Pycon disappointment

[Paul Boddie]

PyCon is what YOU make of it. If you want to change PyCon, propose a
presentation or join the conference committee (concom) -- the latter only
requires signing up for the pycon-organizers mailing list.

This doesn't mean that we are uninterested in feedback. We love
feedback. But there are stark limits to what we can do unless people get
involved and push their pet projects.

The same rules apply for most of the other Python conferences, too.
Apologies to Aahz for hijacking his rant, but for anyone interested in
enhancing the EuroPython 2008 experience, the advice is fairly
similar: join the volunteers organising the conference and make what
you want to see actually happen. For EuroPython, start here:

http://www.europython.org/community/Volunteers

If EuroPython is too remote or not to your taste, help your local
conference or the Python conference which caters to your specific
interests:

http://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonConferences
http://www.pycon.org/ (a list of the big generic Python conferences)

Constructive feedback is always welcome, but it's better to change
things before your favourite conference so that it remains your
favourite conference.

Paul

 

[Ben Finney]

I would like to encourage anyone who was at PyCon but has not
provided formal feedback to use the following URLs:

For those who don't like to follow opaque munged URLs from services
that give no indication where you'll end up, here are the actual URLs
you'll arrive at:

For the conference:
http://tinyurl.com/2ara8u

PyCon 2008: Conference Feedback

For the tutorials:
http://tinyurl.com/2ew2pc

PyCon 2008: Tutorial Evaluation
<URL:http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=_2fBZVTQe3Ov49vIGxgs_2fh9g_3d_3d>

Thanks for posting these links, Aahz.

 

[Aahz]

For those who don't like to follow opaque munged URLs from services
that give no indication where you'll end up, here are the actual URLs
you'll arrive at:


PyCon 2008: Conference Feedback


PyCon 2008: Tutorial Evaluation
<URL:http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=_2fBZVTQe3Ov49vIGxgs_2fh9g_3d_3d>

Sorry, I agree with you -- those URLs were not (and should have been) on
pycon.org, and I just pasted what I got from someone else. Not enough
spoons....

 

[BJörn Lindqvist]

The same rules apply for most of the other Python conferences, too.
Apologies to Aahz for hijacking his rant, but for anyone interested in
enhancing the EuroPython 2008 experience, the advice is fairly
similar: join the volunteers organising the conference and make what
you want to see actually happen. For EuroPython, start here:

http://www.europython.org/community/Volunteers

I haven't been to EuroPython even when it has been fairly nearby
because the entrance fee was to high. But how do you help change
something like that?

 

[Brian Jones]

If you did not like the programming this year (aside from the sponsor
talks) and you did not participate in organizing PyCon or in delivering
presentations, it is YOUR FAULT. PERIOD. EXCLAMATION POINT!

I find this insulting, inexcusable, and utter nonsense. If putting the
blame for a failed experiment on the backs of the good folks who paid
good money for travel, lodging, and registration is also an
experiment, you can hereby consider it also failed.

The bottom line is that the people who are providing feedback in this
forum are doing so *voluntarily*, and for the good of future PyCon
events. They were sold a bill of goods, it was ill-comunicated, and
they have taken their time to express that this is not a good idea
moving forward. If it weren't for these people giving feedback, you
would not have a complete experiment, because you would never have
been able to prove or disprove your hypothesis. In fact, the people in
this forum are just as important to the process as those who devised
the experiment.

As an experiment, it would seem that having an event organizer, who is
presumably interested in the future success of the event, talking down
to the people who would also like to see a better event in the future
(and think they can make that happen - otherwise why bother giving
feedback?), is doomed to failure. Of course, I'm only looking at how
the experiment is being carried out. I claim ignorance as to the
hypothesis.

The rest of the points in your rant are all pretty commonly known by
now, to most. At the end of the day, the buck has to stop somewhere,
and that somewhere has to be with the organization that were charged
with motivating a volunteer force, and the organization who set the
expectations of the attendees. If you think that PyCon would've been
better had there been more volunteers, then you should feed that back
to the folks in charge of attracting and motivating said force. If you
think it was simply a mis-labeling of the different classes of talks,
feed that back to the folks who are in charge of such things. The
point is that there are endless things that can be done which are more
useful and productive than pointing fingers back at the people who
support the conference by being attendees. They help build the
conference too.

A conference answers to its attendees, and that should be an
expectation of anyone concerned with conference organization. Period.
Exclamation point.

Brian K. Jones
Editor in Chief
Python Magazine

 

[Carl Banks]

I find this insulting, inexcusable, and utter nonsense. If putting the
blame for a failed experiment on the backs of the good folks who paid
good money for travel, lodging, and registration is also an
experiment, you can hereby consider it also failed.

He said "aside from the sponsor talks", chief.

You need one of these:

http://tinyurl.com/26owvg


Carl Banks

 

[Stephan Deibel]

But it gets worse. The lightning talks, traditionally the best, newest
and edgiest part of the conference, were also sold like commercial air
time. Vendors were guaranteed first pick on lightning talk slots, and
we in the audience, expectantly looking forward to interesting and
entertaining content, again started to feel like things were awfully
commercial. And what seemed like a good idea, moving lightning talks
into plenary sessions with no competition, began to look like another
way to deliver a captive audience to vendors.

Yes, this sucked, and I say that as one of the guys that gave a boring
vendor lightning talk. I felt obligated to take the slot but probably
shouldn't have, or should have talked about something else.

The problem was definition of the sponsorships without carefully
limiting
the benefits that would get out of hand when 3X as many sponsorships
were
sold as expected (which is what happened).

To be fair, I'm not sure I would have foreseen this either.

I know what the argument for the results of Pycon 2008 will be: we
needed the money. My answer: it's not worth it. If this is what you
have to do to grow the conference, then don't. If the choice is
between selling my experience to vendors and reducing the size of the
conference, then cut the size of the conference. Keep the quality of
my experience as the primary decision criteria, or I'll stop coming.

I have to admit, I'll keep coming to PyCon even if all the talks suck
abysmally as long as there's good hallway time, open space, BoFs, and
sprints. ;-)

But, yes, lightning talks are also a critical part of the conf, and
would be a terrible loss.

- Stephan

 

[Kay Schluehr]

I've been running open spaces conferences for the past few years and I
would suggest you do that instead of an "eyes-forward" conference.
It's not only a lot easier, but it's also a lot more fun. For example,
last week we did the Java Posse Roundup, which is all open-spaces.

Since the rubyfringe seems to make also a commitment against the Ruby
mainstream I'm not sure how Open Spaces can help? Self organization is
always an aid for those who are already strong, maintain popular
projects ( Rails, Django... anyone? ) and keep lots of attention. I
certainly wouldn't attend to an Open Space conference if I intended to
make my development and findings public.

 

[Torsten Bronger]

Hallöchen!

He said "aside from the sponsor talks", chief.

I see no reason why the "fault" for parts of the rest being
sub-optimal, too, must necessarily be on the attendee's side. (Just
hypothetically; I wasn't at PyCon.)

Tschö,
Torsten.

 

[Paul Rubin]

I have to admit, I'll keep coming to PyCon even if all the talks suck
abysmally as long as there's good hallway time, open space, BoFs, and
sprints. ;-)

OK, so why not get rid of all the talks and other stuff, and just have
a basically structureless conference, beyond scheduling some open
meetings on various topics? That would be a lot less expensive and a
lot more interesting.

 

[Paul Boddie]

I haven't been to EuroPython even when it has been fairly nearby
because the entrance fee was to high. But how do you help change
something like that?

You could join in and make your case. There was a more protracted
discussion than usual last year about fees because some people pointed
out the discrepancy between salary and price levels in different parts
of Europe and the need to make the conference more affordable: what
may be relatively inexpensive for some might be relatively expensive
for others, and the organisers felt that it would be foolish to
exclude the latter group, particularly when they may be more likely to
travel to the conference in its present location.

It's hard to say whether the conference is reaching everyone it
should, given the composition of attendees:

http://www.europython.org/community/Planning/Projections

But without anyone to pursue a particular cause, and with decisions
needing to be made within certain timeframes (which is often a
struggle, anyway), things often get preserved as they are rather than
being improved. I live in a European country which is either number
one or two on the price scale (depending on whether you include
alcohol prices or not), and I can't say what the right fee level
should be (other than "possibly lower than it is") - it's up to others
to weigh in and give their opinion, I think.

Paul

 

[Jonathan Ellis]

I shared the same perception as Bruce; most "keynotes"
and lightning talks were anemic vendor pitches that really gutted the
spirit of what I experienced last year.  

I don't think you can lump the keynotes in with the lightning talks.
I had to go check the schedule to see which keynotes were "diamond"
ones. I wasn't thinking to myself, "oh, this must be a paid keynote"
at the time at all. In fact, the Google one was the most entertaining
of all, judging by audience reaction.

But the vast majority of the vendor lightning talks were a waste of
time, I agree.

-Jonathan

 

[Jarek Zgoda]

Paul Boddie napisa³(a):

You could join in and make your case. There was a more protracted
discussion than usual last year about fees because some people pointed
out the discrepancy between salary and price levels in different parts
of Europe and the need to make the conference more affordable: what
may be relatively inexpensive for some might be relatively expensive
for others, and the organisers felt that it would be foolish to
exclude the latter group, particularly when they may be more likely to
travel to the conference in its present location.

It's hard to say whether the conference is reaching everyone it
should, given the composition of attendees:

http://www.europython.org/community/Planning/Projections

I did not event think on attending EuroPython in Switzerland due to high
cost of 3-day accomodation there (relatively to my wage these times).
Lithuania seems to be not much more expensive than my home country, so
I'll travel to Vilnius this year too. I thionk it was valid for others
in Poland too, judging from the figures you mention.

But without anyone to pursue a particular cause, and with decisions
needing to be made within certain timeframes (which is often a
struggle, anyway), things often get preserved as they are rather than
being improved. I live in a European country which is either number
one or two on the price scale (depending on whether you include
alcohol prices or not), and I can't say what the right fee level
should be (other than "possibly lower than it is") - it's up to others
to weigh in and give their opinion, I think.

EUR 100 does not seem too high as early bird registration fee, so the
most intimidating costs (for me at least) is accomodation and travel. I
mean, lowering the fee would be nice, but not essential to me.

 

[Aahz]

I see no reason why the "fault" for parts of the rest being
sub-optimal, too, must necessarily be on the attendee's side. (Just
hypothetically; I wasn't at PyCon.)

Let's suppose you have a group of friends who collectively throw a party.
They invite you to help out organizing it and putting it together, but
you choose not to. If you don't have a good time at the party because it
wasn't what you wanted, I think it's fair to say it was your fault. And
I think exactly the same thing is true for PyCon, albeit on a much larger
scale.

It is absolutely critical to the long-term success of PyCon as a
volunteer-run community conference that each attendee take responsibility
for their experience. Science fiction fandom -- the part that holds
volunteer-run events such as Worldcon -- has lots of experience with this
model. It is one reason why such cons make a fuss about attendees being
"members", compared to "purchasing a ticket" (which is what you do for a
commercialized Star Trek con).

 

[Aahz]

OK, so why not get rid of all the talks and other stuff, and just have
a basically structureless conference, beyond scheduling some open
meetings on various topics? That would be a lot less expensive and a
lot more interesting.

Don't think we haven't discussed this. The problem is that some kinds of
talks demand a lot of preparation (and therefore need to be scheduled in
advance), plus plenty of people like some structure. PyCon -- like most
organized human endeavors -- is in many ways about the art of compromise,
trying to figure out how to satisfy as many people as possible and
disappointing as few as possible, keeping in mind that it is almost
impossible to completely satisfy anyone and most people will have some
disappointment (if only because two talks that are ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL to
them are cross-scheduled).

 

[Torsten Bronger]

Hallöchen!

[...]

I see no reason why the "fault" for parts of the rest being
sub-optimal, too, must necessarily be on the attendee's side.
(Just hypothetically; I wasn't at PyCon.)

Let's suppose you have a group of friends who collectively throw a
party. They invite you to help out organizing it and putting it
together, but you choose not to. If you don't have a good time at
the party because it wasn't what you wanted, I think it's fair to
say it was your fault. And I think exactly the same thing is true
for PyCon, albeit on a much larger scale.

Fair enough. But then I question the sensibility in saying "it is
XY's fault" at all.

Somebody not involved in organising was not happy with the Con. You
may take the criticism or leave it. The criticism may be justified
or not. But saying that it is "his fault" is useless in my opinion,
it even discourages feedback. It think it's okay to evaluate
something that you didn't help coming into existence. A good point
is a good point no matter who makes it.

Tschö,
Torsten.

 

[VanL]

Bruce,

I can't speak to your issues with the normal sessions, but your bad
experience with the lightning talks was my fault. And, in apologizing to
you, I hope that all the others on this thread who have expressed
similar sentiments hear me too.

Ultimately, we miscalculated in certain respects. It wasn't any
particular thing, but rather there were a couple of issues that came
together here:

1 - We had an incredible amount of sponsorship. Higher than expected by
anyone. This wasn't bad in itself (I think it was very good!), but it
set the stage for some of the issues later.

2 - As part of the sponsor package, we promised the sponsors priority
for a lightning talk. Our thought was that the sponsor lightning talks
from last year were well received, so they probably would be this year
as well. Unfortunately, that turned out not to be the case - at least
having *that many* was not well received.

3 - We had a very limited time when some of the sponsors would still be
here - basically Friday and Saturday. The major problem on Saturday is
that we *had* to stack the sponsor talks that way or else we would not
fulfill our obligations to our sponsors.

We offered lightning talks this year because a) we didn't know how well
the expo hall would go, and b) that was the only way for the sponsors to
connect with the audience last year - so we assumed that it might be the
same way this year. This was discussed and generally agreed-to in
September. IIRC, the sponsor lightnings were not an issue that was
subject to much debate back then, most people were accustomed to the
generally positive 2007 experience.*

I think that with the success of the expo hall, we can remove the
lightning talks from the sponsor benefits for next year, and at this
point I am in favor of doing so.

Personally, I was *very* disappointed that some of our sponsors didn't
prepare or even show up for their assigned slots. I think that the
sponsors are members of our community, and I expect them to act as such.
Taking slots and not showing up - or not showing up prepared - isn't how
I would hope a community member would act.

Thanks,

Van


*(On the other hand, the Diamond keynotes were the subject of
substantial debate - but I thought those went well; I would like to keep
them for next year.)

 

[Mike Driscoll]

Let's suppose you have a group of friends who collectively throw a party.
They invite you to help out organizing it and putting it together, but
you choose not to. If you don't have a good time at the party because it
wasn't what you wanted, I think it's fair to say it was your fault. And
I think exactly the same thing is true for PyCon, albeit on a much larger
scale.

It is absolutely critical to the long-term success of PyCon as a
volunteer-run community conference that each attendee take responsibility
for their experience. Science fiction fandom -- the part that holds
volunteer-run events such as Worldcon -- has lots of experience with this
model. It is one reason why such cons make a fuss about attendees being
"members", compared to "purchasing a ticket" (which is what you do for a
commercialized Star Trek con).
--
Aahz ([email protected]) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/

"It is easier to optimize correct code than to correct optimized code."
--Bill Harlan

You have a lot of good points, Aahz. I was thinking of the talks and
such as a kind of seminar learning event, not a participatory
community event. I went for two reasons:

1) To learn more Plone / Zope
2) To hang out with Python geeks

The first one I didn't really get anywhere with, but I got lots of
time with PyCon attendees, which was cool. I hope I can go next year,
make new friends and maybe present some of my own stuff.

Mike

 

[Aahz]

Fair enough. But then I question the sensibility in saying "it is XY's
fault" at all.

Somebody not involved in organising was not happy with the Con. You
may take the criticism or leave it. The criticism may be justified or
not. But saying that it is "his fault" is useless in my opinion, it
even discourages feedback. It think it's okay to evaluate something
that you didn't help coming into existence. A good point is a good
point no matter who makes it.

Two things:

* There's a reason why I labelled it a "rant" ;-)

* You may be misunderstanding the distinction between "fault" and
"blame".

When there is fault, it is a person's responsibility to correct it.
Blame, OTOH, is about responsibility that *should* have been taken.
We're not telling people that they should volunteer to run PyCon
(although the vast majority of people who help run events like this end
up enjoying them more than people who just show up). But anyone who
complains and doesn't volunteer is at fault -- the only recourse likely
to produce results is to change their volunteer status.

As I said, feedback is welcome. Those of us who volunteer do so because
we care about the Python community and want to put on a successful event
for everyone. But we can rarely make commitments to change anything
unless people step up to fix them.

It's really no different from the people who show up here on c.l.py to
complain about Python: the answer inevitably boils down to "write a
patch!"

 

[fumanchu]

Finally, trying to satisfy a thousand people is impossible.

Well understood. Sorry if I implied it was an easy job. I know it
isn't.

If you did not like the programming this year (aside from the sponsor
talks) and you did not participate in organizing PyCon or in delivering
presentations, it is YOUR FAULT. PERIOD. EXCLAMATION POINT!

This would be true, except that the two talks I proposed last year
were essentially denied because they were too advanced, so I didn't
even bother this year. Perhaps I should have, but the PERIOD needs to
at least be replaced by a COMMA as long as the talk-acceptance
committee continues to reject more advanced talk topics in favor of
HOWTOs and Introduction To Package X.


Robert Brewer
(e-mail address removed)