Easy solution : dance off.

Everyone puts a youtube video up and the community votes on who has the best moves. 
The top 250 get a ticket.

You're welcome. 
 

On Dec 19, 2011, at 10:31 AM, Ross Singer wrote:

> On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 1:26 PM, Cary Gordon <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> My honest opinion is that we should get closer to this model. I think
>> that even 250 is larger than optimum.
>> 
>> For a couple years, I ran DrupalCon, which in five years grew from
>> just over 30 folks to a North American event with about 3,000 and a
>> European event with almost 1,800. Originally, DrupalCon had a lot more
>> in common with Code4Lib. It has one track and focused on making the
>> software better. Now, that aspect of DrupalCon, while collocated, is
>> almost a separate event. The price of admission to that event is a
>> talk proposal, and while perhaps obviously, not everyone speaks, it
>> does set a boundary.
>> 
>> It might be tough to find folks to serve as gatekeepers, but maybe we
>> should at least require a "why you should let me go to Code4Lib"
>> statement or proposal. The gatekeepers could read these and figure out
>> how to get a mix of folks who would make the best conference. The
>> downside would be hurt feelings, and the only way to mitigate that
>> would be to have very clear procedures, even if names and hats were
>> part of it.
>> 
> Unfortunately, this would seem (in my mind) to encourage recidivism
> more than anything.  Newcomers are not going to have the benefit of
> knowing "what Code4Lib is about" in their statement and what is
> already viewed as a bit of a cliquish cabal will only likely become
> more so.
> 
> -Ross.
> 
>> Cary
>> 
>> On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 10:02 AM, Roy Tennant <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>> One of the founding concepts of the conference had been "no
>>> spectators". That is, everyone has an opportunity to participate and
>>> is encouraged to do so. I'm not saying we need to limit the conference
>>> to 80 seats or so, but I think we should at least mark the passing of
>>> this concept with some regret. The more C4L becomes like every other
>>> conference the less it is the kind of unique event it was created to
>>> be.
>>> 
>>> But perhaps the group has grown to the point where only regional
>>> events can have that flavor, and the annual conference becomes
>>> something qualitatively different, which in some ways it already has.
>>> It would be good if we went into this with our eyes wide open, and
>>> with some forethought, rather than stumbling into it by default. That
>>> is, if we can't handle a participatory conference of 300 and above,
>>> how can we re-envision participation? Can we offer some virtual venues
>>> for participation? I don't have answers at this point, just questions.
>>> But it seems clear that we've hit the point where something has to
>>> give.
>>> Roy
>>> 
>>> On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 9:45 AM, Ross Singer <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>> On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 11:05 AM, Edward M. Corrado
>>>> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>>> I would be against making C4L any bigger. There are already bigger
>>>>> conferences one can attend to. Not only because it will lose the feel,
>>>>> but it will become more expensive, limit locations, and harder to
>>>>> host.
>>>> 
>>>> One thing to keep in mind is that one of the reasons that Code4Lib
>>>> capacity has always been so low is to make it easier to keep as a
>>>> single track (which, personally, I feel is pretty important to
>>>> maintain).
>>>> 
>>>> While, certainly, we could probably get a venue with a larger
>>>> single-room seating capacity (Providence could have probably easily
>>>> seated 700+ if it had been arranged like Portland), we quickly begin
>>>> to lose any sense of intimacy.  250 people is a gathering, 500+ is a
>>>> crowd.
>>>> 
>>>> To boot, we'd basically be pushing the exclusive wall from the
>>>> registration process to the breakout and lightning talk signups.
>>>> 
>>>> The lottery idea sounds intriguing, but complicated.  It would have to
>>>> be pretty well thought out in advance, I think.
>>>> 
>>>> -Ross.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> Cary Gordon
>> The Cherry Hill Company
>> http://chillco.com