Hi Marc,
On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 6:54 PM, Marc A. Pelletier <marc(a)uberbox.org> wrote:
Hello Lodewijk,
On 2016-08-06 10:36 AM, Lodewijk wrote:
unfortunately I have not spotted a response to
this email. Could someone
from the 2017 team confirm what is the situation at this point? Or who I
should be talking with?
Sorry, my response had remained a draft that I forgot to complete and
send. :-) Right now, the draft programme does not make distinctions along
the "presentation", "workshop" and "discussions" lines more
than the type
of space available (magistral vs tables). I expect the allocation will
remain fluid until we have a better idea of how many of each type need to
be scheduled.
That said, I expect many of the roundtable discussions would fit
Bird-of-a-feather sessions: those are explicitly set aside for
self-organizing groups that want a session in whichever format meets their
needs and are able and willing to take "ownership" of them. 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.
I am not sure if I understand the above fully. Can you help me please? :)
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 realize that from the perspective of the local organizers it may seem
that Discussions can fit in Bird-of-a-feather, but unless we have strong
reasons to merge them with other sessions or move them under a new
umbrella, it is better to keep them in a dedicated track. This will help
the team that organizes these discussions to improve the track, build a
stronger reputation/brand, and maintain continuity which is key in this
context. :) (And needless to say, sorry if the reasons are already
documented somewhere and I didn't manage to find them.)
Best,
Leila
--
Leila Zia
Senior Research Scientist
Wikimedia Foundation