[Inpycon] Inviting volunteers for CFP workgroup at Pycon-India-2019

[Abhishek Yadav]

Hello friends,
We are looking for volunteers at the CFP workgroup for Pycon-India this
year.

The CFP volunteering would involve the following responsibilities:
- Getting proposals complete and ready for review (proposal-support)
- Conducting rehearsals
- Upkeep and maintenance of the CFP software

It might sound trivial, but proposal-support is the most time-consuming
part of the CFP process. Most of the proposals we get, while being
promising, lack a lot in terms of detail. A volunteer must check each
proposal, and follow-up with the authors to have them complete it. In the
absence of adequate volunteer support, this task also falls on the
reviewers, who are usually short on bandwidth. There were around 300
proposals last year - you can imagine how tough it would be for a small
team to handle.

Therefore we thought of inviting volunteers to the CFP team this time.
Volunteers will not be reviewing and voting on the proposals - that will
still be done by a team of experts, as before. But by sharing the workload
across a bigger team, we aim to make reviewer experience better and the
process more efficient in general.

Also, we're planning to do rehearsals this year. We tried it at Pysangmam
last year, and it was really helpful. Most speakers were able to finish
their talks in time, and we were able to bet more on students. It did take
a little extra effort on our side, but results show it is worth trying at
any conference. (We'll share more details in the CFP announcement soon)

The volunteers will be needed to conduct the rehearsals. Most rehearsals
will happen online, so the volunteers will need to sit through the talks
over Skype and share feedback.

And lastly, the CFP application (junction) also needs some community love.
There is a bunch of work to be done there, and CFP volunteer team seem like
the right people to step up for it.

If all this sounds good, please join us by filling the form [1]. There's
only one pre-requisite - you should not be planning to apply for a talk.
This is make sure there are no conflicts of interest. It will also be great
if you are involved with the community in some way - anything however
small, is good.

This will be a interesting opportunity to to witness first hands how the
CFP process happens, to make it better and to contribute to the community
in general.

Let us know your thoughts (even if you're not planning to volunteer).

Cheers,
Abhishek Yadav
CFP workgroup, Pycon-India

[1]:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSft1amnhwn5SMGzgpTzmfOBN9xNwT_WdNeVxNQqngorZAAJ3Q/viewform

PS: We are already in touch with the team from last year, and are reaching
out to some members individually as well.
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