[Inpycon] Suggestion for panel members for PyCon India 2015

[Noufal Ibrahim KV]

On Mon, Feb 02 2015, Anand B Pillai wrote:


[...]

> With respect, you've been making and perhaps a bit too much - often
> repeating yourselves hoarse that it is beginning to look staid and
> overstated.

I'm doing this because I think things are moving in the wrong
direction. If there was atleast something that suggested that my point
was understood, I'd have pulled back. Maybe it's just me.

> Pls understand  when it comes to tal selection, there are 2 extremes
> of transparency modes available.
>
> 1. 100% - Go just with the community votes.
> 2. 0% - A secret panel which works without any inputs and doesn't
> advertise its members.
>
> I think we all agree neither is good. So any actual panel would be
> doing something in between the two.
>
> Again let me repeat - there is no concerted effort of secrecy in any
> of these things. I request you to stop making this point to the point
> of making it sound uncomfortable.

I know there isn't a concerted effort. I'm saying that the direction
being taken is, probably inadvertently, leading to a style of doing
things that's not sustainable.

I'm not particularly bothered about making sure no one feels
"uncomfortable". If I think there is a problem, I try to bring it up on
the forum. If there's general agreement or it atleast provides some
course correction, well and good. Otherwise, if the general consensus is
that my point is not valid or requires too much effort, that's fine too.

I do object to things not being discussed just because someone or other
is "uncomfortable" with it.

[...]

> I think Vijay is trying to do exactly that - isn't it ? He is giving a
> nomination form for people to nominate themselves. It is a starting
> point for de-centralisation.

I'm not questioning his (or any one elses) intention. I'm just not
convinced by strategy and I'm bringing up the point.

> De-centralisation all sounds good on paper and in theory, but in practice,
>
> 1. The talk selection chair is answerable to the conference chair.
> Because the conference chair is running the whole show and talks is a
> huge part of the show. De-centralisation shouldn't mean decoupling,
> instead delegation with responsibility.

I agree. I'm saying that you should give power along with
responsibility. The conference chair (and a small core team) shouldn't
micro manage every thing from sponsorships to talk selection.

> I don't think this was the case last year so I want to stress it.

I think it was though not as much as I'd have liked it to be. The main
issue was a missing of deadlines which shouldn't happen. Apart from
that, I think it was a good step.

> 2. The conference chair has a lot of experience running the
> conference. So we need to give his opinions the due respect.
>
> I often see in this forum Vijay posting something, and a lot of
> criticism and opinions (which is good and required), but I often feel
> it goes a bit overboard.

People will have opinions about things. You can either encourage dissent
and participation or you can supress it. You can't be "moderate" about
it. Not all opinions will be comfortable, valid or even worth listening
to. But that doesn't mean they should be sanitised.

>> In any case, I don't have the energy and time to drive this. If you
>> and the others feel that it's better do things in a different way,
>> more power to you. I'll pitch in when I can and if directly
>> requested.
>
> +1.  I think someone from the new crop of Pythonistas - who are
> writing all this interesting code, calling for meetups and doing
> things actually on the ground should do it. It is another kind of
> decentralisation.

Fair enough.


[...]


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