[LGM] Call for Participation

[Øyvind Kolås]

On Fri, Jan 3, 2014 at 1:23 AM, Gregory Pittman <gpittman at iglou.com> wrote:
> As it currently exists, the Call seems a blind sinkhole. Presumably, people
> are making proposals (how many? we don't know)( what kind? we don't know).
> I wonder at what point there will be some publishing of what is being
> offered/proposed, so that those visiting the site can have a look-see.

I am on the content selection group; and know just as little as the
public. It is not common for conferences to announce submissions of
talks before they have been vetted and verified that they actually
make it as part of the program.

Before the content submission deadline has passed, and at least a week
for the people selecting the content to communicate back with the
people proposing content - I wouldn't expect the website to contain
any live statistics; names of submitters or titles of talk since it
all would be pure speculation. I would however expect the feedback to
the actual submitters to be better than how I remember it from last
year..

> I think this should be an aspect of openness, that we communicate what's
> going on as the meeting develops, which will hopefully generate some
> interest, maybe even some feedback about how things are going.

At the moment it seems like the CMS of the LGM website is providing us
with limitations and friction; and least of all flexibility. The site
isn't even able to provide people part of the LGM organizing teams
with preview of pages before they are officially published without
creating various wordpress user accounts.

> In regard to that last element, maybe there is some capacity to allow for
> some visitor feedback that can be publicly displayed (after some
> moderation?). I don't know how the site works. Let's think about the
> psychology of generating emotional interest in LGM 2014. When we get to the
> point that LGM comes out of a can, and can't be spontaneous, can't be
> reinvented, we're in trouble.

One thing that possibly could be done is for whoever has access to the
backend of the sinkhole to make a brief summary of what has been
received thus far; in an attempt to raise awareness for others.