Firstly, I won’t be going as I’ll be on honeymoon.
With BarCamp Galway less than a month away, the usual blogstorm has broken out about how to make BarCamp better, how to break the cliqué-ness of it, how to avoid wikis, make sign up easier, all the usual stuff that we’ve heard at each one since the original…
Damien has a good post up with a bunch of comments, and I’m reposting one of my comments below. I have some ideas that I think would help the process, I have a framework for putting them into place, but I need a coder to volunteer some time to make it happen. Will any of you take my up on my challenge??
Oh yeah, and regarding wikis – I had an idea for BC Dublin that never got implemented…
Michele Neylon from Blacknight purchased www.barcamp.ie on my advice ages ago. Any future BarCamps in the island of Ireland should contact him and request usage of their sub-domain (BK will most likely look after the hosting as part of their sponsorship, they’ve been good to all the previous Barcamps) – i.e. galway.barcamp.ie
On that sub-domain have the ‘What is BarCamp’ and a sign-up form as the main page. Have sub-pages for ‘location, direction and accommodation’, blog, attendees and talk lists. Make it clear and easily navigable.
Is there anyone out there who is complaining about the wiki usage that would be willing to donate a few hours of coding time to developing a basic sign-up page that would then spit out the list of attendees onto another page?
This would also mean that you would get the same info about each attendee in the same format. It would give the ability to send a couple of reminder emails nearer to the time and/or inform attendees about any changes, rather than trying to advise them via wikis and multiple blogs.
Right then, so who’s going to stop their moaning and actually do something to fix this??
Update: Visual version of the proposal here. Get your comments and suggestions in before iit’s too late!
Anything we can do RE: a facebook app?
Pair up 1 to 1 with the contact you’ll bring. Adds box on profile saying “X is brining Y to BarCamp Galway” etc.
How’s that sound? Any adaptation’s?
Posted on August 24, 2007 at 11:20 am.
Worth considering, but I’d be thinking that the first iteration should fall under the KISS principle – Keep It Simple Stoopid – the easier and cleaner the better…
Keeping it all in one system (we stay up if Facebook goes down) and also not requiring people to have an account might be better to attract non-techies… We could allow people to ‘invite’ their friends when they sign-up, that way we could trace the accepted invites back to the inviter. But do we really need that level of info? Not Sure.
I think purely being able to sign yourself up using a simple form would be the easiest way to go. Require Name & email address, optional for website (same as most blog comments) and have a simple captcha (such as add 5 + 5) to stop bots.
Allow people to fill in a 2nd form to invite their friends to BarCamp, require sender’s mail address, address(es) of friends and room for a personal message (optional).
Posted on August 24, 2007 at 11:28 am.
Robin I would have to strongly disagree: this would require prospective attendees to have a Facebook or register for one. The registration process would be even more convoluted than it already is.
Elly, send me your requirements, I’ll knock an app to do that. I’ll get in touch with Michele for the hosting.
Posted on August 24, 2007 at 12:10 pm.
There are a bunch of people I’d like to invite… they aren’t scared of tech but KISS *really* applies to them.
Wiki… great techie idea. Could GrannyMar sign up unaided the first time she used one?
Go with a form and reminders closer to the date.
Having said that… the invites in FaceBook are an idea to get interest, but everyone is not in facebook despite their best attempts.
Posted on August 24, 2007 at 12:11 pm.
Ooh ooh, this gives me an idea for a CodeJam! I’ll “run it up the flag………..”
Posted on August 24, 2007 at 12:19 pm.
Separately, I think Glenn Jones still has an open invitation for all BarCamps to make use of their backnetwork system for free like we did for BarCampIreland1
http://www.backnetwork.com
Posted on August 24, 2007 at 12:26 pm.
I think the wiki thing is a bet of a red herring. For Barcamp Galway you can register *either* by adding your name to the wiki or by emailing barcampgalway at gmail.com. This is clearly stated on the “How do I sign up?” part of the Barcamp Galway webpage. Regarding keeping it simple, there is nothing simpler than email.
I don’t believe there is a huge amount of people out there who are not currently signing up to attend who would suddenly change their mind if we had a web form instead.
Posted on August 24, 2007 at 12:29 pm.
@Aidan – I agree, but the simple fact that we can’t even publish a mail to link barcampgalway@gmail.com but type it with spaces shows the type of world we live in. Also removes the human interaction portion of someone having to receive that mail and then interact with the wiki and update it – removes hassle for organisers.
Don’t get me wrong, you guys have done a great job, but IMHO we could make it easier and better in the future…
Posted on August 24, 2007 at 12:39 pm.
@Olivier – I’ll take you up on that. I’m in Blacknight’s offices today, all squared with Michele, he’s expecting your call after we’ve talked. Merci beaucoup!
Posted on August 24, 2007 at 12:45 pm.
Also Barcamp is supposed to be an unconference. The wiki facilitates self organization involving lots of different people. If you take that away and move to a centralized system where control rests with a restricted few you lose that. Justin Mason makes a good point on Damiens post “if you get rid of the wiki, make it less geeky, and so on, it’s not a Bar Camp anymore”.
Posted on August 24, 2007 at 2:10 pm.
OK, but at each BarCamp to date, the organisers have selected the venue, organised the food, equipment and sponsorship and been responsible for the publicity (blog). Aside from that there’s really only the attendees, talks and date to settle.
The date can be decided by commenting on the blog (participation), the attendees can sign themselves up (no difference if it’s a wiki, email address or sign-up form) and the talks again can sign themselves up. Order of the talks is decided on the day by the attendees at the start of the session and adjusted through the day as needed.
Each time a BarCamp has occurred the same line of chatter / complaints has come up about the fact that an alternative to a wiki is needed for non-geeks. There seem to be two schools of people around, those that want the pure, original, unconference BarCamps full of tech talks; and those that want it to be a ‘gathering of minds’ where any talk goes, tech or not.
If you want your BarCamp to be mainly techie, then stick with the wiki – but even from looking at the Galway one, you are making it harder for people by asking them to edit the wiki and then also send their email address in to you – which from BarCamp Dublin I remember that practically no-one did. What if you needed to have a last minute change of venue or start time? How would you let everyone know?
I’m simply proposing a simpler method of collating the data, one that anyone can use. By using Moveable Type on the sub domains (e.g. galway.barcamp.ie) you can set the permissions in a way as to let anyone sign up as a contributor if they so wish and edit the pages to add or delete information. It’s not necessary to have a wiki to have an unconference, there are other solutions if you think outside the box that would facilitate ease of use.
Also, I just looked through every historical version of the BarCamp Galway wiki page and compared it to the previous, the self-organization of the users has only been on adding themselves into the attendees, talks and proposed talks sections, not one user outside the organising team has added any other information to the page. And at least one third of the users took two attempts to add themselves correctly to either the talks or attendees section. Says just how simple and user-friendly wikis are, doesn’t it?
Posted on August 24, 2007 at 2:36 pm.
Woah – I’m not suggesting you ONLY use Facebook. Bad idea. (note: I’m a big sceptic of Facebook!)
I’m talking about using it as a marketing tool where you can pick from your friends who you’ll bring IF you use Facebook already (and so does your mate).
Posted on August 24, 2007 at 2:40 pm.
Ah OK Robin – certainly no problem in using it as a marketing / publicity tool, may have mis-read your original comment! :-0
Posted on August 24, 2007 at 2:42 pm.
Red Herring my hole Aidan, there was nothing on the BarCamp Blog yesterday about registering by email or on the Wiki. I checked after you said there was an email option.
Posted on August 24, 2007 at 3:06 pm.
History on the wiki agrees with Damien – sorry Aidan!
Posted on August 24, 2007 at 3:12 pm.
@Aidan, can I point out then that BarCamp Galway is not an unconference, like all previous BarCamps. Were it an unconference then surely you would not be looking for people to give talks but to facilitate discussions like a true unconference?
Posted on August 24, 2007 at 3:24 pm.
Now, now Damien, stop poking Aidan with that stick!
Posted on August 24, 2007 at 3:25 pm.
Oh yes and big up to Ollie “Olivier” Ahern for building the new friendly reg system. Brilliant suggestion Elly and nice one on making it happen O!
Posted on August 24, 2007 at 3:27 pm.
@Damien – see Twitter – Aidan and Olivier are going to collab to build it along with Niall from Blacknight. Great to see we can all get along and make things work better.
Posted on August 24, 2007 at 3:32 pm.
My Twitter is all fucked up. Big up to Aidan and Niall too! Will update orig blog post now.
Posted on August 24, 2007 at 3:43 pm.
PodCamp Ireland » PodCamp Ireland - it’s not just for techies and blokes! says:
[...] was reading a post from Damien Mulley recently about why he has decided not to go to BarCemp Galway – in fact it was [...]
Posted on August 28, 2007 at 8:20 am.
ellybabes » A lot of events… says:
[...] the traditional wiki format completely. It never worked on the previous camps, and I’ve bitched about it at length before. They have a lovely sign-up system, where people can input the details of the talks / panels [...]
Posted on February 26, 2008 at 2:23 pm.