[OSGeo-Discuss] FOSS4G North America - Blind voting [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

[Fawcett, David (MPCA)]

The Program Committee had a healthy discussion about the pros and cons of structuring the community review process so that presentations are evaluated solely on the title and abstract description.  We decided as a group that the potential positives outweighed the potential negatives.

The community review process is an important part of the selection of presenters, but it is not the only input.  The Program Committee will use that data along with their own review of the abstracts, knowledge of the speakers, the number of presentation slots, expected makeup of the registrants, and other factors to put together the best program that we can for FOSS4G NA 2013.

It would actually be interesting if we could test to see if this review methodology had any effect on who submitted abstracts.  That may best be accomplished by surveying the people who submit them.

We haven't discussed it as a committee, but I personally don't think that it is productive to publish the results of the community review and will push to not do that.  At the same time, if someone has concerns about how decisions are made, they should talk to us.  The Program Committee is made up of some great people who represent various parts of the FOSS4G community.

We are working hard, and our only agenda is to make this the best FOSS4G event ever.  If anyone feels that they have a perspective that is missing from the committee, we would be happy to have them join the committee.

David.


From: discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Bruce Bannerman
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 3:17 PM
To: Cameron Shorter; discuss at lists.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] FOSS4G North America - Blind voting [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

Cameron,

Agreed.

As has been discussed in similar threads, and as we found for Sydney, it helps the LOC determine relative popularity of presentations for room allocation.

However, perhaps the actual final results  do not need to be published.

Presenters are either accepted or they're not, after deliberation by the LOC.

There is no need to establish a popularity contest.

Bruce


On 18/01/13 6:24 AM, "Cameron Shorter" <cameron.shorter at gmail.com> wrote:
On 17/01/13 03:58, David William Bitner wrote:
> Additionally following advice from other events as well as many
> members of our community, we are making the community review process
> for presentation submission author anonymous as a concern with how we
> have done this in the past has been the fear that many folks have of
> feeling publicly shamed with critique and voting of their proposals.
> These are only two small steps that we are taking to addressing an
> environment in the overall open source world that by the numbers is
> very unwelcome to women and other groups (while there have not been
> any overt issues that I know of as part of any FOSS4G, if you look at
> the percentage of female conference goers or developers in our
> community, we do have a long ways to go).

David,
If I understand you correctly, you are suggesting blind voting on
abstracts without knowing who will be presenting it?
I've heard that blind auditions has been successfully applied to
recruitment for orchestras, (which makes sense), however I don't think
it is applicable for Open Source communities.

You see, in selecting Open Source presentations, I think it is very
important to know who will be presenting, almost as important as the
presentation content itself. This is because the presenters who will
have the most insightful content, and who will attract the most audience
are usually those who have built up a large, very public reputation, (as
leaders of open source communities, usually with a long history of
insightful emails, blogs, and IRC trails).

I appreciate the importance of being welcoming to all communities. In
fact, I think that successful Open Source communities are naturally
welcoming as they have managed to attract developers and community.
However, I don't think that blind voting is right for us.

--
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Solutions Manager
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
http://www.lisasoft.com

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