From: Matt Pattison Date: 2006-07-29T17:43:07+09:00 Subject: Re: About last night ... On 7/28/06, dblack@wobblini.net wrote: > Hi -- > > On Fri, 28 Jul 2006, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote: > > > a. The upcoming Ruby Conference in Colorado had 73 proposals for papers > > submitted, of which only 16 could fit into the schedule, > > b. There are only 240 slots for *attendees* to the conference, while there > > are most likely thousands with the means and desire to attend, and > > c. Given b, people are actually running scripts to poll the conference web > > site and grab the registration form, in the hopes that they'll be one of the > > lucky 240. > > > Regional conferences are, I think, very important -- and very "real", > if you know what I mean. I was also thrilled to see the Japanese Ruby > Conference take place, as well as EuRuKo (is that happening this > year?) and other events, including those that Ruby Central has > partnered in (Silicon Valley Ruby Conference, RailsConf Europe [in > September!], RailsConf 2007). > > We need a distributed, Ruby Centrifugal model. Even if we turned > RubyConf into a six-track, 1000-person extravaganza, the meet-up needs > of the Ruby community on a broad scale would not have been fully > addressed. They *can't* be addressed by one conference. > It is an interesting argument, that the Ruby community has grown, from tiny to quite large (at least if you count the size of the hype), *therefore* Ruby is now too big for a single one track conference, *therefore* Ruby is too big for one unifying conference that brings all the leading developers together, *therefore* we should instead focus on lots of regional mini-conferences. I don't think I buy it. Isn't the whole point of a conference to hear from and meet the leading practitioners from around the world in that field, be exposed to their ideas and learn about the cutting edge of the field? Isn't the whole idea to get as many of these people together as possible in the one place? How does lots of regional mini-conferences and a de-emphasised main conference achieve this? If by regional we mean a European Ruby conference, a Japanese conference, a US conference, then I can see the point, international travel can be expensive. *If* however, we mean a Portland/Seattle conference, a Silicon Valley conference, an East Coast conference, a Canadian conference, and *if* people go to these mini conferences but don't drive a few hours to go to the main (US) Ruby conference, then I think this would have the consequence of fragmenting the community and diluting the benefits of going to the main Ruby conference. I agree with Tim Bray's point that regional conferences can be great and don't have to detract from one main conference that serves as the focal point for the community (eg JavaOne), I just worry about the Ruby community not having that focal point, or having multiple focal points and losing cohesion (RubyGems is something that springs to mind as something that may have only been possible due to the cohesive nature of the Ruby community, and due to getting most of the interested parties together at the one conference). Also, I can't help but feel that by restricting the number of tracks, presentations, and attendees (if it is true that this is what is happending), there might be a hint of elitism creeping in, that the Ruby community might be losing some of the egalitarianism that characterised it in the past. I would imagine the effect of such a policy would be to make the conference more of an "in-crowd" event rather than a melting-pot of different ideas and approaches, whether that is the intention or not. These three points are just my skeptical thoughts when I read about this year's Ruby conference, and the trend toward regional mini-conferences. I don't necessarily agree with all the points I've made, I'm probably just being the devil's advocate (I'm definitely a strong believer in the benefits of local meetups, for instance, so I'm not sure why I feel that conferences should be centralised). Please feel free to point out the many ways that my skepticism is unfounded. Matt