[EuroPython] Publication of speakers' data on the web site

Paul Boddie paul at boddie.org.uk
Sat Apr 9 19:51:21 CEST 2011


On Saturday 09 April 2011 18:48:53 Fabio Pliger wrote:
>
> I didn't like your tone either. You should ask before blaming. And if you
> think we are not doing things right you can propose fixes or propose
> yourself to do it as a volunteer ( just like every organizers this years
> and in the past years ). As organizers we do a really hard hard hard work
> to make things go for the best and fit everybody needs. We don't have any
> evil intentions about using your personal in any way we are just trying to
> make the website easier to the user respecting italian laws. I hope i'm
> wrong on your intentions because if I'm not wrong I think you deeply
> misunderstood the Europython conference ideals and goals.

And before anyone makes any point about volunteers not having any excuses if 
they really care about what they're doing, or other nonsense that I've heard 
before, people should bear in mind that the volunteers often have quite full 
schedules apart from the work they are doing to make the conference happen. I 
seem to remember having to slot in conference-related work and correspondence 
in the small hours, past any sensible bedtime, just to try and keep 
everything going smoothly and anxious conference attendees happy. I'm sure 
other people have similar experiences.

However, it is important to get feedback about what people do and don't like, 
and I think the biggest obstacle lies in translating that into activity which 
fixes or prevents any problems without overloading the people who are doing 
the work already. Last year, I was advocating some kind of consolidation of 
knowledge around putting conferences together based on our experiences with 
EuroPython, but I haven't had the time or energy to pursue this. Maybe 
interested parties can focus their energy in a positive way towards such a 
goal, starting at EuroPython 2011 itself, perhaps.

Although people who are only generally interested in attending EuroPython 
might feel a bit uncomfortable with such "behind the scenes" matters - 
thinking that this message goes out on a general mailing list - one thing I 
tried to stress last year (and something that Laura tried to communicate a 
few years before) is that there is no real barrier between "us" and "them" - 
attendees and organisers, or the other way around, depending on your 
perspective - at EuroPython. Attendees don't have to work their way up some 
hierarchy before being allowed to volunteer, and people shouldn't worry about 
not necessarily being a big Python user or a well-known Python developer.

Thus, I would encourage people to step forward and give feedback on what they 
like (all too rare, unfortunately) and what they don't like, but also to 
consider offering their time to make sure that something gets done if that 
thing is important enough to them.

Paul


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