should the community presentations accept entries without a recording?

[elmiko]

currently all the community presentations are required to have a recording of some sort. should we change this policy to allow entries that consist solely of a slide deck or other materials?

[erikerlandson]

Does a deck stand on its own? Is it accessible and intelligible without the accompanying narration? That may need to be considered on a case by case basis

[erikerlandson]

Maybe there are options for adding narration. Do the talk internally over BJ, record that?

[dfeddema]

Animations and speaker notes can make a deck much easier to understand on its own. I often learn about new subjects by viewing presentations online with no voice or video recording.

[erikerlandson]

Syncing speaker notes w/ a deck might work

[elmiko]

Does a deck stand on its own? Is it accessible and intelligible without the accompanying narration? That may need to be considered on a case by case basis

this is my concern as well, we will have to consider each deck on its own merits before including it to ensure that they make sense by themselves. i would want to have a policy about what are the criteria for accepting a deck/materials only presentation.

[EldritchJS]

Maybe there are options for adding narration. Do the talk internally over BJ, record that?

I like this idea, would caution to include mention in the description that the recording was internal and not at the conference/workshop/event.

[erikerlandson]

I thought about this some more, and there are a couple things that concern me about "bare decks"

1. It puts us in the position of evaluating every deck for being sufficiently self contained. That is like a whole new task, and who is responsible for it?
2. As Mike mentioned above, we're also in the awkward position of having to figure out some kind of policy and criteria for defining what "self contained" means.
3. If we didn't do a rigorous job of the first two, the page quickly becomes a "deck dumping ground" which isn't a good look, and also doesn't fulfill the purpose of the page, which is to be maximally informative.
4. Even if we figured out these first two issues, I don't think it incentivizes good decks and talks. Putting too much information in a deck is a presentation antipattern and favoring "self contained" decks arguably encourages this antipattern.

I think it would be preferable to encourage people to do a brown-bag over BJ, and record it. Or record it in some other way. That allows us to maintain our current working policy, and also we get an internal presentation out of it, which facilitates the sharing of knowledge. And it allows us to post a recorded talk that is optimally informative for the community.

[willb]

I’m in favor of keeping the criteria we have; my thinking is broadly aligned with Erik’s. Basically, the point of this section isn’t to capture every talk (or even every great talk, since a lot of our great talks haven’t been recorded). Rather, it’s supposed to provide an accessible way for people to catch up on what we’re doing. Videos are accessible in a way that decks are not (and we don’t want to incentivize making decks that are stand alone apart from a talk).

Fortunately, there are many opportunities to deliver talks and have them recorded (OpenShift Commons briefings are super-appropriate and also attract an audience).

[erikerlandson]

Will's point is also good: even if I give a good talk, and it is recorded, doesn't necessarily mean it is the right fit for this particular site. Depends on the topic of the talk and whether that is aligned with the site goals.

[willb]

Re: not encouraging standalone decks, should we also encourage (but not require) handouts?

[erikerlandson]

I think encouraging handouts is a good idea.

[elmiko]

thank you everyone for commenting here.

given the feedback and discussion surrounding this issue, i am going to close it and we will progress as we have been. community presentations will require a recording, and that recording should be from the conference (ie no post-conference private recordings).

[dfeddema]

I think you can achieve a higher quality recorded talk when you have the ability to go back and do edits and retakes, just as a feature film is generally a better product than a live stage performance.