On Aug 15, 2013 8:20 PM, "WereSpielChequers" werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
I've been to three Wikimanias but not the last two, so my comments may be
out of date. But the format where you have multiple concurrent threads each with three talks run one after another between breaks quickly gets out of sync. It really needs a strong session moderator in each room who can end things on schedule, otherwise it can be very unfair to the third presenter who sometimes finds that the first two have each taken a third of their time. Also it is impossible to plan your day to attend multiple sessions across threads, especially if between two breaks you want to see the first session in thread 1 the second session of thread two and the third of thread 3.
This one actually had explicitly scheduled talks. There were still 90-minute slots with 2 or 3 talks in them, but the schedule indicated visually whether this was divided 60-30 or 45-45 or what have you.
I think this was an improvement over the 2011 model, and Deryck, who made the printed schedule, agreed.
Roan