[EuroPython] moving forward -- IRC meeting 7th March?

[Paul Boddie]

On Monday 05 March 2007 22:17, Nicolas Pettiaux wrote:
>
> Based on last year version of the wiki, I have worked on
>
> http://wiki.python.org/moin/EuroPython2007
>
> and
>
> http://wiki.python.org/moin/EuroPython/2007 for the organizers.
>
> There you'll find other pages to help prepare the ircmeetings and
> other points. I haven't so far had time to work on a timeline (that I
> wanted to copy and adapt from last year) also because the
> wiki has a very slow response time). Does anyone knows what could
> happen and who to contact to let the problem be known and checked ?
> (the problem could be on my side, but I do not have any other problem
> with Internet)

The Wiki can be quite slow. However, I copied last year's timeline into the 
Wiki, and I think it's about time to start keeping pace with last year's 
developments, especially as the non-local stuff didn't pick up pace until 
quite late on. See here for more:

http://wiki.python.org/moin/EuroPython2007/ProposedTimeline

> As I wrote, I proposed to switch from CPS (that I do not know) to
> Plone (that I know enough to work with, as wrote another person from
> the list too). I won't debate on that further than to let know that I
> can help if EP uses Plone and would not if it does not. And I think
> that if we change now, before too much new content goes into the new
> site, it should not be very difficult.

Either way, we need to have a site live in the next two weeks, in my opinion. 
Firstly, because people thinking ahead need something to relate to. Secondly, 
because we had the site up in an unfinished state by mid-March last year. And 
last year we also got ourselves into a situation where people were 
registering for something about which they knew potentially very little, so 
it's best not to regard last year's timeline as particularly strict.

The advantage this year is that the site is already live, but it needs 
updating. I've volunteered to help out, but I can't sanity check things about 
Vilnius like I could about Geneva and CERN. I will work with more or less any 
of the proposed technologies, though, but CPS will be fine unless someone 
wants lots of fancy features (and presumably to replace Indico as well) and 
thinks that this will enrich the conference participants' lifestyles in some 
way. (If so, they should have started doing so last year, however, so I would 
advise against it.)

Just for fun, in the timeline I also brought in some comparisons with PyCon 
because it can be quite fascinating to speculate about what they've done 
right. Certainly, the longer registration period can't have done much harm, 
despite the observation that there aren't always many early takers, and 
having a published schedule before registration opens is also likely to be 
persuasive. I suppose having a conference in February focuses people on 
getting as much done before Christmas holidays begin - two months or more 
before it opens.

If we were to plan deadlines according to PyCon "rules", but not leave a gap 
between talk acceptances and opening registration (although the schedule may 
have been published later), things would look like this:

Talk submission start: 25th February
Talk submission end: 12th April
Schedule announced, registration opens: 27th April
Registration ends: 29th June

I look forward to reading the summary from Wednesday's IRC meeting. :-)

Paul