[Inpycon] Feedback Regarding Beginner Track Talks

[Gora Mohanty]

On 23 March 2016 at 19:07, sankarshan <foss.mailinglists at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Mar 23, 2016 at 5:24 PM, rajat arora <rajatarora216 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > We had some suggestions in our feedback last year to do away with the
> > beginner track talks and workshops as they seem to lower the quality bar for
> > the conference.
> >
>
> I would think that this line of reasoning has a flaw. The quality of a
> conference in terms of content is shaped by the rigor, discipline and
> consistency applied by the editors (and the selection committee). Talk
> proposals with robust content that introduce the (well defined) target
> audience to a concept is as acceptable as well designed content
> intended for niche/advanced users.

I agree with some points that various people have made:
* Improving the quality of the talks is imperative

* A focus on better quality does not mean that beginner-level talks
should be rejected out of hand. However, I really would like to weed
out talks along the lines of: "Hey, I just used this wonderful Python
package, and would like to talk about it". IMHO, something that could
be picked up in a week by a reasonably-skilled developer should not
qualify for a PyCon talk.

* Likewise, we should expect more out of our audience. We should not
be spoon-feeding them with material that they can, and should, learn
out of a technical blog. IMHO, even beginner-level talks at PyCon
should go beyond "Here is how Python works", or "Here is how to set up
a first website with Django". The speaker should be bringing something
to the table that is not already available on the Internet, and that's
not an easy task.

* Think that the way to bring about such improvements is through a
more active engagement of the organising committee with prospective
speakers. We need to push people to organise their talks better.
Besides the quality of the content, they should also focus on how to
present it to their targeted audience.

Regards,
Gora