[FOSDEM] Call for Participation: Community DevRoom at FOSDEM 2017

[Leslie Hawthorn]

Hello everyone,

We are happy to let everyone know that the Community DevRoom will be
held this year at the FOSDEM Conference. FOSDEM is the premier free
and open source software event in Europe, taking place in Brussels
from 4-5 February at the Université libre de Bruxelles. You can learn
more about the conference at https://fosdem.org.

== tl;dr ==
* Community DevRoom takes place on Sunday, 5 February

* Submit your papers via Pentabarf at
https://penta.fosdem.org/submission/FOSDEM17 *and* PaperCall.io at
https://www.papercall.io/communitydevroom

* Indicate if your session will run for 30 or 45 minutes, including
Q&A. If you can do either 30 or 45 minutes, please let us know!

* Submission deadline is 25 November 2016 and accepted speakers will
be notified by 12 December 2016


== In more detail ==
We are happy to let everyone know that the Community DevRoom will be
held this year at the FOSDEM Conference. FOSDEM is the premier free
and open source software event in Europe, taking place in Brussels
from 4-5 February at the Université libre de Bruxelles. You can learn
more about the conference at https://fosdem.org.

The Community DevRoom will take place on Sunday, 5 February.

The purpose of the devroom is to provide concrete, useful advice on
how to best enable contributors to be successful so more FOSS software
gets written.

== Why This DevRoom ==

Our goals in running this DevRoom are to:

* Connect folks interested in nurturing their communities with one
another so they can share knowledge during and long after FOSDEM

* Educate those who are primarily software developers on
community-oriented topics that are vital in the process of software
development, e.g. effective collaboration

* Provide concrete advice on dealing with squishy human problems


== Talk Topics ==

We are seeking proposals on all aspects of creating and nurturing
communities for free software projects.

Please submit a proposal on any topic of your choice, but here are
some suggestions to help get your creativity engaged:


1) How to navigate the different cycles in the lives of contributors
What happens when you’re just feeling bored with what you’re doing or
burn out in general? How can we plan for the natural ebbs and flows of
contributor interest and availability?


2) Compensating volunteers
Is this important? How is it done well? Should we discourage people
from “working for free”?


3) Career progression for community oriented professionals
How do you level up as a community manager? Developer Advocate? What
skills do you need to best serve your community and how do you acquire
them? How do we explain what we do all day so people value this work?

4) Community health metrics
How do you tell if your community is actually doing well? How do you
gather real numbers to prove that your gut instincts are correct?

5) Conflict resolution
How do we continue working well together when there are conflicts? Is
there a difference in how types of conflicts best get resolved”this
code is terrible” vs. “we should have a contributor agreement”? We are
especially interested in how tos / success stories from projects that
have weathered conflict.

Again, these are just suggestions. We welcome proposals on any aspect
of community building!

== Preparing Your Submission & Deadlines ==

=== Length of Presentation ===

We are looking for talk submissions between 30 and 45 minutes in
length, including time for Q&A. In general, we are hoping to accept as
many talks as possible so we would really appreciate it if you could
make all of your remarks in 30 minutes - our DevRoom is only a single
day -  but if you need longer just let us know.

=== Anything Extra You Would Like Us to Know ===

Beyond giving us your speaker bio and paper abstract, make sure to let
us know anything else you’d like to as part of your submission. Some
folks like to share their Twitter handles, others like to make sure we
can take a look at their GitHub activity history - whatever works for
you. We especially welcome videos of you speaking elsewhere, or even
just a list of talks you have done previously. First time speakers
are, of course, welcome!

=== Submission Instructions ===

In order to make review easiest for our program committee, we are
reviewing sessions in Papercall.io to make comments and share feedback
amongst reviewers. However, you still need to complete your submission
via FOSDEM’s Pentabarf system so we can ensure accepted proposals are
properly published on the conference website.

Yes, we know it is a pain to do the same submission in two places but
your Community DevRoom committee thanks you for your diligence and for
making the review process easier for us!


Pentabarf Submission URL:
https://penta.fosdem.org/submission/FOSDEM17

Papercall.io Submission URL:
https://www.papercall.io/communitydevroom

== Key Dates ==

* CFP opens 18 October 2016

* Proposals due in both Pentabarf and Papercall.io by 25 November 2016

* Speakers notified by 12 December 2016

* DevRoom takes place 5 February 2016 at FOSDEM


If you have any questions, please let us know!


Cheers,

Leslie Hawthorn and Laura Czajkowski
Community DevRoom Co-Organizers
mebelh at gmail.com and laura.czajkowski at gmail.com

-- 
Leslie Hawthorn
http://twitter.com/lhawthorn
http://hawthornlandings.org