Thread: speakers mailing list
WWW, Bruce and I were discussing the need for a "speakers" mailing list. Like -jobs, this would be a list for all PostgreSQL public speakers to subscribe to, and events who want a speaker to post to. If this sounds like a good idea, could you create it with me & Bruce as admins? --Josh Berkus
On 11/9/09, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote: > WWW, > > Bruce and I were discussing the need for a "speakers" mailing list. > Like -jobs, this would be a list for all PostgreSQL public speakers to > subscribe to, and events who want a speaker to post to. > > If this sounds like a good idea, could you create it with me & Bruce as > admins? > I don't think it is a good idea. A sizeable percentage of the speakers at the 3 conferences in Europe that I've been involved in talk selection for are unlikely to ever have been subscribed to such a list. Some of them are barely even paying attention to -announce or [eu-]general. Consequently I will not be confining future CFPs to a speakers list as I don't want to miss good talks because ppl didn't subscribe to the 'club'. -- Dave Page EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com PGDay.EU 2009 Conference: http://2009.pgday.eu/start
On Mon, Nov 9, 2009 at 11:02 AM, Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote: > I don't think it is a good idea. A sizeable percentage of the speakers > at the 3 conferences in Europe that I've been involved in talk > selection for are unlikely to ever have been subscribed to such a > list. Some of them are barely even paying attention to -announce or > [eu-]general. +1 > Consequently I will not be confining future CFPs to a speakers list as > I don't want to miss good talks because ppl didn't subscribe to the > 'club'. We could add something to our website that tells conferences that are looking for speakers what they should do.. like: * Post to -announce * Get on the events list (if it is a Postgres specific event) * Get their CFPs into PWN * Post to -general or -hackers depending on the type of speakers they're looking for * Get a blogger that's on Planet to post the CFP I'm happy to make a wiki page.. a little later on today. Would also be great to make a page that's something like: "So you want to give a talk on Postgres...", if that doesn't already exist. -selena -- http://chesnok.com/daily - me http://endpoint.com - work
Selena, Dave, > * Post to -announce > * Get on the events list (if it is a Postgres specific event) > * Get their CFPs into PWN > * Post to -general or -hackers depending on the type of speakers > they're looking for > * Get a blogger that's on Planet to post the CFP This works for CFPs. What it doesn't work for is "I'm running a Django 1-day event in St. Louis, we were wondering if you could help us find a PostgreSQL speaker". It's not clear where those folks should go except -advocacy, and of course they don't want to *subscribe* to adovocacy. So they e-mail me or Bruce or someone personally, and often the requests get lost. That's the problem I'm trying to solve. Also, our current policy is not to allow postings to =announce unless the event has "significant PostgreSQL content". This would rule out, for example, PHPcon posting a CFP. > I'm happy to make a wiki page.. a little later on today. I'd like a better way than a wiki page to get the word out. Our wiki has about zero google rank, so nobody looks at it unless they're already "in the know". Ideas? --Josh Berkus
On Mon, Nov 9, 2009 at 12:17 PM, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote: > Selena, Dave, > >> * Post to -announce >> * Get on the events list (if it is a Postgres specific event) >> * Get their CFPs into PWN >> * Post to -general or -hackers depending on the type of speakers >> they're looking for >> * Get a blogger that's on Planet to post the CFP > > This works for CFPs. What it doesn't work for is "I'm running a Django > 1-day event in St. Louis, we were wondering if you could help us find a > PostgreSQL speaker". It's not clear where those folks should go except > -advocacy, and of course they don't want to *subscribe* to adovocacy. > So they e-mail me or Bruce or someone personally, and often the requests > get lost. > > That's the problem I'm trying to solve. Ah, I see. So, I interpret that as you guys asking for a little help in responding to the requests :) I think the right thing to do is ask people to post to -advocacy if the requests are that specific. Could we make a web form that is allowed to post to -advocacy for requests of this type? Also, I'd be happy to help moderate -advocacy so that we could open it up to external posting. > Also, our current policy is not to allow postings to =announce unless > the event has "significant PostgreSQL content". This would rule out, > for example, PHPcon posting a CFP. I think calls for papers for PostgreSQL advocacy are a reasonable exception to this rule, but I'm sure opinions differ. :) As our community grows, our need for contact with "the outside world" is just going to increase. And the more we're able to publicise where Postgres speakers are giving talks (like Magnus is speaking at FCONS > I'd like a better way than a wiki page to get the word out. Our wiki > has about zero google rank, so nobody looks at it unless they're already > "in the know". Agreed, however it would be good to use a collaborative medium to work out good ways of doing this stuff. And then move it to something with more Google juice. -selena -- http://chesnok.com/daily - me http://endpoint.com - work
Marc, > Could we make a web form that is allowed to post to -advocacy for > requests of this type? Also, I'd be happy to help moderate -advocacy > so that we could open it up to external posting. I'll add you as a moderator. It would help, I'm not keeping up. --Josh Berkus
On Mon, 2009-11-09 at 12:17 -0800, Josh Berkus wrote: > What it doesn't work for is "I'm running a Django > 1-day event in St. Louis, we were wondering if you could help us find > a PostgreSQL speaker". ISTM we should have a "publicity" list. We already have people assigned to particular regions, so we already have a sizeable group of people able to assist with this kind of thing. If some of the people in that role are not able to respond, perhaps others can instead? No need to replace the people that can't respond, just have a single list and a single contact point. We merely agree that the person nearest in geography/timezone/language/other proximity factor helps first, if they can't others also near can help out. So what I'm suggesting is start a list with all the people currently marked as press contacts for various regions. Replace the specific press contact with a generic email address that will go through to the list, with good spam filtering. -- Simon Riggs www.2ndQuadrant.com
Simon, > So what I'm suggesting is start a list with all the people currently > marked as press contacts for various regions. Replace the specific press > contact with a generic email address that will go through to the list, > with good spam filtering. Hmmm, maybe not "publicity" but just a "contact us" list, a contact@postgresql.org which would go to the RCs and a few other community members. Spam-filtering would be kind of key for this though. --Josh Berkus
Josh Berkus escribió: > This works for CFPs. What it doesn't work for is "I'm running a Django > 1-day event in St. Louis, we were wondering if you could help us find a > PostgreSQL speaker". It's not clear where those folks should go except > -advocacy, and of course they don't want to *subscribe* to adovocacy. > So they e-mail me or Bruce or someone personally, and often the requests > get lost. Seems like you want a link in the main website: "looking for Postgres speakers? see here". You and Bruce could throw it around as needed. -- Alvaro Herrera http://www.CommandPrompt.com/ The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc.
On Mon, 2009-11-09 at 12:29 -0800, Selena Deckelmann wrote: > > This works for CFPs. What it doesn't work for is "I'm running a Django > > 1-day event in St. Louis, we were wondering if you could help us find a > > PostgreSQL speaker". It's not clear where those folks should go except > > -advocacy, and of course they don't want to *subscribe* to adovocacy. > > So they e-mail me or Bruce or someone personally, and often the requests > > get lost. > > > > That's the problem I'm trying to solve. > > Ah, I see. So, I interpret that as you guys asking for a little help > in responding to the requests :) > > I think the right thing to do is ask people to post to -advocacy if > the requests are that specific. > I think advocacy is a bad idea for this. It should go to the respective PUG or region list. Joshua D. Drake --
On mån, 2009-11-09 at 12:17 -0800, Josh Berkus wrote: > This works for CFPs. What it doesn't work for is "I'm running a > Django > 1-day event in St. Louis, we were wondering if you could help us find > a > PostgreSQL speaker". It's not clear where those folks should go > except > -advocacy, and of course they don't want to *subscribe* to adovocacy. Whatever problem these people would have with the advocacy list now they would also have with a speakers list. So fix the problem with the advocacy list.
On mån, 2009-11-09 at 15:10 -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote: > I think advocacy is a bad idea for this. It should go to the > respective PUG or region list. It would depend on the scale of the conference, probably. The Wales Python User Group perhaps doesn't have to post to advocacy, but the South American ParrotCon perhaps could.
On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 6:25 AM, Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net> wrote: > On mån, 2009-11-09 at 15:10 -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote: >> I think advocacy is a bad idea for this. It should go to the >> respective PUG or region list. > > It would depend on the scale of the conference, probably. The Wales > Python User Group perhaps doesn't have to post to advocacy, but the > South American ParrotCon perhaps could. But people who are looking for speakers can't possibly be expected to know whether they are more like the Wales Python User Group or the South American ParrotCon. I don't have a clue what either of those is. I think it's good to create a SPOC, even if the SPOC is just a mailing list of people who will help folks figure out who they ought to be talking to. ...Robert
On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 6:25 AM, Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> wrote: > But people who are looking for speakers can't possibly be expected to > know whether they are more like the Wales Python User Group or the > South American ParrotCon. I don't have a clue what either of those > is. I think it's good to create a SPOC, even if the SPOC is just a > mailing list of people who will help folks figure out who they ought > to be talking to. Well, -advocacy is the clearing house for this type of information, and is the best place to start for people who are not familiar with who we are, or how we are organized. Creating yet another mailing list just increases the problem of silo-ing information. What if we created a '-speakers' alias that directs email to -advocacy instead? That gets the information to the right place, and provides an appropriate 'tag' for the outside world, without increasing divisions among our volunteers that handle advocacy. It seems like what is wanted is a clearing house. Or maybe a switchboard is a better analogy. Directing messages to a larger group of people seems like the best strategy for routing information, given that we don't have a well-defined way from getting from A to B at this point. -selena -- http://chesnok.com/daily - me http://endpoint.com - work
On Tue, 2009-11-10 at 13:25 +0200, Peter Eisentraut wrote: > On mån, 2009-11-09 at 15:10 -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote: > > I think advocacy is a bad idea for this. It should go to the > > respective PUG or region list. > > It would depend on the scale of the conference, probably. The Wales > Python User Group perhaps doesn't have to post to advocacy, but the > South American ParrotCon perhaps could. Even then, I wonder if it makes more sense to then just have a sa- list? > --
On Tue, 2009-11-10 at 10:01 +0200, Peter Eisentraut wrote: > On mån, 2009-11-09 at 12:17 -0800, Josh Berkus wrote: > > This works for CFPs. What it doesn't work for is "I'm running a > > Django > > 1-day event in St. Louis, we were wondering if you could help us find > > a > > PostgreSQL speaker". It's not clear where those folks should go > > except > > -advocacy, and of course they don't want to *subscribe* to adovocacy. > > Whatever problem these people would have with the advocacy list now they > would also have with a speakers list. So fix the problem with the > advocacy list. > There is more to it than that. The advocacy list is global. Most people are looking for geographically strategic speakers and only want to go global if they have to. We need to be encouraging speakers from first the local user groups, then the larger regions and then from the international pool. Most people want nothing to do with the -advocacy list for a number of reasons, some of them aren't fixable within the list itself. Joshua D. Drake > --