>The conference organizers have control, in theory, but I think that they are understandably loath to mess with the traditional mix. There is no place for them to ask a question and get a single, cogent, authoritative answer.

Who is better to _provide_ a single authoritative answer about a conference then the conference organizers? Why would they be looking to get a single authoritative answer from someone else -- I'd assume everyone else would be looking to them!

I do see how the decentralized nobody-in-charge but everybody-willing-to-complain nature of Code4Lib as a community (rather than an organization) poses some challenges. (It also provides some advantages, everything is a trade-off, although not all trade-offs are equal, and the best trade-off may change when the context changes). 

But, I'm not sure this is a technology/tooling problem. As we all have to remember at our day jobs too, don't look for technological product solutions to social/organizational problems. They aren't going to be successful, but you can spend a lot of resources learning that. 

Jonathan
________________________________________
From: Code for Libraries [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Cary Gordon [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2015 2:05 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [CODE4LIB] Communications — conference and otherwise (was: [CODE4LIB] Code4LibCon video crew thanks)

This really speaks to the c4l who’s-in-charge-here / nobody is in charge / take the ball and run with it zeitgeist.

We have one person — Ryan Wick — who carries most of the load for the website and the wiki. I don’t think that he, or anyone else, takes responsibility for organizing the content. From here,it looks like everything is a mix of tradition and fire prevention. Accordingly, this year we had:

— The conference web pages on code4lib.org
— The usual assortment of pages on wiki.code4lib.org
— The newcomer dinner page on Google Docs
— Stuff on Eventbrite

Resulting in a mix of the usual symptoms:

— No single place to find stuff
— Conflicting information
— Not clear editorial policy

So, what do we do, and who is this “we," anyhow?

The conference organizers have control, in theory, but I think that they are understandably loath to mess with the traditional mix. There is no place for them to ask a question and get a single, cogent, authoritative answer.

Code4lib itself isn’t really a thing, just an us, and we have been loath to form standing committees, although we have done that after a fashion for scholarships and the Journal. I think that the time has come for a Code4lib communications task force —I love that name — to address the structure of our public-facing resources. Any takers.

In lieu of blessings from an executive structure, the task force can do something with pasta to confirm its authority.

Any takers?

Thanks,

Cary

> On Feb 13, 2015, at 12:53 PM, Heller, Margaret <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> I think Sarah is absolutely right that we should have updated the conference information page with information about streaming, as I don't think most people not attending the conference would think to look at the wiki. Even if everyone forgot to do it during the conference that's a note to the future to remember to do it during the conference, and I've edited the page at http://code4lib.org/conference/2015 to give the link to the YouTube channel.
>
> And thanks so much video team!
>
> Margaret Heller
> Digital Services Librarian
> Loyola University Chicago
> 773-508-2686
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Sarah Weissman
> Sent: Friday, February 13, 2015 2:18 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Code4LibCon video crew thanks
>
> On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 2:38 PM, Francis Kayiwa <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>>
>> Planning these things is tough work with numerous moving parts. Could
>> it have been posted once we were underway? Perhaps. That said there
>> was 450 odd people who were there none of whom (the author included)
>> thought to send a message on availability of video to this listserv.
>> (I know for certain it was tweeted and re-tweeted)
>>
>>
>
> I see what you are saying. I realize that logistics are tricky. I would have probably missed a mailing list message if it had come last minute. And I wasn't checking Twitter in a timely manner for updates on a conference I wasn't attending and therefore wasn't all that aware of the exact timing of. (Perhaps this is a great time to bump that librarians list to a more visible position in my Twitter feed...)
>
> And I should say that I'm glad that there is video to watch at all and grateful to the volunteer videographers that made it happen.