[Inpycon] [RFC] Abolish QA Time

[Vijay Kumar]

On Sunday 16 June 2019 07:05 PM, Pradyun Gedam wrote:

> On Sun, 16 Jun 2019 at 2:27 PM, Vijay Kumar <vijaykumar at bravegnu.org 
> <mailto:vijaykumar at bravegnu.org>> wrote:
>
>     Please let me know your thoughts on this.
>
> It is important to note why PyCascades removed Q&A -- to "/make it a 
> more friendly environment for first time and new speakers/.", which is 
> especially relevant to PyCascades, since it is a single track 
> conference. PyCascades also goes out of it's way to be welcoming, and 
> has a substantial effort put into Diversity and Inclusion (they have a 
> Diversity Chair), so removing a potential area of stress for such 
> speakers is especially relevant to them. I don't think these points 
> apply to PyCon India, since the structure of the conference is 
> different and there are a lot of cultural differences in the audience.

This actually applies to PyCon India, as well. Diversity and inclusion 
is a key part of our efforts too. We also have a Diversity workgroup 
that is putting in efforts to bring in speakers and participation from 
under-represented groups.

> Eric Holscher's has a blog post [1] about a few approaches that are 
> better than "let anyone in the audience ask a question publicly". I 
> think we should support the ones that are relevant to us (I think it's 
> all of them are but I defer to the organizers to decide, since they'll 
> have to do the prep for them).

Thanks for this link. The experience of other conference organizers is 
surely helpful. I think the moderated questions is a good idea. And I 
would personally prefer the low tech cards approach, over the Slack / IRC.

> As another data point, PyCon US 2019 provided options for speakers to 
> choose from, 5 minutes prior to their talk (No Q&A, 5 minutes Q&A, 
> book a room after talk for Q&A). They received feedback that this is 
> good information to have, and that it should be communicated earlier 
> to the speakers (i.e. when accepted / when applying).

This was another option, I was thinking about, as well. On a lighter 
note, PyCon India speakers have always had this option, by overrunning 
their time-slot, and ending up with no time for QA. :-)

Regards,
Vijay