I think it's disconcerting (if somewhat comical) that the concern that the ideas shared here would get rebuttals -- a concern that I and I think many members of the TOC also likely share -- itself got a rebuttal.  I think the discussion here is terrific, but I am concerned that the tone from the CNCF seems to be more of trying to explain how these concerns either aren't real concerns or are already being addressed.  I hope that staff is hearing that there is broad consensus that change is needed -- and that this should be embraced as a positive and natural consequence of the popularity of both the technologies and the conference rather than something to be resisted or explained away.

In particular: I very much share the concern about the length limit imposed by the CFP.  900 characters is absurdly short (the "3 tweet" characterization is apt); a 900 word limit would be much more reasonable.  I also share the concern about the dividing up of the proposal between "abstract" and "benefit to the community" and so on; a good abstract should contain everything that is needed to evaluate it -- and that evaluation criteria should be clearly spelled out.  By encouraging longer, more comprehensive abstracts, you will be encouraging better written ones -- which will give the PC a better basis for being double-blind in early rounds.  As a concrete step, I might encourage a group to be drawn up that consists of folks that have experience in both KubeCon, in other practitioner conferences, and in academic conferences (a few of whom have already identified themselves on this thread!); I think that their broad perspective is invaluable.

         - Bryan

On Thu, Oct 4, 2018 at 8:22 AM Dan Kohn <dan@...> wrote:

On Thu, Oct 4, 2018 at 11:18 AM Matthew Farina <matt@...> wrote:

Yes, we're putting together a Google Doc with comments and the conference co-chairs will be providing some responses.

 

This sort of feels like the ideas shared here are going to get rebuttals. Can we instead take all of this as ideas to look at how we refine and improve things in the future? Where we can intentionally lead the efforts to continuously improve and adapt as things change.

The conference and the processes associated with it have iterated significantly each time. I assure you we are all reading this feedback carefully and thinking through the implications of adopting it. I think there is less status quo bias than you might suspect.