FOSS4G'13

Was it that it was all about data and not about open software?  Memory is hazy but it should have gone thru if it was ranked 40 on the community vote

Good point. I can't find a spreadsheet wth the long abstracts for rejections in. All I can see is
"This presentation discusses the problems associated with using geospatial BigData" in his short abstract.

Big data, wasnt clear if the data was Big Open Data.....

I recall it was a combination of the subject (not clear it's Open Data), him being also co-author for another talk AND already a big bunch of  presenters from OpenGeo...

Found his long abstract:

"BigData represents one of the most important topics in the geospatial field nowadays. However, the benefits of using BigData might be shadowed by some of the problems associated to it, and as BigData gets more popular and accessible, wrong usage becomes more frequent.    Discussion about the dangers of BigData is not new in a more general context. This presentation tries to adapt that discussion to the geospatial context, and to raise awareness about the problems associated to using BigData.

 - so yes, there's nothing about "Open" there at all. Shall I gently let him down?

Barry, how does Victor know their result? That link you provided above doesn't work for me.
I can't see anything in the selection spreadsheet that would indicate a refusal based on score, so it must have been for the 'other' softer reasons decided upon by the LoC - which is their role of course.

It definitely worked this morning. Did Paul Ramsey leak the results URL and has now closed it? key=321cba looks like a password to me...

I'll email Paul R and see...

that would explain this: https://twitter.com/pduchesne/status/332931071060619266. I did raise it with Paul, but I guess he only got around to it today?

That URL is timing out because svn.osgeo.org dies on its rear frequently, it seems. I've emailed Paul R about the voting results.

How does this sound to Victor? I suspect he assumed 'Open' was implicit, and may ask for another chance to rewrite, but I don't think we offer that to him at this point.

Victor,

 your presentation proposal was rejected since we didn't see anything relating to *Open* Geospatial in your full abstract. As such we could not be sure it would be appropriate for the conference. I hope you appreciate that we could not ask individual authors for clarification and had to base our decision on the material presented.

 We also had to reject presentations for not using open-source technology (such as those that only mentioned use of Google Earth).

- foss4g committee

Suggest that 'reject' is replaced with 'not taken forward' (or some such 'softer' word). Also I'd add something about trying to balance a lot of different issues, speaker perspectives and organsiation representation.  Perhaps. Other than that, seems fine to me.

Paul has just sent his apologies for leaking the key! I'll send a message to Victor, probably tomorrow.

Bangs head against wall ...

Add to cookbook: Remember to always put "Committee decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into" on selection process.

:-)

Barry don't get dragged into explaining to Victor otherwise the debate will just go on and on.

If we are going to respond at all we should just say that;
The LOC selected on a number of factors with the community vote being a strong influence but not the sole determinant. We hope you ail accept that we selected presentations with the best intent to deliver a well balanced program for our delegates.

A response like that can look like a palming off which just doesn't help the situation. What's really pissed me off now is that the OpenGeo guys have started complaining about their presentation rankings on the mailing list even though they have five or so workshop slots. No pleasing some people...

I'm happy to give complaints one response but I'm not happy to get into extended debates, especially on mailing lists. That seems like a fair policy, especially when the complaint has clear misunderstandings - "you filtered out anything without free or open in it"...

One of the reasons I "wade in" on these things is to try and keep most of you guys out of the arguments so you can get on with your day jobs. I'm also finding voicing these responses appropriately as an interesting intellectual challenge...

BTW, Barry, I was very happy that you did get stuck in! ;-) As Steven said separately today, your intervention was as effective and well put as a committee-finessed email was likely to be.

I agree we shouldn't get drawn into detailed reasoning of individual decisions as there were all sorts of balancing factors we looked at. (Though which of the four lists he ended in would be indicative!).

And remember that this Basecamp project may be open for scrutiny afterwards too. Only private for now.