Open Stack

On 12/09/2015 02:02 PM, Kevin Bringard (kevinbri) wrote:
> I mostly agree with all of these ideas, but especially the submission
> cap. I think it'll actually make submitters happier as well; I can't
> count the number of times I've heard people say "Man, I submitted 5
> talks and they all got accepted. This summit is going to be hell".

They created that problem for themselves, I have hardly any sympathy :)

That said, if we want to avoid getting the same speaker selected for
giving too many talks, I think it would be a lot more effective to make
their multiple submissions visible in the voting panel *and* more
importantly in the chair tool. This way if someone has submitted many
similar talks to different tracks, the plot will be unveiled and track
chairs will be enabled to save the poor soul from "hell". Limiting the
submissions to 3 or any number is a quick workaround, a hack, not an
elegant solution :)

>> * Ask submitter to provide details on other speaking opportunities, blogs and/or relevant experience.
> I'd be careful about this one. I agree we want to continue to raise the quality bar, but we also don't want to discount an otherwise good talk because the person proposing it hasn't done much speaking before.

In my experience there is a big difference in quality of talks when
they're done by a person that has spoken somewhere else before, even if
it's a local meeting at a user group or the local church. I think
requesting proof of previous speaking engagement is a fair question to
ask and one that is likely to give us better speakers.

> I think at the end of the day, for me, the question really is: how do we get rid of the sale's pitches posing as talks? 

isn't the job of the track chair to select relevant and good quality
content and therefore discard product pitches?

Limiting or discouraging the amount of speakers would be good too:
podium stuffing to get a free ticket is so not cool.

/stef