro to foo" talk. They (or atleast the motivated ones) will however benefit from experienced people talking about topics above their level.

[...]

-- Cordially, Noufal http://nibrahim.net.in _______________________________________________ Inpycon mailing list Inpycon@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/inpycon

[...]

...

I'm against first time or inexperienced *speakers*.

I would say this is a wrong attitude to have. Experienced speakers don't sprout on trees. It takes a long time for someone to get good at it.

Also, having expert knowledge about a certain topic does not mean the person would have presentation skills as well.

Almost all the Pycons around the world welcome first time speakers, including Pycon US.

There should be an avenue for first timers to present and grow. At some point in time, the old will have to make way for the new. :)

New speaker are welcome, but not first time speakers. There are other venues like user group meetings etc to practice speaking for first timers. Anand

On Oct 15, 2014 8:37 PM, "Anand Chitipothu" <anandology@gmail.com> wrote:

[...]

...

...

I'm against first time or inexperienced *speakers*.

I would say this is a wrong attitude to have. Experienced speakers don't

...

Also, having expert knowledge about a certain topic does not mean the

...

Almost all the Pycons around the world welcome first time speakers,

including Pycon US.

...

There should be an avenue for first timers to present and grow. At some

sprout on trees. It takes a long time for someone to get good at it. person would have presentation skills as well. point in time, the old will have to make way for the new. :)

New speaker are welcome, but not first time speakers. There are other

venues like user group meetings etc to practice speaking for first timers. Maybe we should not restrict speakers depending on their experience. Maybe instead we can have a strong talk selection committee who can go through the talks of first time speakers and make sure that the presentation is of high quality? We can always ask people to participate and talk at the local user groups. But we'll always have someone who will submit their talks as a first time speaker. Maybe their presentation skills won't be at par. But if the topic is interesting, we can help them get started? Restricting the total number of talks might help here. We can give more assistance to the talks. The percentage of first time speakers won't be too high. So if the topic is interesting, maybe someone else from the community can help the speaker on stage if they don't have good presentation skills. That might help both the speaker and the conference, and the community to some extent as it might encourage more new speakers to come up.

On Oct 16, 2014 11:30 AM, "Anand Chitipothu" <anandology@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 11:11 AM, Bibhas Ch Debnath <me@bibhas.in> wrote:

...

On Oct 15, 2014 8:37 PM, "Anand Chitipothu" <anandology@gmail.com> wrote:

...

[...]

...

...

I'm against first time or inexperienced *speakers*.

I would say this is a wrong attitude to have. Experienced speakers

...

...

...

Also, having expert knowledge about a certain topic does not mean the

...

...

...

Almost all the Pycons around the world welcome first time speakers,

including Pycon US.

...

There should be an avenue for first timers to present and grow. At

some point in time, the old will have to make way for the new. :)

New speaker are welcome, but not first time speakers. There are other venues like user group meetings etc to practice speaking for first timers.

Maybe we should not restrict speakers depending on their experience. Maybe instead we can have a strong talk selection committee who can go

...

We can always ask people to participate and talk at the local user

groups. But we'll always have someone who will submit their talks as a first time speaker. Maybe their presentation skills won't be at par. But if

don't sprout on trees. It takes a long time for someone to get good at it. person would have presentation skills as well. through the talks of first time speakers and make sure that the presentation is of high quality? the topic is interesting, we can help them get started? Restricting the total number of talks might help here. We can give more assistance to the talks. The percentage of first time speakers won't be too high. So if the topic is interesting, maybe someone else from the community can help the speaker on stage if they don't have good presentation skills. That might help both the speaker and the conference, and the community to some extent as it might encourage more new speakers to come up.

I think thats a good idea. In fact, that is what done this year. The talk

selection team has spent time looking at the slides of the speakers, providing guidelines etc. I believe that's a good path to follow. This year we've had much less complaints about talk quality than last couple of years. Let's keep doing it and do it better next year.

Anand

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On Wed, Oct 15 2014, Haris Ibrahim K. V. wrote: [...]

I would say this is a wrong attitude to have. Experienced speakers don't sprout on trees. It takes a long time for someone to get good at it.

Of course. I'm just saying that an annual conference shouldn't be the place for them to start or, even worse, practice their speaking skills. User group meetings, smaller conferences etc. are all fine. Besides, we've been running in the current way for quite a few years and still have complaints about talk quality. I think a different approach is justified, even if only as an experiment.

Also, having expert knowledge about a certain topic does not mean the person would have presentation skills as well.

That's fine. It's way better than someone with excellent presentation skills talking about something they don't know in depth. Also, a talk by an experienced speaker will open the way to an interesting Q/A or even a good open space.

Almost all the Pycons around the world welcome first time speakers, including Pycon US.

Fair enough. I'm saying we should try it for a year or two in a different way and see if it's better. My gut feel is that this kind of approach will make it a smaller but higher quality conference.

There should be an avenue for first timers to present and grow. At some point in time, the old will have to make way for the new. :)

User group meetings, smaller one day conferences, attending workshops, teaching workshops. All of these are there. I don't understand the reasoning behind allowing first timers to speak at the premium conference which is held just once a year. [...] -- Cordially, Noufal http://nibrahim.net.in

On 16 Oct 2014 07:12, "Rejy M Cyriac" <rcyriac@redhat.com> wrote:

On 10/15/2014 11:13 PM, Noufal Ibrahim KV wrote:

...

On Wed, Oct 15 2014, Haris Ibrahim K. V. wrote:

[...]

...

I would say this is a wrong attitude to have. Experienced speakers don't sprout on trees. It takes a long time for someone to get good at it.

Of course. I'm just saying that an annual conference shouldn't be the place for them to start or, even worse, practice their speaking skills. User group meetings, smaller conferences etc. are all fine.

Besides, we've been running in the current way for quite a few years and still have complaints about talk quality. I think a different approach is justified, even if only as an experiment.

...

Also, having expert knowledge about a certain topic does not mean the person would have presentation skills as well.

That's fine. It's way better than someone with excellent presentation skills talking about something they don't know in depth.

-1

Engaging the audience is vital for a talk to be well accepted.

...

Also, a talk by an experienced speaker will open the way to an interesting Q/A or even a good open space.

...

Almost all the Pycons around the world welcome first time speakers, including Pycon US.

Fair enough. I'm saying we should try it for a year or two in a different way and see if it's better. My gut feel is that this kind of approach will make it a smaller but higher quality conference.

...

There should be an avenue for first timers to present and grow. At some point in time, the old will have to make way for the new. :)

User group meetings, smaller one day conferences, attending workshops, teaching workshops. All of these are there. I don't understand the reasoning behind allowing first timers to speak at the premium conference which is held just once a year.

[...]

How would we go about verifying this ? Ask for participation certificates from the local user group ? Ensuring the speaker selection process is based on merit of the topic, quality of content, and presentation skills of the presenter should be enough, rather than put up hard filters to keep out folks.

Exactly. +1.

-- Regards,

Rejy M Cyriac (rmc) _______________________________________________ Inpycon mailing list Inpycon@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/inpycon

On 10/16/2014 01:46 PM, Noufal Ibrahim KV wrote:

On Thu, Oct 16 2014, Rejy M Cyriac wrote:

[...]

...

...

That's fine. It's way better than someone with excellent presentation skills talking about something they don't know in depth.

-1

Engaging the audience is vital for a talk to be well accepted.

Given a choice between an engaging speaker who's not very well informed about what he or she is talking about and a bad presenter who knows the topic well, I'd choose the latter.

Those are two extremes, and the choice is obvious. :-)

[...]

...

How would we go about verifying this ? Ask for participation certificates from the local user group ? Ensuring the speaker selection process is based on merit of the topic, quality of content, and presentation skills of the presenter should be enough, rather than put up hard filters to keep out folks.

I agree with you here. I'm saying that "presentation skills of the presenter" is something that can be judged by experience. Take a look at a presenter that says this

""" This talk is an intro to technology X. It will discuss how to get started using X and how to create a simple application using it. """

vs.

""" This talk about how I used technology X to solve a problem which could not be solved by conventional ways. I've spoken about this at my local user group meetups and at my college festival. """

I'd pick the second.

Close to what I was talking about. However, even if the last sentence were missing from second example, it could still be an interesting talk to deserve a look-in by the panel, and not be screened out. -- Regards, Rejy M Cyriac (rmc)

On 10/15/2014 06:02 PM, Haris Ibrahim K. V. wrote:

On 15 Oct 2014 12:39, "Noufal Ibrahim KV" <noufal@nibrahim.net.in <mailto:noufal@nibrahim.net.in>> wrote:

...

On Wed, Oct 15 2014, Anand B Pillai wrote:

[...]

...

I don't think we should structure it so as to attract only the "experienced" people - the cream if you prefer. Then it would be possibly not a complete community conference - but a conference only for the community experts.

I think you misunderstand. I'm not saying we should structure it to attract an experts only audience.

I'm saying that we should raise the bar in two ways.

1. Exclude first time speakers and introductory talks by people who have no real world experience with the topic. This improves the speakers.

2. Structure the conference (date, time, days, price etc.) in a way that dissuades disinterested people from attending. Only serious (though not necessarily experienced) people will come. This improves the audience.

...

IMO, we should cater to all levels of audience - Rank newbies, Python rookies, journeymen and masters should find something interesting to listen to and talk about.

I'm contesting the use of the word "cater" here. I'm fine with an introductory talk being given by someone who's used the technology in question heavily and knows it's ins and outs.

I'm against first time or inexperienced *speakers*.

I would say this is a wrong attitude to have. Experienced speakers don't sprout on trees. It takes a long time for someone to get good at it.

Also, having expert knowledge about a certain topic does not mean the person would have presentation skills as well.

Almost all the Pycons around the world welcome first time speakers, including Pycon US.

There should be an avenue for first timers to present and grow. At some point in time, the old will have to make way for the new. :)

+1 Discouraging first-time speakers is a very negative, selfish, and self-destructive path to follow. Open source is all about inclusiveness. Competitive we can strive to be, but not exclusive. - rejy (rmc)

...

Try to please everyone will, I think, mean that we will please no one. In the best case, we'll please the casual newbies who might get a kick out of listening to an "flask for newbies" talk and going home with a new T-shirt never to touch Python again.

...

In short, I don't believe in this philosophy of "raising the level every year". This is wrong. It should be about being more inclusive every year - having the right mix of talks to attract a varied audience.

I'm on the other end. I think the conference should improve quality wise and we should diversify (e.g. Python express) so that first timers who want to learn the basics have other ways of getting what they want.

Even for first timers, it's a good deal. They won't benefit at all from a 30 minute "intro to foo" talk. They (or atleast the motivated ones) will however benefit from experienced people talking about topics above their level.

[...]

-- Cordially, Noufal http://nibrahim.net.in _______________________________________________

<snip>

On Oct 16, 2014 1:54 PM, "Noufal Ibrahim KV" <noufal@nibrahim.net.in> wrote:

On Thu, Oct 16 2014, Rejy M Cyriac wrote:

[...]

...

+1

Discouraging first-time speakers is a very negative, selfish, and self-destructive path to follow. Open source is all about inclusiveness. Competitive we can strive to be, but not exclusive.

[...]

I'm all for inclusiveness and the rest of what you've suggested. All I'm saying is that all gatherings/events are not for all audiences.

I wouldn't run a development sprint with a first timer student as a mentor. Would you?

I'd go even further. I think that actually discouraging iexperienced speakers and trying to get the more experienced folk to present would actually help first timers (in the audience) more.

To wit, it's much more valuable for me, as a student, to listen to someone who's actually built a production website with, for example, flask rather than to listen to my college buddy presenting an "intro to flask" talk at a conference that claims to be the "premier Python conference in India".

I agree. A first time speaker talking about intro to foo should get much much lower preference than a first time speaker talking about their experience and/or lessons from foo. The talk selection team should keep this in mind. Let's not encourage intro to foo talks. On the submission form next year, let's mention this explicitly, listed under the title "some good examples of topics" or something similar.

We, as a community, should make avenues open for first time speakers, presenters, programmers etc. I just don't think that these 20 odd talks that are selected once a year for which people actually fly down and stay in Bangalore should be that avenue.

In any case, I can see that my opinion is not widely held. I don't have the energy and time to push against what seems to be a rising tide of opposition so I'm going to end my mails on this topic.

I agree with restricting beginner topics that can just be learned from Internet any given day. But the intermediate/advanced topic speakers then have to keep in mind that there will be beginners in the audience and provide few pointers as they go along. Like explain in few sentences what virtualenv is when talking about deploying python applications on servers. In 2011, at my first pycon, there were lot of topics that were not for beginners. I remember sitting through some talks not understanding all the terms and topics e.g. Lambda, SL4A etc. But I jotted them down anyway, then either searched them on spot or came home and learned more about them. I think it's fine if we discourage introductory talks. That might just give the interested participants some enthusiasm to learn more about advanced topics. There will always be people who come to conference just to see what's happening and take nothing back but the tshirt and complain if they don't understand few advanced topics and say that we should have more introductory talks. I believe they are not helping themselves. They wont get much further even if we decide to help them. Those who want to learn, will learn themselves. We should make sure, that those people meet more good people and have great conversations. That's what I value pycon most for. I agree that we should try to keep an initial barrier like day of the week or limited seats and talks that cuts down the unenthusiastic ones.

-- Cordially, Noufal http://nibrahim.net.in _______________________________________________ Inpycon mailing list Inpycon@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/inpycon

On Thu, Oct 16 2014, Rejy M Cyriac wrote: [...]

...

We, as a community, should make avenues open for first time speakers, presenters, programmers etc. I just don't think that these 20 odd talks that are selected once a year for which people actually fly down and stay in Bangalore should be that avenue.

Would a separate track for first time speakers, presenters, programmers, to be held along with the main conference, be something to consider ?

I don't know. I'm still undecided on how to split tracks. Level wise, topic wise. I think splitting them mostly topic wise and then marking talks is one way of doing it[1]. Doing it like you suggest makes this track, in some ways, "lower". This is where you go to if you're inexperienced, a first timer or something else we think less of. This is a gut feeling but I think, within the conference, everything should be equal. [...] Footnotes: [1] https://us.pycon.org/2011/speaker/extreme/ -- Cordially, Noufal http://nibrahim.net.in

On Thu, Oct 16 2014, Rejy M Cyriac wrote: [...]

Looking at the way you put it, it certainly makes sense not to brand a track as beginner, as most folks will not like to be labelled as such, and moreover it may bring down the value of the PyCon India brand.

It would be better to split tracks topic-wise, and then mark them "introduction", "intermediate", and "advanced", and even have "Extreme" level as given in the provided link.

I think the funnel allows people to mark their talks as advanced/intermediate etc.

We could then limit the "introduction" talks to just one per track, and have them at non-prime time/space.

Possible.

And we could aim to have more of "advanced" and "Extreme" talks to improve the value of the PyCon India brand, but that again depends on PyCon India being able to attract experienced speakers, and the ability of the panel to choose well.

That's the problem and my solution is to alter our approach, atleast for a year, to see if we can attract such talks and whether it actually improves the conference qualitatively. [...] -- Cordially, Noufal http://nibrahim.net.in

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Friday 17 October 2014 03:21 AM, Jaseem Abid wrote:

On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 4:24 PM, Noufal Ibrahim KV <noufal@nibrahim.net.in <mailto:noufal@nibrahim.net.in>> wrote:

On Thu, Oct 16 2014, Rejy M Cyriac wrote:

[...]

...

...

We, as a community, should make avenues open for first time speakers, presenters, programmers etc. I just don't think that these 20 odd talks that are selected once a year for which people actually fly down and stay in Bangalore should be that avenue.

Would a separate track for first time speakers, presenters, programmers, to be held along with the main conference, be something to consider ?

I don't know. I'm still undecided on how to split tracks. Level wise, topic wise. I think splitting them mostly topic wise and then marking talks is one way of doing it[1].

I'd love to see one, at least one good extreme talk per year. My $0.02

Topic Reset - this started as Development Sprints but seem to bifurcate to Talks and Quality of talks - Forking another thread for it.

Doing it like you suggest makes this track, in some ways, "lower". This is where you go to if you're inexperienced, a first timer or something else we think less of. This is a gut feeling but I think, within the conference, everything should be equal.

[...]

Footnotes: [1] https://us.pycon.org/2011/speaker/extreme/

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-- Regards,

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- -- Regards, - --Anand - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Software Architect/Consultant anandpillai@letterboxes.org Cell: +919880078014 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1 iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJUQJWsAAoJEMTxYeOp9eaoqsoH/3wQ9GX0JYbMgPO16H+Vqb3f +7W4zNU3VYkcD1BSa0b3mfLiHfhbCRYRG+pxvvpRcRX+1NoQgHrYs/7BEVBMfPVj 6/cVHgbissVvRzi4TtiXHGgbIWA5zWB9+lguDxjB2Z1CVzbai5qPQLD37U9PNRBL k59qnzDFhcZ/9vN1112QGqxD2Iaw9DORTP6AugMVlpxAJC7FSL9xMpeX1r7C0o76 9g81MnOo9r/BV0VvuNTTk6N6zNGizW8u9iJ+1Qa/wsvkj//vDF5JavLxTJFR/G0P NOsF2NwB0Jd/VJdFdNrlYI4YDZyzh9X1EeEmvOjtxppusUvcLHKNvVZEzvTOv/Y= =/5F9 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

On Fri, Oct 17 2014, Arvi Krishnaswamy wrote: [...]

This could potentially provide us the flexibility to spread out the themes over 3 days, and better cater to beginner/intermediate/advanced or tracks like scipy/web/core/tools instead of the mish mash we currently have. (This will a whole separate discussion to figure out what makes sense)

This may also provide additional time at the venue for running a dev sprint as the other thread had suggested.

[...] This is one line of thought and I don't have any real bullets to shoot at your proposal. However, my gut feel is that the conference would benefit from fewer talks, lesser audience and tighter quality control. If it was upto me, that's the way I'd steer it. Increasing the number of days will increase the effort needed and everyone, as far as I know, is already maxed out. The US PyCon is a week long event. One (or two, I forget) days of workshops, 3 days of the conference and 3 or so days of sprints (for which all the regular visitors leave). Also, they conduct it at a hotel at which most of the outside delegates stay so it becomes a 24 hour event. -- Cordially, Noufal http://nibrahim.net.in

Hello! I know a lot has already been discussed about improving quality, and I have mostly been an observer. I received an email from one of the volunteers asking if I was interested to help with reviewing the talks, and I'd be more than happy to do so. This email is an attempt to participate more actively in our attempts to make PyCon 2015 better. I have a few ideas/proposals for ideas, that I think would help improve the quality of talks and workshops. 1. PyCon US provides links to a bunch of speaking resources[0] and I think we should do it too -- even if it means, just linking to their page. This would be especially helpful to the new/first-time speakers, but I wouldn't be surprised if more experienced speakers also pick up a thing or two. 2. Provide a sample proposal -- We could either make one up, or use one of the good proposals from previous conferences. Allison Kaptur maintains a repository[1] of accepted/rejected PyCon proposals. Brandon Rhodes also maintains[2] a page of his PyCon proposals, along with a few thoughts on each of them. 3. I agree with Julia Evans, when she says "You can choose who submits talks to your conference"[3]. Just like we have invited more reviewers, to try and improve the quality of talks, we could and should encourage speakers that we would like to see, to submit a proposal. Co-workers, speakers from your local meetup group, folks that have interesting projects that they work/worked on, open source project contributors, folks whose blog posts you find interesting -- encourage and prod them to submit a talk proposal. It may be nice to have an "outreach team" that does this, but even all of us just doing it as individuals will go a long way. 4. Ask for a detailed outline of the talks, along with timing information for each part of the talk (a la PyCon US). It will give the reviewers more information to work with, to help the speaker improve the proposal and to predict how interesting/engaging the talk is going to be. 5. Encourage speakers to share videos of talks they have given previously, if any, when asking for code/other links. 6. Encourage (new/first-time) speakers to actively go out and practice their talk with a smaller, more friendly audience. 7. Encourage talks on work that has already been done, as opposed to proposals for talks about work that will be done in between now and PyCon. 8. All the reviewers should be encouraged to actively work with the speakers to help improve their proposals, as opposed to just being judges[4]. The post also presents a bunch of useful questions to ask, when reviewing proposals. It could go into the reviewer guidelines. 9. I'm not sure what the talk slots for PyCon this year are. But, I feel it is quite difficult, especially for inexperienced speakers to keep the audience engaged for 40-45 minutes. I think we should also have smaller time slots for talks - 20/30 minutes. It may be a personal preference, but I find short, densely packed more enjoyable, since only the most interesting/exciting stuff can be presented, given the time constraints. I would even say that, speakers should be actively encouraged to choose smaller time slots. 10. Accept lightning talks also, through junction, allowing good talks that may not be suitable for a 20/30/40 minute slot to be presented as lightning talks. PyCon US allows poster presentations, but lightning talks may work well too. 11. Encourage/force speakers to leave *enough time* for questions. It would help make the whole conference more interactive and lively. 12. Assign time-slots (explicitly) for the speakers to try out their equipment -- projector, mic, any other hardware they will use in their presentation. Avoiding delays due to "technical snags" is relatively easy, and makes for a much better experience for the audience. Feedback on seemingly minor issues like font-size, editor theme, etc., during the review stage would also help a great deal. I hope atleast some of these suggestions make sense, can be implemented, and contribute to a better conference this year! Apologies if we too far into the process, to discuss (some of) these ideas. Also, would be curious to hear what some of the folks with more experience with organizing conferences, and reviewing talk proposals feel about these things. Looking forward to great PyCon! Puneeth [0] - https://us.pycon.org/2015/speaking/proposal-resources/ [1] - https://github.com/akaptur/pycon-proposals [2] - http://rhodesmill.org/brandon/2013/example-pycon-proposals/ [3] - http://jvns.ca/blog/2015/03/06/you-can-choose-who-submits-talks-to-your-conf... [4] - http://doughellmann.com/2011/10/18/how-i-review-a-pycon-talk-proposal.html

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 4:08 PM, Abhaya Agarwal <abhaya.agarwal@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 3:51 PM, Arvi Krishnaswamy <arvi@alumni.iastate.edu> wrote:

...

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 3:18 PM, Noufal Ibrahim KV <noufal@nibrahim.net.in> wrote:

...

I'm probably in the minority here but I genuinely think we should try to change the event to attract a smaller of number of good/passionate/talented/experienced people rather than a large number of people who simply drop by. The latter might have been a good idea back in the day but now with local user groups and python express, I don't think it's necessary any more.

This. Word.

+1 but we need to be wary of the criteria we employ. Taking an extreme example, disallowing students would also reduce the number of first timers and beginners significantly but it is not a good criteria to use (not to mention impossible to enforce).

I would be wary and disappointed if PSSI were to attempt and create a "criteria for inclusion". I have stated (elsewhere) that PSSI would need to decide on the nature of the conference. Such a decision would drive the content and other associated involvement. Students, first-time participants and everyone else should feel equally welcome at the conference. The content of the conference does not necessarily have to cater to everyone.

The conference has two sets of people - presenters and audience. An experienced/advanced presenters would want a matching audience that can provide feedback. But this expectation is not hampered by the presence of inexperienced audience, only by the absence of experienced ones.

During conversations with various individuals at the conference I had suggested that it would be demanded that presenters set a higher bar than it currently is. And a way to nudge that towards reality is having the content editing team set well defined aspirations.

The impression of the conference is formed primarily by the presenters. Complaint about the Pycon has not been that people didn't meet other interesting people. Complaint is that the talks were lacking.

At some level this would mean that the audience is already competent enough to (i) judge which talks were 'lacking' in a level of detail and (ii) a significant number of the audience is experienced/competent. I am not sure that both of the above are correct. However, I do think that with a 1200+ committed audience, the PSSI is in a position of strength to try and do new things.

So I think we should be raising the bar for the presenters. Which will in turn lead to self selection of audience as well (with a delay of one year).

And then the question is - what is the path to raising the bar, who will drive it and how does it get measured to have an impact. -- sankarshan mukhopadhyay <https://twitter.com/#!/sankarshan>

On 15 October 2014 14:34, Kracekumar Ramaraju <me@kracekumar.com> wrote:

> I think there are lot smaller open source projects written by many of us.
> Not everyone needs to contribute to Django, Flask, Python 3. I think it is
> good idea to start and improve the quality later.
>
>>
+1. This approach is the stepping stone for creating  larger upstream
developer community.
- sree


-- 
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On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 12:51 PM, Kushal Das <kushaldas@gmail.com> wrote:

I am the co-ordinator for the development sprint days in PyCon US. The biggest problem for doing similar level of sprints is the lack of upstream project/developers in the conference. We need more developers from upstream projects to participate for this and I do know we have a few of them in the conference.

That is one way to look at the bottle-neck. The other way is to see if, with the available number of developers, a plan for development sprints can be put together at least a month before the actual conference days. And one could, in theory, nudge the sponsors to invest time/effort in this. -- sankarshan mukhopadhyay <https://twitter.com/#!/sankarshan>

On 10/15/2014 12:55 PM, Noufal Ibrahim KV wrote:

On Wed, Oct 15 2014, Bibhas wrote:

[...]

...

I think a development sprint is a great way to get people started programming and contributing and networking. Like it's done in most PyCons, after the conf is over, they take 2-5 days and organize dev sprints that's open for everybody. I know we might not have budget for that many extra days, but we have a whole floor(if we go for NIMHANS again) lying unused for 3 whole days. We can throw in some tables, chairs, mattresses and it could make a great dev sprint spot. This will make the conference more engaging for the participants. It'd have been perfect if we could get an extra day and experiment for a year. But _if_ that's not possible, can we do it within the conf days? [...]

Would it make sense to conduct a one day "dev sprint" kind of program distinct from PyCon at a smaller venue in say, a few months?

Doing it sometime other than after PyCon might make it tough for asking people from across the country to attend and ask them to pay registration fee for the venue, food etc. We could do it if we target a single city and the venue cost is sponsored somehow.

On 10/15/2014 01:03 PM, Vaibhav Tulsyan wrote:

Is it possible that the attendees form teams at the conference and start off new projects there, building minimal working prototypes by the last day? The projects that start off at PyCon can be then continued further as full-fledged projects.

It's entirely upto the participants, right? We cannot force them to start projects. We try to encourage conversations among participants and can only hope that that leads somewhere. And I'm kind of against having something like 48 hours hackathon at PyCon. That takes people's mind away from the conference and sessions. BTW, -1 for top posting. Read Kushal's post on the other thread.

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 12:55 PM, Noufal Ibrahim KV <noufal@nibrahim.net.in <mailto:noufal@nibrahim.net.in>> wrote:

On Wed, Oct 15 2014, Bibhas wrote:

[...]

> I think a development sprint is a great way to get people started > programming and contributing and networking. Like it's done in most > PyCons, after the conf is over, they take 2-5 days and organize dev > sprints that's open for everybody. I know we might not have budget for > that many extra days, but we have a whole floor(if we go for NIMHANS > again) lying unused for 3 whole days. We can throw in some tables, > chairs, mattresses and it could make a great dev sprint spot. This > will make the conference more engaging for the participants. It'd have > been perfect if we could get an extra day and experiment for a > year. But _if_ that's not possible, can we do it within the conf days?

[...]

Would it make sense to conduct a one day "dev sprint" kind of program distinct from PyCon at a smaller venue in say, a few months?

-- Cordially, Noufal http://nibrahim.net.in _______________________________________________ Inpycon mailing list Inpycon@python.org <mailto:Inpycon@python.org> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/inpycon

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On Wed, Oct 15 2014, Vaibhav Tulsyan wrote:

Is it possible that the attendees form teams at the conference and start off new projects there, building minimal working prototypes by the last day? The projects that start off at PyCon can be then continued further as full-fledged projects.

[...] It's *possible* and not much more. -- Cordially, Noufal http://nibrahim.net.in

On 10/15/2014 02:26 PM, Kracekumar Ramaraju wrote:

We are planning for sprint as part of BangPypers in december. Dates and venue is not finalized.

Maybe we can ask the other local user groups to do the same by Q1 or Q2 of next year and then continue the sprints during 3 days of the event on the first floor?

On 10/15/2014 07:04 PM, Kracekumar Ramaraju wrote:

On Oct 15, 2014 6:56 PM, "Bibhas" <me@bibhas.in <mailto:me@bibhas.in>> wrote:

...

On 10/15/2014 02:26 PM, Kracekumar Ramaraju wrote:

...

We are planning for sprint as part of BangPypers in december. Dates

and venue is not finalized.

...

...

Maybe we can ask the other local user groups to do the same by Q1 or Q2 of next year and then continue the sprints during 3 days of the event on the first floor?

I would say one day sprint not three days.

Day 2 of conference?

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...

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