On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 6:35 AM, Marc-Andre <marc(a)uberbox.org> wrote:
Hey Leila,
On 2016-08-10 01:08 AM, Leila Zia wrote:
Are we considering to not continue the support for the Discussion Rooms
idea as suggested
<https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Discussion_Room> in
Wikimania London and explored in London, Mexico City, and Esino Lario? If
so, can you expand why? Quite a few of the Discussion sessions in Esino
Lario were very well attended, the participants took active role in these
sessions, and the general sentiment that I got from these sessions was that
they were helpful.
I'm not sure how you get to that conclusion - BoF sessions are a more
general concept that encompasses discussions neatly; I'm not sure why you
feel that does not provide support?
Perhaps there is an aspect I didn't understand. What's missing?
From the point of view of an audience of these sessions, I see few
differences: There is a specific structure to Discussion Room sessions that
is described in, for example here
<https://wikimania2016.wikimedia.org/wiki/Discussions#Outline>. There is
also a process regarding call for proposals/abstracts, reviewing them, and
accepting them. This level of freedom for a subset of people (Discussion
Room organizers) to control the outline and processes around Discussion
Room sessions may be in contrast with what you said earlier regarding the
conditions that you would like to define for discussions happening under
BoF: " They are generally more specialized or aimed towards a more precise
public, and are not selected by the programme committee nor curated beyond
a simple set of criteria[1] so they are more free-form." and "[1] They need
to be directly related to the movement or an allied movement.". I want to
specifically emphasize "nor curated beyond a simple set of criteria".
If you see a way for allowing/having the kind of structure and process that
Discussion Rooms require under BoF, then I have no more questions. :) If
not, I'd appreciate if you help me understand this better.
Thanks,
Leila
-- Marc
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