Thanks Paul, your answer explain greatly what is our intent.<br>We are trying to select the academic committee to represent as much as possible our attendance.<br><br>thanks all for your contributions<br>lorenzo<br><br><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 10:30 PM, Paul Ramsey <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:pramsey@cleverelephant.ca">pramsey@cleverelephant.ca</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
"Six blind men were asked to determine what an elephant looked like by<br>
feeling different parts of the elephant's body. The blind man who<br>
feels a leg says the elephant is like a pillar; the one who feels the<br>
tail says the elephant is like a rope; the one who feels the trunk<br>
says the elephant is like a tree branch; the one who feels the ear<br>
says the elephant is like a hand fan; the one who feels the belly says<br>
the elephant is like a wall; and the one who feels the tusk says the<br>
elephant is like a solid pipe."<br>
<br>
What we have here, is an elephant of the highest order. Not only does<br>
it look different to everyone, but it serves a different purpose for<br>
each.<br>
<br>
Bearing in mind that every attendee will probably include mixtures of<br>
each of these categories in various degrees, here's the constituencies<br>
as I perceive them:<br>
<br>
1 * Academics, both students and faculty, who want a chance to present<br>
and gain a conference citation for their work.<br>
2 * Technical folks and their managers with a geospatial orientation<br>
but little open source experience, looking to improve their<br>
understanding of the field and apply that knowledge in their work<br>
place.<br>
3 * Actual hackers of geospatial open source in its myriad varieties,<br>
promoters of open data, card carrying members of the free knowledge<br>
ecosystem.<br>
<div class="im"><br>
In 2007 and 2009 a public voting system provided information back to<br>
the committee about the relative popularity of various talks and<br>
topics. To some extent this data was used to choose which papers to<br>
allocation presentation time to -- however, final decisions were made<br>
by a traditional program committee. It was also used very successfully<br>
to place talks into suitably sized venues. In 2010 this will be<br>
especially important, since your largest venue has 10x the capacity of<br>
your smallest -- making a venue allocation mistake will result in<br>
unhappy attendees standing in halls and aisles, and/or occasionally<br>
dramatically underused large halls.<br>
<br>
</div>In that respect, the "academic track" idea has a one-size-fits-all<br>
problem. There will be some "academic" talks that will have a<br>
potentially very large audience. And vice versa. My personal feeling<br>
is that what should distinguish the academic from other entries is not<br>
where they are presented, but that they are vetted by an academic<br>
committee prior to acceptance, that they require a formal paper to go<br>
with them, and that they do end up being published. In 2007, an issue<br>
of the OSGeo Journal was devoted to that purpose.<br>
<br>
Anyhow, all that to second Volker: the information from the public<br>
process is very valuable. The process can be managed fairly<br>
scientifically, the messaging (aim it at "if you're planning to attend<br>
FOSS4G please come and express your preferences" rather than "come<br>
one, come all") can be aligned to produce useful results, and the<br>
final decisions can and should be left to a smaller committee than can<br>
implement strategic aims (draw in introductory topics, massage<br>
sponsors, etc). However, without the public data, fun talks like this<br>
one, couldn't happen: <a href="http://2007.foss4g.org/plenaries/lightning/#erle" target="_blank">http://2007.foss4g.org/plenaries/lightning/#erle</a><br>
<br>
Best,<br>
<font color="#888888"><br>
Paul<br>
</font><div><div></div><div class="h5"><br>
On Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 4:01 AM, Volker Mische <<a href="mailto:volker.mische@gmail.com">volker.mische@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
> Hi Lorenzo, Marco,<br>
><br>
> Lorenzo Becchi wrote:<br>
>> This is not a definitive opinion but we think it would be really<br>
>> complicated to manage the voting system if, as we expect, we will<br>
>> receive a lot more of proposal than the previous conferences.<br>
>> We are thinking to leave the selection in the hands of the scientific<br>
>> committee, we already have the platform and we are moving to create<br>
>> committee as faster as possible.<br>
><br>
> The academic track should, of course, be selected from an academic<br>
> committee. But I think the general track should be selected differently.<br>
> For me the FOSS4G is a mainly geek conference with potential to do some<br>
> business. So the selection should be made by geeks (public voting) and a<br>
> special committee (OC/OSGeo/other people who know about the Open Source<br>
> _business_) to get some presentations in that are valuable for potential<br>
> partners and/or are interesting for government representatives (as a<br>
> major partner of Open Source are governments).<br>
><br>
> I agree, the public voting won't be easy, and the interface would need<br>
> to be changed as no one can go through all Abstracts. Alternatively the<br>
> public voting could be replaced with another committee that does the<br>
> selection, but that one should be open for everyone to join. Then that<br>
> committee can decide who is reviewing which part of the huge about of<br>
> submissions.<br>
><br>
> Cheers,<br>
> Volker<br>
><br>
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><br>
<br>
</div></div></blockquote></div><br>