Ok, I meant to do this post about 3 months ago, a writeup 2 months ago and ended up just posting the video below over a month ago. I simply have not had time, and for that I apologize. I made the video because I could simply talk out what was in my head. I used a presentation I was still in the middle of writing. It was also 3 am after a long day. Not the best recipe for success.
I will try to get an additional post on other aspects of the PyCon 2009 program selection, but for now we will focus on the submitted proposals, and the process used to select the best talks from those proposals.
Identify the Champion
We are using a process based around the ‘Identify the Champion‘ paper by Oscar Nierstrasz. I highly recommend reading this document in detail. It does not dictate how a program committee will do its work, but rather sets a framework from which many different systems can be developed to meet the specific needs of the conference or group in question. The central theme is breaking down the problem by ensuring the proper people (the ‘champions’) drive the process. I do want to hilight one fact before we get into the process:
Reviewer Votes do NOT determine if a Proposal is accepted or declined
The program committee as a whole decides which proposals will be accepted. We will get back to this later, but I want to dispel this idea of ’scores’ on proposals up front. With that said, lets start…
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