[Linux-aus] linux.conf.au Possible *Future* Programme Format

[Paul Wayper]

Steven Hanley wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 10, 2007 at 10:45:49AM +1030, David Lloyd wrote:
>   
[snip]
>>  * Is a main conference of 5 days and coordination of, say, 8
>>    mini-confs, a bit much to ask a volunteer organisation to run?
>>     
>
> The volunteers are already there for the majority of the week (especially
> the core crew of the teams)
>   

And my understanding is that the LCA Team volunteers do minimal work for
the miniconfs - they just make the rooms available, and the person who's
suggested the miniconf topic is the coordinator and therefore
responsible for keeping speakers on time and so forth.  Is that any more
work than they do running the conference proper?

>> When does the conference become "so large" that it stops being "grassroots"?
>>     
>
> Who knows, the crew this year are trying an experiment with increasing hte
> size, lets see how that works shall we.
>   
Surely the answer to that is "when it's no longer talking about the
things the people on the grass want to hear".  I think one could have
thirty streams and still have a 'grassroots' conference, just as one can
have two streams and be a professional, suit and tie, "$1000 per day and
please buy our product" conference.

I would add my own small vote for the 'miniconfs stream' idea. 
Addressing the point of overlaps, my feeling is that having an entire
day where you want to be in two streams at once is more irritating than
being able to go to your preferred miniconf for most of the day and go
to a few other sessions that you really can't miss.  But ultimately we
can all pick and choose - there are very few things (even miniconfs)
that are so precious that not attending for the entire session makes the
whole thing useless.


Have fun,

Paul