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<TITLE>Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] FOSS4G presentation review process [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]</TITLE>
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<FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:12pt'>Agreed.<BR>
<BR>
Well said Cameron, with the aside that there may be an interesting talk from a previously little known person.<BR>
<BR>
I suggest leaving this to the discretion of the LOC and interested parties who subscribe to that year’s FOSS4G mailing list.<BR>
<BR>
A popularity campaign is not required or wanted.<BR>
<BR>
Bruce<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
On 2/10/12 9:36 AM, "Cameron Shorter" <<a href="cameron.shorter@gmail.com">cameron.shorter@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<BR>
<BR>
</SPAN></FONT><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:12pt'>I believe that for the general program, we should publish both the<BR>
presenter and abstract. Reasons:<BR>
1. I'm attracted to a talk by both the topic and the presenter. I'm more<BR>
likely to listen to a talk by someone who has a deep knowledge of a<BR>
topic, which typically equates to someone with a big reputation.<BR>
<BR>
2. And I think it is appropriate that people who have committed much<BR>
time to the Open Source community, and hence have built up a big<BR>
reputation, are allowed to be recognised by the selection community.<BR>
<BR>
3. It also makes good business sense to the FOSS4G conference, as big<BR>
names on the program will likely attract more delegates, and will likely<BR>
have the delegates going away satisfied that they have seen<BR>
presentations that they wanted to see.<BR>
<BR>
4. The alternative of only seeing an abstract when voting is that anyone<BR>
who can write a good abstract can potentially present on a topic, even<BR>
if they don't have a deep insight in the topic of interest.<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
On 2/10/2012 4:59 AM, Schlagel, Joel D IWR wrote:<BR>
> I believe anonymous reviews has a place as a component of paper selection - as a compliment to editorial review and professional judgement. FOSS4G conference is the number one marketing opportunity for the OSGEO community. We should make a deliberate effort to have a balance between inward focused technical / developer oriented presentations and outward focused policy / success / benefit type good news presentations.<BR>
><BR>
> -joel<BR>
><BR>
><BR>
> ________________________________________<BR>
> From: <a href="discuss-bounces@lists.osgeo.org">discuss-bounces@lists.osgeo.org</a> [<a href="discuss-bounces@lists.osgeo.org">discuss-bounces@lists.osgeo.org</a>] on behalf of Paul Ramsey [<a href="pramsey@opengeo.org">pramsey@opengeo.org</a>]<BR>
> Sent: Monday, October 01, 2012 2:43 PM<BR>
> To: Volker Mische<BR>
> Cc: osgeo-discuss<BR>
> Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] FOSS4G presentation review process<BR>
><BR>
> I'm in favour too. It has potential, let's see how an anonymous<BR>
> community process works in practice.<BR>
><BR>
> P.<BR>
><BR>
> On Mon, Oct 1, 2012 at 11:31 AM, Volker Mische <<a href="volker.mische@gmail.com">volker.mische@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<BR>
>> Hi all,<BR>
>><BR>
>> On 10/01/2012 06:10 PM, Barry Rowlingson wrote:<BR>
>>> In our bid for FOSS4G 2013 Nottingham, we didn't precisely say how we<BR>
>>> intended to select presentations for the main track of the conference.<BR>
>>> Some discussion amongst the committee has been going on, and we think<BR>
>>> it necessary to informally poll the community to get a feel for what<BR>
>>> method is preferred.<BR>
>>><BR>
>>> Previous FOSS4Gs have not used anonymous reviews (note: the Academic<BR>
>>> Track will be a double-blind review process, we are discussing the<BR>
>>> main conference presentations here), and have used a blend of<BR>
>>> committee reviews and community reviews. Note that even with a<BR>
>>> numerical ranking system its normally still necessary to do a manual<BR>
>>> step to get a balanced conference.<BR>
>>><BR>
>>> The big change we could do would be to have anonymous community<BR>
>>> reviews. Proposals would be rated based on title and abstract only.<BR>
>>> The arguments for this include:<BR>
>>><BR>
>>> * selection is on quality of proposal rather than bigness of name<BR>
>>> * rating procedure can prevent up-votes from whoever has the most<BR>
>>> followers on twitter<BR>
>>> * promotes inclusivity:<BR>
>>> <a href="http://2012.jsconf.eu/2012/09/17/beating-the-odds-how-we-got-25-percent-women-speakers.html">http://2012.jsconf.eu/2012/09/17/beating-the-odds-how-we-got-25-percent-women-speakers.html</a><BR>
>>><BR>
>>> and against arguments include:<BR>
>>><BR>
>>> * some names are big draws, and it would be disappointing to not have<BR>
>>> someone because their abstract wasn't that exciting.<BR>
>>> * previous FOSS4Gs have used non-anonymous reviewing and that worked<BR>
>>> fine. Why change it?<BR>
>>> * it may be hard to distil an exciting talk into an abstract without<BR>
>>> losing the excitement.<BR>
>>><BR>
>>> So, as this would be quite a change for FOSS4G, what do you - the<BR>
>>> OSGeo community at large - think? I do have a google poll nearly ready<BR>
>>> on this, but lets have a bit of a debate here and maybe it won't even<BR>
>>> be necessary.<BR>
>> I think an anonymous selection process makes a lot of sense. I<BR>
>> personally always hoped that people don't do a "please up-vote me"<BR>
>> campaigns on blogs or Twitter, but it happened. It will still be<BR>
>> possible as people could publish the titles of the abstract, but I hope<BR>
>> this won't happen and everyone will play along nicely.<BR>
>><BR>
>> One thing we have to keep in mind, that this conference is different<BR>
>> from the JSConf.eu. The JSConf.eu is about the bleeding edge an what's<BR>
>> hot in the fast changing JavaScript world. The audience are definitely<BR>
>> non-beginners. At the FOSS4G the audience is way more wide-spread. It<BR>
>> ranges from beginners to absolute pros. Hence there are also talks that<BR>
>> are kind of the same every year. Things that come to my mind are my own<BR>
>> talks, which are always about GeoCouch, or the "State of ..." talks.<BR>
>> They have a place, but you'd know upfront the the "State of GeoServer"<BR>
>> e.g. is done by one of the big names of GeoServer and respectively a<BR>
>> talk mentioning GeoCouch is probably me. What I want to say is, you<BR>
>> can't fully prevent that people up-vote well known names.<BR>
>><BR>
>> Of course there still needs to be the review process by the programm<BR>
>> committee that makes the final call, so that we e.g. don't have 5 talks<BR>
>> from the same person.<BR>
>><BR>
>> To conclude: I'm in favour of trying it and seeing how it works.<BR>
>><BR>
>> Cheers,<BR>
>> Volker<BR>
>> _______________________________________________<BR>
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--<BR>
Cameron Shorter<BR>
Geospatial Solutions Manager<BR>
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