FOSS4G'13: Keynote speaker section

Keynote speaker section

Posted by Barry Rowlingson on February 9, 2013

I'd like to add a section to the Programme menu of the web page for Keynote Speakers

1. I think we should try and refer to them as Keynote speakers rather than Plenary speakers. According to Wikipedia:

"A plenary session (with a plenary speech or plenary talk) is a made up phrase often used when a speaker cannot think of an appropriate alternative in conferences to define the portions of the conference when all members of all groups are invited to attend"

Since there is other stuff going on at the Plenary sessions we need to distinguish the keynotes from the assorted OSGeo business.

2. For each speaker I'd like to put in a little bio and a headshot, so could Steven or whoever else is communicating with keynotes either request this or agree for us to scrape a headshot and bio from whatever we know or can find out about them online. This could form part of the 'can we publicise you as being a keynote speaker?' request.

3. I wouldn't expect talk titles or outlines for many months yet, but it'll be good to build up the keynote page as we get confirmations.

Comments

Barry Rowlingson on February 11, 2013:

Further to this, I'd like to add a web page for each part of the conference under "Programme", namely, and in maybe this order (debate over order and naming welcome)

Keynotes
Presentations
Workshops
Academic Track
Map Gallery
Hackathon
Code Sprint

I'm happy to write a few lines for each of these pages to get it started, but eventually expect people to take ownership of a section.

This will give us a framework for programme information pages that might otherwise just end up in a blog post on the site.

Antony Scott on February 12, 2013:

Barry, good idea. Might be useful to define owner of each page, to make sure it gets beyond the few lines you kick off with. Antony

Rollo Home on February 12, 2013:

Barry - what is the process of adding content to these (or any) pages? People aren't editing directly are they? Copy is going via you/Jo for upload?

Barry Rowlingson on February 12, 2013:

At the moment most of the page edits are being done by Jo, Antony and me, but I'm not sure that's sustainable. People should be able to edit content that they know about - and other people should be able to edit/correct it too.

Whether this becomes an obligation is beyond my pay grade to decide. I'm hopeful that the WordPress platform should make it just easier for someone to create the content directly on the site than to type it up and send it to an editor - especially if the author wants pictures and so on.

I don't know much about WPs permission system, so it may be fine-grained enough that we can give admin rights to certain people just for certain pages, or we may decide we trust each other enough that we can all have permissions to edit anything, and encourage each other to fix any typos on any page we come across.

Rollo Home on February 12, 2013:

I'd agree - it's too much to ask for someone to take on an editor role, and having more than one person becomes pointless fairly quickly. Besides, I'd like to think that the Committee can be trusted to be sensible with copy and to seek clarification from Steve where they have questions.
So who can comment on and implement the necessary rights structure for WP?

Antony Scott on February 12, 2013:

I wouldn’t see a problem in a number of people having editor or author roles, as long as we had some sort of protocol about who did what, and we had regular backups in case it all went pear-shaped. WordPress roles are as below for those who are interested – to publish and edit pages (which is what we would need if we are sharing out responsibility), I think people would need to be Editors.
At the moment, Jo, Barry, Rollo and myself are Administrators, so could implement changes.
Jo might have more to add as she’s been the WP guru so far.

Antony

================================================================
Administrator - Somebody who has access to all the administration features
Editor - Somebody who can publish and manage posts and pages as well as manage other users' posts, etc.
Author - Somebody who can publish and manage their own posts
Contributor - Somebody who can write and manage their posts but not publish them
Subscriber - Somebody who can only manage their profile

Jo Cook on February 13, 2013:

I'd be happy making anyone on the committee either an author or an editor. I don't have time to sort out lots of wordpress admin right now, but could do it at the weekend.

The database is currently being backed up weekly but could be done more regularly- and BarryR talked about some sort of automatic file backup- BarryR is that being done yet?

Jo

Steven Feldman on February 14, 2013:

Excellent idea to distribute the load of adding to the web site. I have no doubt that we are sensible and competent, some of us may even be prolific authors given the chance.

On the title topic of this discussion. I have mailed the 4 keynoters asking them for approval to publicise, a short biography and a photo. That should provide some content for that page. I will take ownership of that if you give me the permissions.

I have drafted the suggested text for the registrations page and could post that as well once I have permissions but perhaps that is a bit too urgent.

Barry Rowlingson on February 20, 2013:

I've added the sub-pages for the programme menu, currently they are set private so don't appear on the menu and can't be seen by the unwashed masses.

If anyone digs in and does some editing then either make the pages public or just advertise the fact here, and then maybe we can mass-publicify them all.

So, who has main responsibility for what?

Keynotes: Steven
Map Gallery: Rollo
Hackathon: Mark (needs an account)
Code Sprint: ?
Presentations: ?
Workshops: ?
Academic Track: Suchith, Jeremy?