From jeff at taupro.com  Mon Nov  1 12:53:37 2010
From: jeff at taupro.com (Jeff Rush)
Date: Mon, 01 Nov 2010 06:53:37 -0500
Subject: [Conferences] Statistics of all Python conferences
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTinj+DoQm84Hs9WTpGM99r5FVujoyN0XgsqeSKnL@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4CCABA57.7000100@python-academy.de>
	<AANLkTinj+DoQm84Hs9WTpGM99r5FVujoyN0XgsqeSKnL@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4CCEAA41.8050206@taupro.com>

On 10/31/2010 05:45 AM, ? ?????? ?  wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> On Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 17:58, Mike M?ller <mmueller at python-academy.de> wrote:
>> # The percentage of women was about 10% this unusually high
>> # for this kind of conference.
> 
> Honestly, this statistic makes me uncomfortable, for a number of
> reasons. I'm involved with a number of women-in-floss projects and the
> pressure to stand up and be visible or be counted is immense <-- this
> makes it hard on those that dont seek attention because of their
> gender. While I am aware that diversity matters and its important to
> get that data out there, but, with all due respect, there is the risk
> of being reduced to a mere statistic, when your presence is mere
> tokenism for being politically correct** and nothing beyond that.

Yes, the PSF/PyCon leadership in general would like to know how we are
doing with respect to diversity matters.  It is a serious issue that
certain demographic sectors are not represented in technology
development today.  We can make changes in our community and hope it
improves matters but unless the shift is significant in the short-term,
it won't be obvious related and hence useful in guiding policy.  It is
hard to see in the data something like a 3% variation in attendance over
several years without actually measuring, while a major shift in looking
around PyCon to see 30-50% faces of women would not need measuring.

So as a PSF board member myself, I acknowledge your concern but ask you
how we can be sensitive to those who wish to avoid attention and yet
move forward with gains in their representation without some kind of
measurement?  To guide those decisions we don't have to know the data
trackable back to an individual but really just in aggregate.

As a sidenote (and perhaps a thread for the diversity list), I am
wondering how someone who avoids attention will be able to fully
participate in FLOSS.  Anyone who raises a constituency calling for or
staffing a team for a new software feature, or who calls for a fork of a
software project by their nature draws some degree of attention.  Being
a meritocracy, FLOSS seems to require its members to rise above the
noise within some subset of the community.


> ** Recently for inpycon registrations, it was impossible to register
> and pay with doattend without doling out a bunch of irrelevant details
> (gender, location, etc). IME, pycon does not insist on knowing your
> gender and upon raising the issue on the inpycon list, I was told its
> something the PSF does. I am not aware if its a PSF mandate but I
> would like to know if it is.

Not a hard mandate but information considered useful in providing better
service to the Python community.  I believe the inpycon registration
forms were derived from those for PyCon USA, which did ask for gender,
T-shirt type/size, location, etc.  By knowing the location of attendees
we can foster people making connections into local usergroups and
regional conferences, and better place the next national conference.  By
knowing we are reaching women in college but not women in business, we
know we're not advertising the conference in the correct places.
Noticing that our attendees tend to be older, we learn that we have a
problem in spreading Python to those in college or high schools.

-Jeff

From carl at personnelware.com  Tue Nov  9 07:42:51 2010
From: carl at personnelware.com (Carl Karsten)
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2010 00:42:51 -0600
Subject: [Conferences] Statistics of all Python conferences
In-Reply-To: <4CCB148C.4090701@python-academy.de>
References: <4CCABA57.7000100@python-academy.de>
	<4CCB148C.4090701@python-academy.de>
Message-ID: <AANLkTinraxb4CkuSJw-uQV49vF4K3+AvBP8-BgCTZeHw@mail.gmail.com>

Hey gang... We could really use some help here.

If you ran an event, push some data in.   Or explain why you don't
want to.  maybe we are missing something.

/me looks at Catherine...

On Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 1:38 PM, Mike M?ller <mmueller at python-academy.de> wrote:
> Answering to myself. Top-posting allowed.
>
> Thanks to a suggestion by Carl Karsten, I created a Google
> spreadsheet form:
>
> https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dDhvaTF4aE1taEMtY3U2YXhqX21pOWc6MQ
>
> This form has a link to the survey results.
>
> Again, ideas for improvement welcome.
>
> Mike
>
>
> Am 29.10.2010 14:13, schrieb Mike M?ller:
>>
>> Hi conference organizers,
>>
>> The Python conference landscape is steadily growing.
>> This is my, certainly incomplete, compilation of conferences
>> and conference-like events:
>>
>> * 3 international conferences (PyCon US, EuroPython, PyCon Asia-Pacific)
>> * 12 national conferences (in countries in Europe, South America, Asia
>> and Australia)
>> * 3 regional events (states in the US: AR, OH, TX)
>> * 3 SciPy conferences (dedicated to Python in science: US, Europe, India))
>> * 4 Web-specific Python conferences (2x Django, Zope, Plone)
>> * 2 Conferences with strong Python portion (OSCON, RuPy)
>>
>> Some of this conferences are around for some time. Others are pretty new.
>> I think it would be great to have some more numbers about these
>> conferences.
>> Data like how many times this conference took place, how many people came,
>> or how many talks were given would make great material for some
>> statistics.
>>
>> Besides serving our own curiosity, this would make really nice marketing
>> material. Just imaging all those business consultants showing stylish
>> graphs in stylish Power Point presentations with growing numbers of Python
>> interest predicting, by linearly extending this trend, that Python will be
>> the most used programming language by 2020. ;)
>>
>> Seriously, we do have some hard numbers here that decision makers love.
>> Let's gather them.
>>
>> I started doing this by assembling PyCon US 2010 data. This is the
>> biggest,
>> most recently finished, probably best documented conference. Despite that
>> most
>> numbers can be found on its website, it took me some hours.
>>
>> I would like to do this for _all_ Python conferences. Even though Google
>> can
>> be a pretty good tool here, there a few obstacles that prevent me from
>> coming even close to this goal:
>>
>> 1. Not all data is published.
>> 2. Websites from many past conferences are not available any more.
>> 3. I don't even know that the conference took place. Hence don't know what
>> to search for.
>> 4. It is just too much work for me if I want to do something else during
>> the next few months. And I want and need.
>>
>> Therefore, I would like to ask everybody who has some information about
>> Python past conferences to send me information about them.
>>
>> I think a simple way to do this is to create one ini file per conference.
>> I attached an example. This is a partially formalized way to assemble
>> information. The given names or keywords (the ones on the left side of the
>> equal sign) provide a structure.
>> At the same time, you may define new names under section MISC.
>> Furthermore,
>> you may include additional information as free text in comments.
>>
>> Please make sure the ini file can be parsed. Just use the attached script
>> to check if the formatting is ok. The script works with Python 2 and 3.
>>
>> I am well aware that very few files, if any, will be complete filled.
>> That's not the point. The goal is to collect as much information as
>> possible.
>> The absolute minimum are the name, the location, and the date of the
>> event.
>> Next useful would be the number of attendees and the number of talks.
>> Reasonable estimates are better than no numbers at all. Please indicate
>> if it is an educated guess.
>>
>> I will process the data and make all sources and the analysis available
>> for everybody.
>>
>> Feel free to suggest improvements on the process. I am open for ideas.
>>
>> Also, please indicated if you would like your name to appear on the
>> list of contributers in the acknowledgment.
>>
>>
>> Mike
>>
>>
>> # Start sample file
>> #################################################################
>> # Sample file for Python conference data.
>> # This is a simple in-file format that can be parser with ConfigParser:
>> # http://docs.python.org/library/configparser.html
>> # The equal sign `=` separates name and value:
>> # `name=value`
>> # Sections are all upper case in square brackets.
>> # `[SECTION]`
>> # We use the Python comment sign `#` for comments.
>> # Use `unknown` if no information is available.
>> # Use `None` if not applicable. If you are not sure about this, use
>> `unknown`.
>> # Please do NOT delete names (keywords), use `None`.
>> # You may add more names (keywords) under `[MISC]`.
>> # Please add the source of your numbers such as a link or contact
>> information
>> # or something else if possible.
>> # For corrections and suggestions contact Mike at
>> # (mmueller (_at_) python-academy (_dot_) de).
>>
>> [GENERAL]
>> name=PyCon US
>> # First day of event.
>> start=2010-02-17
>> # Last day of event, i.e. inclusive.
>> end=2010-02-25
>> link=http://us.pycon.org/2010/about/
>> organizer=PSF
>>
>> [LOCATION]
>> country=USA
>> # Put `None` for most other countries without states.
>> state=GA
>> city=Atlanta
>> venue=Hyatt Regency Atlanta
>>
>> [CONFERENCE]
>> start=2010-02-19
>> end=2010-02-21
>> # Source: https://us.pycon.org/2010/register/default/attendees
>> # There should be more since not all made there name publicly available.
>> # The number announced at the conference was 1100.
>> number-of-attendees=1084
>> number-of-talks=94
>> # NOT included in number-of-talks.
>> number-of-keynotes=8
>> number-of-tracks=unknown
>> number-of-parallel-sessions=4
>> # Just an example for `None`. Note: not `0` but N/A. ;)
>> number-of-bad-talks=None
>>
>> [TUTORIALS]
>> # Please put `None` for all values if there were no tutorials.
>> start=2010-02-17
>> end=2010-02-18
>> # Source: https://us.pycon.org/2010/register/default/charts
>> # There might be more because people from canceled tutorials
>> # might have moved to other ones.
>> number-of-participants=833
>> # Given not only offered.
>> number-of-tutorials=28
>> # Hours per tutorial.
>> length=3
>>
>> [SPRINTS]
>> # Please put `None` if there were no sprints.
>> start=2010-02-22
>> end=2010-02-25
>> # Source: http://us.pycon.org/2010/conference/talks/
>> number-of-participants=unknown
>> number-of-sprints=unknown
>>
>> [POSTERS]
>> # Please put `None` if there were no posters.
>> # Poster presented not submitted.
>> # Source: http://us.pycon.org/2010/conference/posters/accepted/
>> number-of-posters=17
>>
>> [MISC]
>> # Add more information here if you think it is important.
>> # Make up your own names (keywords).
>> # Write free text as comments if this is easier.
>> number-of-open-space-sessions=unknown
>> number-of-lightning-talks=unknown
>> # This was the biggest PyCon ever.
>> # The percentage of women was about 10% this unusually high
>> # for this kind of conference.
>> #################################################################
>> # End sample file.
>>
>>
>> # start Python script
>> #################################################################
>> """Simple ini file reader.
>> """
>>
>> try:
>> # Python 2.x
>> import ConfigParser as configparser
>> except ImportError:
>> # Python 3.x
>> import configparser
>> import pprint
>>
>>
>> def check(file_name):
>> """Print the content of the ini file.
>> """
>> config = configparser.ConfigParser()
>> config.read(file_name)
>> for section in config.sections():
>> print(section)
>> pprint.pprint(config.items(section))
>>
>> if __name__ == '__main__':
>> check('data/pycon_us_2010.txt')
>> #################################################################
>> # end Python script
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Conferences mailing list: Conferences at python.org
>> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/conferences
>>
>> This is an open list with open archives; sensitive or confidential
>> information should not be discussed here.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Conferences mailing list: Conferences at python.org
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/conferences
>
> This is an open list with open archives; sensitive or confidential
> information should not be discussed here.
>



-- 
Carl K