21:07:39 <gwolf> #startmeeting - DebConf talks team
21:07:39 <MeetBot> Meeting started Fri May 20 21:07:39 2011 UTC.  The chair is gwolf. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot.
21:07:39 <MeetBot> Useful Commands: #action #agreed #help #info #idea #link #topic.
21:07:43 <nattie> but i'm not on the talks team so it doesn't matter ;)
21:08:02 <gwolf> Ok... I don't really have a schedule this time around, and I'm sorry :(
21:08:07 <gwolf> I have been busy with $RL
21:08:18 <dkg> i think we need:
21:08:18 <gwolf> So, I'm basically referring to http://meetbot.debian.net/debconf-team/2011/debconf-team.2011-05-11-22.02.html
21:08:21 <nattie> how about just going through last times summary?
21:08:23 <nattie> *nods*
21:08:26 <gwolf> dkg: please go ahead
21:08:35 <dkg> 0) a schedule, and a (rough) list of venues and timeslots
21:08:50 <dkg> 1) (from that) a rough count of total available slots
21:08:59 <gwolf> Right.
21:09:14 <dkg> 2) to do a collective cull based on the ratings into 3 pools: accept, reject, discuss
21:09:21 <gwolf> I was thinking about a potential problem re: the schedules
21:09:22 <dkg> 3) have the "discuss" part
21:09:45 <gwolf> Pentabarf allows the submitter to specify the desired duration for their proposed talks
21:09:46 <dkg> (i'm not pretending 2 and 3 would happen today)
21:10:02 <dkg> it does, but we've made it clear in the cfp that talks will be 45 minutes.
21:10:06 <dkg> didn't we?
21:10:07 <gwolf> Most people chose 1h
21:10:09 <gwolf> yes, we did
21:10:14 <dkg> that's fine then
21:10:19 <dkg> penta defaults to 1h
21:10:25 <dkg> people didn't choose it
21:10:26 <gwolf> so we will take the liberty of cutting them "except when there are strong reasons.."?
21:10:29 <gwolf> oh, perfect
21:10:34 <dkg> the tyranny of the default
21:11:06 <nattie> i think for 0) we will have to wait until holger and moray have done the recce mission
21:11:11 <dkg> (we should have changed the default to 45 min before the cfp went out, though, so we could claim later that they had chosen it)
21:11:14 <nattie> so that we know what the venue actually offers
21:11:18 <gwolf> #info We announced in the CfP we would have 45 minute slots - We will cut accepted proposals from Penta's default 1hr to 45 minutes except for specific requests
21:11:25 <nattie> (sorry.  just thinking out loud)
21:11:29 <gwolf> nattie: Right, that's a blocker
21:11:33 <dkg> nattie: that sounds reasonable
21:11:42 <nattie> they'll be there until wednesday
21:11:57 <gwolf> Proposed hours for activity?
21:12:08 <nattie> later rather than earlier, from experience
21:12:13 <gwolf> maybe we can propose a schedule to h01ger^Wvideo team
21:12:20 <dkg> when is travel sponsorship decided?
21:12:36 <nattie> sorry, don't know offhand
21:12:45 <dkg> it'd be nice to be able to tell the travel sponsorship team to please strongly consider the folks we're definitely accepting
21:12:46 <gwolf> nattie: I completely agree, I'd rather not schedule anything before 10AM, maybe even 11, but I'd be willing to schedule up to 21:00...
21:12:59 <gwolf> dkg: very true. Who is in that team this year?
21:13:03 * gwolf goes to check...
21:13:04 <nattie> gwolf: 11, i think.  and even then you'll get the odd zombie-geek
21:13:13 <dkg> mmm, zombies
21:13:18 <nattie> mmm, magical ponies
21:13:23 <dkg> over here people are all preparing tfor the rapture tomorrow
21:13:42 <gwolf> #action we should notify as early as possible the travel sponsorship team of the strongly wanted talks, to make it more probable the submitters get sponsored
21:13:43 <nattie> dkg: the man from mars who eats guitars?
21:14:04 <dkg> gwolf: can we ask penta for a distribution of aggregate rankings
21:14:11 <dkg> and just outright accept the top third already?
21:14:23 <dkg> (that last part is more to the team than just gwolf
21:14:32 <nattie> i have a feeling that could go a bit wrong, though
21:14:32 <dkg> the penta part was for gwolf, our pentamaster)
21:14:32 <gwolf> According to http://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf11/Teams, the rankers are Ganneff, amaya, luciano, an3as, aroundthfur, h01ger
21:15:22 <gwolf> dkg: If you enter https://penta.debconf.org/penta/report/review and click on the "rating" header, you'll get the sorted list
21:15:31 <dkg> well that's easy
21:16:04 <gwolf> So we could say that with ≥80 they are in the accepted set?
21:16:48 <dkg> i was going to say 75
21:16:59 <dkg> but i'm fine with 80 as the "obviously yes" cutoff
21:17:08 <dkg> what do other people think?
21:17:33 <dkg> we just don't want to "obviously yes" so many that the schedule overflows
21:17:34 <gwolf> #action gwolf starts marking talks with ranking ≥ 80 as accepted as soon as the meeting is over
21:17:39 <dkg> but i don't think that's a real risk.
21:18:00 <gwolf> dkg: precisely, that's the main reason to keep it high (visually /methinks it's about the top ¼)
21:18:11 <dkg> making it ≥75 will add 8 talks
21:18:15 <dkg> s/talks/events/
21:18:24 <nattie> hmmmmm
21:18:49 <gwolf> of course - And we are not schedule-fighting for the cheese and wine party or for the formal^Wspecial dinner
21:18:52 <dkg> but we don't want those announcements of acceptance to make people think that if they haven't heard, they were rejected.
21:18:58 <dkg> right
21:19:01 <nattie> do we actually have a rough idea of how many schedule slots we have, or have i missed something?
21:19:12 <gwolf> nattie: not yet, but we can make some numbers :-}
21:19:27 <gwolf> say, if we assume 1hr slots (45min + 15min rest)
21:19:42 <nattie> that would be 7 or 8 slots a day maximum
21:19:45 <nattie> less with lunch
21:19:50 <nattie> per room, that is
21:19:57 <gwolf> 10-11, 11-12, 12-13, 15-16, 16-17, 17-18, 18-19
21:20:15 <nattie> with an option 19-20/20-21 slot?
21:20:20 <nattie> *optional
21:20:21 <gwolf> that's seven slots, and we could squeeze two or three more (i.e. just 1hr for lunch, or after dinner, or whatnot)
21:20:30 <nattie> urgh no, short lunches are awful
21:20:37 * gwolf knows
21:20:51 <nattie> but after dinner might work - qv *C3 scheduling that has events on quite late
21:21:10 <dkg> nattie: 6 slots per day probably
21:21:23 <dkg> i'd be surprised if they give us access to these fancy chambers after-hours
21:21:29 <dkg> but i could be wrong of course.
21:21:32 <nattie> oh, yeah, true
21:21:34 <nattie> depends
21:21:37 <gwolf> But just for getting some numbers going - Lets see what happens with 6 * 2 rooms
21:21:41 <nattie> it's not like Edinburgh where we had to go away at night
21:21:44 <gwolf> (and having an extra room or two without video)
21:21:56 <gwolf> so, 12 slots per day
21:21:57 <dkg> dc10 we definitely did not have good after-hours access
21:22:00 <nattie> 6 days?
21:22:03 <nattie> 7?
21:22:08 <nattie> so 72 or 84 slots total
21:22:12 <dkg> 18 slots per day if we count one room with no video
21:22:25 <dkg> let's assume 6 days (because debian day doesn't count)
21:22:30 <gwolf> dkg: 5 days
21:22:32 <gwolf> daytrip
21:22:37 <dkg> right
21:22:41 <nattie> we're down to 60 slots
21:22:46 <dkg> 90 slots with room 3
21:22:47 <nattie> or 90
21:22:48 <nattie> yeah
21:22:53 <nattie> dkg: my braincell!
21:23:03 <dkg> (er -- room 2, i'm no pascal programmer)
21:23:14 <nattie> you made a similar crack last week
21:23:23 <gwolf> and we have 35 talks ≥80
21:23:29 <dkg> this week was a reference to last week
21:23:48 <dkg> and ~43 ≥75
21:23:51 <nattie> that's what they all say
21:24:06 <gwolf> #info Doing out of our head calculatioins, we can have a total of 60 talk slots in the main (with video) rooms, plus whatever the rooms without video provide
21:24:28 <nattie> priority would go to accepting the top 60?
21:24:36 <dkg> we can accept events without promising them video
21:24:43 <gwolf> nattie: We don't have to _fill_ the schedule
21:24:47 <dkg> acceptance just means formally allocating time and space on the schedule
21:24:54 <dkg> and yes, there's no need to pack it in.
21:24:55 <nattie> there's only so much of my wife to go around, you know ;)
21:25:08 <nattie> he's just a skinny boy
21:25:12 <dkg> leaving some unallocated slots for ad-hoc at-conference planning is good.
21:25:37 <gwolf> dkg: /methinks we should schedule all selected talks in video-enabled rooms
21:25:39 <nattie> yeah - also, in a too-full schedule people will generally decide they can't be arsed, and go eat some fries instead
21:25:58 <gwolf> nattie: I hope the 15 minute breaks will ease some of that tension
21:26:28 <nattie> yeah
21:26:39 <nattie> i meant more the matter of "gah, too many choices, what do i go see?!"
21:26:58 <gwolf> Ok... So, basically, can we say we are tentatively happy with the outcome of how this will be scheduled? :)
21:27:11 <dkg> gwolf: i disagree -- i think it's perfectly fine to accept some talks for non-video rooms.
21:27:19 <dkg> there are BoFs that don't want video coverage
21:27:25 <nattie> dkg: but that's not talks
21:27:35 <gwolf> dkg: right, and we _did_ rate BoFs
21:27:38 <nattie> BoFs, as you know, are the birth of the feather ;)
21:27:39 <gwolf> unlike some other years
21:27:46 <dkg> ok, we've been loosely exchanging the term "talk" and "event"
21:27:56 <nattie> i think that needs to be separated, then
21:27:57 <dkg> thus far, i've been referring to the generic "event"
21:28:06 <nattie> BoFs are not for videoing, i think
21:28:11 <nattie> (*especially* not the dance BoF)
21:28:13 <gwolf> But OTOH some BoFs _arE_
21:28:14 <dkg> some definitely are
21:28:25 * gregoa nods to dkg :)
21:28:26 <dkg> i actually don't think it's terrible to keep talking about generic events.
21:28:26 <nattie> hmmmmm
21:28:35 <gwolf> as they can be very interesting to follow, even if they put extra tension on the camera operators
21:28:44 * gwolf nods to gregoa
21:28:45 <dkg> i think allocating video to events is separate from accepting them.
21:28:53 <gwolf> (sshhh)
21:28:58 <nattie> dkg: fairy nuff.  i'm not actually on this team, so a lot of my suggestions probaly should be taken with a grain of salt or tw
21:29:01 <nattie> *two
21:29:17 <dkg> and we should concentrate on accepting without making video promises except for events that say that they absolutely must get video.
21:29:22 <gwolf> (after biking uphill, believe me, they are taken with some drops of salt)
21:29:45 <gwolf> dkg: what would you say if we try to schedule all accepted lectures in video-enabled rooms
21:29:56 <gwolf> and try to... use our criteria regarding the BoFs? :)
21:30:09 <dkg> that sounds like a reasonable heuristic
21:30:12 <nattie> that sounds sensible
21:30:25 <gwolf> (after all, we will both be on the scheduling team :-}
21:30:30 <nattie> are these BoFs basically cunningly disguised talks?  (panels and the like)
21:30:37 * blarson sorry I'm late, will read scrollback
21:30:53 <gwolf> #agree We will try to schedule all accepted lectures in video-enabled rooms, and try to... use our criteria regarding the BoFs
21:30:55 <nattie> blarson: no worries, it was basically hashing through the criteria for accepting talks
21:31:02 <dkg> though i don't think we need to decide viedo allocations now.
21:31:11 <gwolf> nattie:  some are, some are genuine BoFs with all of the audience being active
21:31:14 <gwolf> blarson: welcome :)
21:31:49 <gwolf> Ok... Two other topics off the top of my head: Tracks and proceedings
21:31:57 <nattie> how many video-desirable bofs are there anyway?
21:32:00 <gwolf> And I think the latter is easier to get through :)
21:32:00 <nattie> roughly, i mean
21:32:11 <nattie> sorry
21:32:15 * gwolf has no numbers right away...
21:32:23 <nattie> no rush
21:32:30 <gwolf> #topic Proceedings
21:32:56 <gwolf> So... Well, do you think they will be plausible?
21:33:07 <gwolf> I tend to think we will end up giving up on them
21:33:14 <nattie> aw :(
21:33:30 <dkg> i havne't seen any action on the publishing side
21:33:44 <gwolf> nattie: As we'd (wel, whoever coordinates that would) have to hurry re: acceptance and gather the papers
21:34:07 <gwolf> And we got two offers for copy-editors, but none for coordination
21:34:08 <nattie> people could mail papers to me, i guess
21:34:23 <gwolf> nattie: could you persuade people to do so?
21:34:28 <nattie> as long as someone were willing to help me put the actual document together
21:35:01 <nattie> i could put out an announcement in the usual nattie-announcement style
21:35:03 <gwolf> nattie: if you run behind people and check the papers, and somebody else puts it together, is it OK?
21:35:10 <nattie> sure
21:35:21 <gwolf> great! So lets keep trying to do this :-D
21:35:26 <nattie> i'm just scared of trying to deal with typesetting and stuffs
21:35:57 <gwolf> #agreed nattie volunteered to run behind people requesting the papers and check the papers — But will not do the document layout/typesetting/stuff. We need another voluntere for that.
21:36:10 <gwolf> Great, so... anything else re: proceedings?
21:36:17 <nattie> GIVE ME THE RED PEN!
21:36:20 <dkg> we need that coordinator early, before nattie hounds people
21:36:27 <dkg> because they'll have some constraints on formatting
21:36:49 <dkg> and nattie should know about those constraints
21:36:56 <gwolf> #info We need that coordinator early, for the constraints on formatting
21:36:57 <gwolf> right
21:37:18 <gwolf> #topic Tracks
21:37:20 <nattie> i'm willing to learn layoutish stuff, but would rather not be actually *doing* that this year, IYSWIM
21:37:29 <gwolf> nattie: you'll do it alright ;-)
21:37:42 <gwolf> Ok... So, who has achieved what on this topic? :)
21:37:55 <gwolf> I mailed zobel, but got no reply (and didn't try again)
21:38:20 <nattie> isn't zobel on #-publicity?
21:38:59 <gwolf> he seems to be unavailable right now - I'll try to get hold of him and see what happens with his proposal...
21:39:30 <gwolf> I know dkg talked with zack, and that blarson mailed Rhonda
21:39:45 <gwolf> but... in both cases, that's basically the extents of what I know :)
21:40:25 <nattie> dkg, blarson: any replies?
21:40:50 <gwolf> #action gwolf should contact again zobel re: the debian.org webservices track
21:41:09 <dkg> sorry, putting out fires in another channel :/
21:41:16 <nattie> drama?
21:41:24 <nattie> lack of magical ponies?
21:41:25 <gwolf> (oh, and micah - Anything thought regarding the skills exchange?)
21:41:50 <dkg> i think zack and i will co-coordinate the debian/society track
21:41:57 <dkg> we need to put our heads together about it
21:42:02 <dkg> i owe him an e-mail
21:42:03 <gwolf> very good :-D
21:42:15 <gwolf> #info dkg and zack will co-coordinate the debian/society track
21:42:27 <gwolf> dkg: once you get a proper name thought out, tell me please
21:43:24 <gwolf> Oh - and of course, regarding the scheduling, tracks will have to get contiguous blocks, and coordinators will be free to fill them whatever way they want, even with low-ranked talks, right?
21:43:39 <nattie> sure
21:43:51 <dkg> gwolf: will do
21:43:59 <micah> gwolf: i haven't had an ounce of time to even consider it :(
21:44:02 <nattie> which is why it's necessary to leave some space for low-ranked talks
21:44:11 <nattie> or rather to not fill up the entire schedule
21:44:17 <dkg> gwolf: i think last year we've said that track coordinators can strongly recommend stuff to the talks team
21:44:20 <nattie> (sorry, i know i'm reinventing the wheel)
21:44:40 <dkg> but talks team as a whole gets the final say
21:44:43 <gwolf> micah: Do you think you can get some time in the next few weeks?
21:44:48 <gwolf> dkg: I like it
21:45:05 <dkg> (in practice, the track coordinators could pretty easily sway the talks team with anything like a reasonable argument)
21:45:15 <nattie> um
21:45:22 <gwolf> #agreed Track coordinators can strongly recommend stuff to the talks team, but talks team as a whole gets the final say
21:45:33 <nattie> isn't "track coordinators" at least in part a subset of "talks team"?
21:45:38 <micah> gwolf: to consider if I will do it, yes for sure
21:46:07 <gwolf> nattie: not necessarily
21:46:17 <gwolf> well, yes, in part a subset - in part not :)
21:46:46 <nattie> yeah, i phrased badly, i meant isn't there a fair amount of overlap
21:46:50 <nattie> but realised there wasn't really
21:46:57 <gwolf> #info micah still has to finish pondering if he will coordinate skills exchange
21:47:02 <gwolf> blarson: any news from you?
21:47:13 <micah> hehe
21:47:31 <blarson> rhonda mentioned receiveing the mail on irc
21:47:41 <blarson> hasn't replied yet
21:48:09 <gwolf> #info blarson still has only got an ack but no real reply - we'll keep waiting
21:48:20 <gwolf> #topic DebianDay
21:48:32 <gwolf> anything we can say on this regard? (I know it's not precisely for us)
21:48:37 <gwolf> aroundthfur: around here?
21:48:50 <nattie> i believe aroundthfur spoke briefly to biella
21:50:34 <gwolf> ok... so this basically means we have very little to report on the topic (:
21:50:59 <gwolf> #topic Anything else?
21:52:13 <nattie> nothing offhand
21:52:39 <gwolf> Ok... I'l declare this meeting closed if there's nothing more to add
21:52:56 <gwolf> #endmeeting