[OSGeo-Conf] Re: [mapserver-dev] GeoServer superseeding MapServer in Europe?

[Dave Patton]

On 2010/07/07 11:11 PM, Tyler Mitchell wrote:
> Judit, I think you touch on the main point - balancing community
> voting processes with OSGeo objectives for FOSS4G.  Perhaps
> clarifying those objectives in the future would be helpful for us to
> do.

A couple of thoughts:

1)
One possibility that takes into account the fact
that FOSS4g is an OSGeo conference, regardless of which
part of the world it is hosted in, and that the OSGeo
conference committee is there to assist the LOC, is
to have OSGeo provide 'some guidance' to the LOC in
the selection process (maybe even before the selection
process starts, including before the call for presentations).
For example, by OSGeo maintaining a history (database?) of
the selected presentations from each year's conference, the
conference committee could be in a position to say to an LOC
"project X has had at least three presentations every year,
but project Y hasn't had a presentation for the past two years,
so can you please select a presentation for project Y if one
is submitted and seems like a credible submission".

2)
At the risk of over-complicating an already complicated
process that is bound by certain time constraints, there
could be (especially if developed in advance of the next
FOSS4G) a process whereby the LOC reserves a small number
of slots, and once the bulk of the presentations have been
confirmed (which in part is based on 'community rankings'),
the selected presenters are asked (required?) to vote on
the remaining as-yet-unselected presentations and those
votes then determine the final few presentation selections.
Hopefully the initially selected presenters won't just vote
for their 'friends and co-workers', but might be inclined
to vote for things such as under-represented projects, or
projects that are 'the competition' to their own topic,
or maybe vote for "that obscure presentation that sounds
like it might be good, and I'm interested enough to take
a chance on going to see it".

-- 
Dave Patton
CIS Canadian Information Systems
Victoria, B.C.

Degree Confluence Project:
Canadian Coordinator
Technical Coordinator
http://www.confluence.org/

Personal website:
Maps, GPS, etc.
http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/