Speaking from the program committee perspective, we went through the proposals that were voted into the conference by the community and made sure there was each presenter was at the podium for only one presentation. There was one case where we asked someone who was voted in for a solo presentation and also a joint presentation to relinquish one spot, which happened. 

It does make sense to reserve a percentage of slots for first-time Code4Lib presenters. 15% sounds like a good number to experiment with for next year. Are there any objections from the community for doing that?  (Do we need to find a way to formalize consensus in the group?)


Peter

On Nov 27, 2012, at 8:27 PM, "Roy Tennant" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I also think it is a good idea to reserve a certain number/percentage of
> speaking slots to first-time presenters. I also want to bring up (again)
> the issue of presenters presenting more than once. We are looking at a
> conference with 400 attendees -- 400! How can we justify having anyone on
> the podium more than once? I mean, seriously?
> 
> I think we need to realize that we have grown to the point that we need
> more management than we have in the past. Remember that we also still have
> open-ended slots for lightning talks and breakouts. It isn't like I'm
> calling for the kind of strictness that ALA imposes.
> Roy
> 
> 
> On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 5:17 PM, Edward M Corrado <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
> 
>> I am not thrilled with the idea of anonymous proposals as I think that
>> goes against the openness non-organization that is code4lib. Also based on
>> the numbers posted earlier it seems inputs are more of an issue then the
>> voting.
>> 
>> However, I love the idea of X number of presentations reserved for first
>> time presenters. I don't know what the value of X should be but Bess's idea
>> of 15% sounds good to me.
>> 
>> I'd personally also like to see a limit to the number of talks someone can
>> give or propose, but I know this has been brought up before and, at least
>> in the past, there was not overwhelming support for this.
>> 
>> Edward
>> 
>> --
>> Edward M. Corrado
>> 
>> On Nov 27, 2012, at 18:41, Bess Sadler <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> 
>>> I am not volunteering to write the voting mechanism for this, but what
>> if we had two rounds of voting?
>>> 
>>> 1. First round, anonymous (people who follow these things avidly would
>> of course have read everyone's names on the wiki, but I think for most
>> people not having the names listed means you have removed the names from
>> consideration). We use the current system of assigning points. Once you've
>> cast that ballot, then you get ballot 2:
>>> 
>>> 2. The same ballot with the names present. You now have the opportunity
>> to change your vote, if you want to. It might be because you didn't realize
>> that person who secretly bores you was one of the speakers. It might be
>> because what at first looked like just another talk about marc software
>> sounds more compelling if its from someone who's never spoken before.
>>> 
>>> I wonder if we might also set aside a separate competition for first
>> time speakers? Say, 15% of the talks? Assuming that generally speaking,
>> offering ways for early-career folks or those new to public speaking to
>> participate is a good thing and would benefit diversity as a bonus.
>>> 
>>> Bess
>>> 
>>> On Nov 27, 2012, at 3:20 PM, Kelley McGrath <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> I'll second the idea of approaching people individually and explicitly
>> asking them to participate. It worked on me. I never would have written my
>> first article for the Code4Lib Journal or become a member of the editorial
>> committee if someone hadn't encouraged me individually (Thanks Jonathan!).
>>>> 
>>>> It would also be good to find a way to somehow target the pool of
>> lurkers who maybe aren't already connected to someone and get them more
>> involved.
>>>> 
>>>> As far as anonymous proposals go, we recently had a very good workshop
>> on implicit bias here. Someone brought up that found significant changes in
>> the gender proportions in symphony orchestras after candidates started
>> auditioning behind screens. There are also lots of studies about the
>> different responses to the same resume/application depending on whether a
>> stereotypically male/female or white/black name was used. Probably it's
>> impossible to make proposals completely anonymous, but it would be an
>> interesting experiment to leave off the names.
>>>> 
>>>> Kelley
>>>> 
>>>> PS Interestingly, I wouldn't instinctively self-identify as a member of
>> the Code4Lib community, although my first thought is that that has more to
>> do with not being a coder than with being a woman.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> **************************
>>>> Kelley McGrath
>>>> Metadata Management Librarian
>>>> University of Oregon Libraries
>>>> 1299 University of Oregon
>>>> Eugene, OR 97403
>>>> 
>>>> 541-346-8232
>>>> [log in to unmask]
>>