On 10/18/06, Curtis Villamizar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
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So ... more transparency is good. That was my only point.
As a follow up, can we increase transparency without compromising the
privacy of PC feedback? That seemed to be the direction Martin was
headed in and my question about the ratings has been a red herring.
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<long post warning - sorry - at the top is my read of a problem and at
the bottom are three specific ways to provide greater accountability,
transparency, and leverage the expertise in the Program Committee
better>
This is an especially sensitive subject to me because I have both, had
a talk rejected and, have chaired many of these groups evaluating
talks of others.
When I left Merit to help start the Equinix thing I put in a talk
abstract that was rejected. I was suprised because, given my history
as chair and the years working at Merit with the NANOG community, I
knew the talk was a good fit for this audience.
Seeing the rationale for rejecting the talk, I swore the reviewers
must have looked at a different talk ! Or maybe they didn't know what
I would say to the slides (there is no way they could know this). Or
maybe they there was an axe to grind at work. When I responded to the
rejection rationale points, the response was the expected circling of
the wagons, including assertions that my "pushing for this talk" was
further proof that I was my intent was to promote my commercial
interests. sigh.
What to do? Rejection sucks, particularly in this way. While not true
in my case, I know some folks have to go through their own internal
processes to be allowed to *submit* a talk, often involving their boss
and others whose opinion of them matters for advancement etc. And
after that, to have you talk rejected is an internal loss of face.
These people will certainly think twice about submitting a talk to
NANOG again, and I think this is a problem to at least recognize as
contributing to the lack of talks being submitted to NANOG. Others
have responded to me when I brought this up was "Grow a thicker skin"
or "Rejection is a part of life - move on, try again." Maybe this is a
valid sentiment, but I would suggest
1) If people have the energy and time to contribute, they ought to be
encouraged to do so. They are apparently rare as evidenced by the
relatively low # of talk abstracts submitted.
2) It is in the best interests of the community, from a long term
perspective, to help develop these people with the inclination to
contribute, and to help develop their presentations and ensure their
continued willingness to contribute into the future.
3) The shepparding of *all* reasonably interesting talk ideas should
be part of the process. It is to some extent, but seems today to be
more in the form of "conditional acceptance", or in other words,
"someone voiced a concern, valid or not, fix it and you are in".
If you look at the results of the current system, based on my years
working with NANOG, there is a serious problem that needs to be
highlighted. Among people whose talks were rejected in the past,
A) only a couple of them turned in presentation abstracts again,
B) some don't attend NANOG again, soured by the experience or perhaps
feeling that they clearly don't belong in this crowd, and/or
C) relationships between the submitter and the members of the reviewer
panel are strained
Having said all of this, many of the rejected talks are clearly not
appropriate talks for NANOG, typically submitted by a person who has
never attended NANOG. Putting these inappropriate talks aside, I don't
think we are doing enough to actively go out and get good talks,
sheppard the next generations of speakers, and grow the NANOG
community.
PROPOSAL:
I would like to propose a system whereby there is better:
A) Accountability. The program committee members each have to find and
assemble 90 minutes of talks for the program at least once a year.
They are the point person for the topic and will "recruit and
sheppard" all potential speakers in that area. They are experts enough
to be responsible for the quality of the 90 minutes and are judged by
the Steering Committee based on their sessions.
B) Transparency. The speaker prospects have the opportunity to have
frank brainstorming and discussion session with the Program Committee
member that is ultimately responsible for their section. The Program
Committee person will know what the speaker will say, why the talk is
important, and will ensure that if the talk is rejected, the rejected
speaker will understand why the talk was rejected.
C) Leverage the Expertise and People Network of the Program Committee.
The charter currently says that all PC members will review all talks,
a mistake in my opinion. The PC members are specialists and travel in
different circles if we (the Steering Committee) did our job right.
Therefore, they are better suited to review and assemble talks in
their area of expertise. An expert in 10G backbone core architecture
is no more qualified to review emerging web content than a W2C person
is qualified to review DWDM advances. The Program Committee members
have an opportunity to leverage and reinforce their leadership roles
in their specific communities rather than being only a "member" of a
broad committee.
The Program Committee should be free to set things up this way and I
suspect they would each have a lesser load, be closer to the
community, provide greater transparency and the process and results
would be better.
Bill
