On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 14:05, Kaplan, Deborah <deborah.kap...@tufts.edu> wrote: > > The tricky part for the old guard to do is how do you manage preserving as > much of the original vibe as you can while not putting up a wall that keeps > out scary strangers. It's hard work, but not impossible. People have proposed > lots of potential solutions in this conversation: say there is no problem and > we like it the way it is; lottery for a single conference; different > registration times for a single conference; one large and many regional > conferences; shrink the current conference even further. All of them have > pros and cons. As long as people are willing to talk through them and be > willing to change, the conference will probably be the stronger for it. >
Well said, Deborah. I'd love if we had one or more hosting proposals for #c4l13 that suggest tinkering with, or scrapping, the formula. Otherwise this thread will end the way many of our threads do, by fading into a series of bacon and OCLC jokes, which are then rehashed year after year. Though I've thoroughly enjoyed all six code4lib conferences, I can appreciate folks' arguments for change. I will say that I think we've done a decent job at not putting up a wall that keeps out scary strangers -- it's unscientific, but the opening show of hands the past few years has shown that we continue to attract many dozens of newcomers every year. -Mike
