Last night I got a couple of PyCon talks rejected, and someone else sent me a rejection email they'd received. I wasn't surprised at the rejections, but I was quite surprised that many of the review comments were at least in part based on the presenter (sometimes the incorrectly assumed presenter) instead of on the proposed talk.
[snip] It seems you are mistaken about the purpose of a conference (not only python, but any academic or professional gathering). Since the number of presenters is always much less than the number of people who listen, the goal of every good conference organizer should be to first look after the interest of the people who listen and only then look after the interest of the presenters. In other words, the number one goal is to have the audience enjoy the show. Once this is done, one can think about what is in the interest of the presenters. Whenever there is a conflict, the interest of the audience comes first. Making somebody well known in the python community by giving him a slot at pycon is not the number one goal of a conference. So if somebody is sad/unhappy/etc because he can not present, well, that's not a problem at all if the decision was made in the good faith that turning away the person and giving the slot to someone else will increase the enjoyment of the audience. I believe the cases you mentioned fall into this category. Cheers, Daniel -- Psss, psss, put it down! - http://www.cafepress.com/putitdown