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FOSDEM / pretalx-integration

Pretalx at FOSDEM
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Add optional field for affiliation / place of work for speakers #36

Open RichiH opened 8 months ago

kergon commented 8 months ago

For what purpose? I strongly oppose this - even as an optional field.

People often have multiple affiliations - which would they be expected to provide? If their submission is not connected to their employment, why would they be expected to disclose their employer if they prefer not to? What's the sanction if people fail to disclose? The data would necessarily be incomplete, but there's a risk that people would analyse it statistically anyway and draw incorrect conclusions due to under-reporting.

I know we are regularly asked for this data but this is a situation where I believe that this is not data we should be collecting and having no data is preferable to having under-reported data.

Speakers are already required to provide biographies, which we publish, and that is the right place for them to describe any affiliations that they decide are relevant to their submission(s).

RichiH commented 8 months ago

The intent seems clear.

Is "we already do this, but with less clean data" a fair summary of your words? In which case, I would argue in favor of cleaner data.

Sent by mobile; please excuse my brevity.

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johanvdw commented 8 months ago

It was not necessary for the 100+ conferences run on pretalx and the previous editions of FOSDEM. For many people, giving an affiliation is not easy. I would not know what I should write there.

RichiH commented 8 months ago

It's rather common at other conferences I speak at. Still, it seems optional at max would make sense then.

pieterdp commented 8 months ago

I'd add two fields that say

  1. I am submitting this talk as employee of a company (yes/no) (I mean I am giving this talk on the request of my employer, who pays for it etc.)
  2. Name of the company (optional, only used for improving our conference)