#+title: EmacsConf 2023
#+subtitle: Online Conference
#+date: December 2 and 3, 2023
#+options: author:nil toc:nil
#+begin_export md
[[!meta title="Call for Participation"]]
[[!meta copyright="Copyright © 2020 Amin Bandali, Sacha Chua,
David Bremner<br />
Copyright © 2021 Amin Bandali, Sacha Chua, Leo Vivier,
Sebastian Crane<br />
Copyright © 2022 Amin Bandali
Copyright © 2023 Sacha Chua"]]
<!-- cfp.md is exported from cfp.org, please modify that instead. -->
#+end_export
#+begin_export md
[[!template id=pagedraft]]
#+end_export
* COMMENT How to export this file :noexport:
As of the time of writing this document (Org mode version 9.3.7), the
Org links library (=ol.el=) does not yet recognize =ircs= link types,
and will throw an error if you try to export a file containing them,
such as this file.
To work around that, you can use something along the lines of the
Emacs Lisp code below, by either adding it to your init file, or by
putting the point in the code block and hitting =C-c C-v e= (that is,
hold Ctrl, then hit c followed by v, then release Ctrl, and hit e) to
evaluate the code, working around the issue only for the current
session.
#+begin_src emacs-lisp :results silent
(org-link-set-parameters
"ircs"
:export
(lambda (link description format)
"Export an ircs link.
See `org-link-parameters' for details about LINK, DESCRIPTION and
FORMAT."
(let ((desc (or description link)))
(pcase format
(`html (format "<a href=\"ircs:%s\">%s</a>" link desc))
(`md (format "[%s](ircs:%s)" desc link))
(_ nil)))))
#+end_src
[[elisp:(org-md-export-to-markdown)][Export this file to Markdown]]
* Call for Participation
[[https://emacsconf.org/2023/][EmacsConf 2023]] will be a virtual conference on *December 2 and 3,
2023 (Sat-Sun)*. If you'd like to present at the conference, please
[[https://emacsconf.org/2023/cfp/][submit your proposal]] by *September 14, 2023 (Friday)*.
EmacsConf 2023 is about the joy of [[https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/][Emacs]] and Emacs Lisp. Come share
your experiments and adventures with the Emacs text editor / operating
system / way of life! We welcome speakers of *all backgrounds* and
*all levels of experience*, including newcomers giving their first
talk. What have you found exciting about Emacs lately? What do you
wish someone had told you when you were starting out? What part of
your workflow might inspire someone to get into Emacs or go deeper?
A great way to get started with writing a proposal is to start by
exploring the programs from previous years: [[https://emacsconf.org/2022/talks/][2022]], [[https://emacsconf.org/2021/schedule/][2021]], [[https://emacsconf.org/2020/schedule/][2020]], [[https://emacsconf.org/2019/schedule/][2019]], [[https://emacsconf.org/2015/schedule/][2015]],
[[https://emacsconf.org/2013/#program][2013]]. You might also find some neat ideas on the [[https://emacsconf.org/2023/ideas/][ideas]] page. Feel
free to add yours there too! If you're still not sure, come by our
IRC channel =#emacsconf= on =irc.libera.chat= and say hi. You can
join the chat using [[ircs://irc.libera.chat:6697/emacsconf][your favourite IRC client]], or by visiting
[[https://chat.emacsconf.org][chat.emacsconf.org]] in your web browser.
All kinds of people use Emacs for all kinds of things. We'd love it
if EmacsConf 2023 could highlight interesting perspectives and reflect
the diversity of our community. If you know someone who might have
a good idea for a talk, please reach out to them and encourage them to
submit a proposal. Many people (especially from underrepresented
groups such as women, people of colour, non-developers, etc.) might
not consider themselves proficient enough to share their thoughts.
If you let them know that you value their knowledge and experiences,
and maybe even suggest something that you think others would like to
hear about, they may realize that they do have something worth sharing
and that we would love to hear from them.
* Important dates
For EmacsConf 2023, we are planning for 9am to 5pm Toronto/EST
(2pm-10pm UTC) on December 2 and 3.
| CFP opens | June 26, 2023 (Monday) |
| CFP closes | September 14, 2023 (Friday) |
| Speaker notifications | September 30, 2023 |
| Schedule published | October 31, 2023 |
| EmacsConf 2023! | December 2 and 3, 2023 |
If you are not available during the conference itself but you have a
neat idea that you'd like to share, please propose it anyway! You can
always handle questions after the conference, and we might even be
able to coordinate with other Emacs meetups for regional events (if
you're an Emacs meetup organizer and would like to make this happen
let's [[https://emacsconf.org/contact/][get in touch]]!).
#+md: <a name="formats"></a>
* Talk formats
We'd like EmacsConf 2023 to inspire lots of different people to
explore lots of different things in Emacs. We hope to put together a
stream of quick ideas followed by lots of conversation over IRC and/or
Q&A sessions, with occasional deep dives into topics that many people
might find interesting or useful.
As you think about your talk, consider whether you can squeeze everything in:
- *Up to 10 minutes total:* What is the core idea? What do you want
people to do or remember? You can show just enough to get people
interested and then point them to where they can learn more
afterwards. You can answer questions over IRC, the pad, or the
wiki, and there's no limit to how long that conversation can go.
- *Up to 20 minutes total:* How would you flesh out some of the points
from your 5-10 minute presentation? How can you show the pieces
working together?
- *Up to 40 minutes total:* What would benefit from a deep dive?
How do you keep it engaging?
Think of 20+ minutes presentation as extensions of the 10-minute
presentation. If you are aiming at the 10-minute presentation, just
write an outline of what you plan to talk about if you have 5-10
minutes. If you’d like to propose a longer talk, add an outline of
what you might add to the first part if you had more time to present.
20 minutes seems to be the best length for a presentation: short
enough to keep people's attention, long enough to get into some
details.
There will be time for questions and answers after your talk, so you
don't need to include that in your talk timing.
Here's an example proposal for a 20-minute talk. Your proposal
would include the 10- and 20- minute sections:
- 10 minutes: quick demo of the abc package working together with xyz
package.
- 20 minutes: same as above, with some customization options to
accommodate a different workflow.
Describing what you'd cover in different talk lengths gives us
flexibility in scheduling talks so that as many people as possible
can get a chance to present their ideas, while still allowing for
featuring longer deep dive talks.
Other session formats such as tutorials, workshops, and hangouts are
welcome as well, in case you would find those other formats preferable
to a traditional talk format. If you're interested in these or other
session types, please let us know [[https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacsconf-org][publicly]] or [[https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacsconf-org-private][privately]]. We'll be
happy to work something out with you.
This year, we'd like to experiment with accepting proposals throughout
the CFP process, particularly for 10-20 minute talks. (Another reason
to propose a short talk!) If there are similar proposals, we'll work
with people so that the talks can cover different facets.
* Preparing and submitting your proposal
We're aware that it can be challenging and intimidating to prepare and
submit a proposal to a conference, and we want to help make it less
so. Come say hi to us on our IRC channel =#emacsconf= on
=irc.libera.chat=, and we'd be happy to try and answer any questions
or concerns you may have about writing your proposal or submitting it.
We'd also love to receive suggestions on how we can best help you and
other prospective speakers interested in giving a talk at EmacsConf.
Once you're ready to submit your proposal, the [[https://emacsconf.org/2023/submit/][submit]] page has the
instructions on how to submit your talk. The submissions will then be
reviewed by a selection committee (please [[https://emacsconf.org/contact/][let us know]] if you would
like to help review submissions as part of this committee).
If your talk is approved, we'd love it if you could help us make sure
the conference runs smoothly. After we email you with the time
allotted for your talk, we'll ask you to
- prepare a prerecording of your talk, or record it with our help if
that'd be easier for you; and
- schedule a short tech-check if you'd like to be able to answer
questions in a live session.
Don't forget to subscribe to our main mailing list, [[https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacsconf-discuss][emacsconf-discuss]],
for discussion and announcements about the EmacsConf conference.
If you'd like to propose something other than a talk, like restreaming
the conference, you can also use this CFP to share your ideas with us.
We look forward to your ideas and submissions!
* Getting involved
If you would like to help with the conference (planning the sessions,
reviewing proposals, helping with infrastructure, making sessions more
accessible, editing video transcripts, etc.), see our [[https://emacsconf.org/2023/planning/][planning]] page
and come say hi to us at =#emacsconf= on =irc.libera.chat=.
Importantly, as EmacsConf continues to grow and receive increasingly
more talk/session proposal submissions each year, we have thought
about adding multiple parallel tracks during the conference days to
accommodate the large number of sessions. However, we're currently
a very small team and we would need your help to do it! If you're
interested in helping stream a parallel EmacsConf track and have a
reliable internet connection with decent speed and bandwidth, please
[[https://emacsconf.org/contact/][get in touch]] with us so we can help get you set up for streaming.
We'd also likely need more volunteers still for each track, for
example a host for that track to announce the next talk (this can also
be done by the streamer if the streamer is interested and able to) and
another volunteer to help check in speakers of upcoming live sessions.
If you are interested and able to help with any of the above, please
reach out to us; we'd love to have your help!
In addition to the [[https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacsconf-discuss][emacsconf-discuss]] list, feel free to subscribe to
[[https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacsconf-org][emacsconf-org]] as well, for discussions related to organizing the
conference by the EmacsConf organizers and volunteers.
We'd really appreciate your help in making EmacsConf 2023 the best one
so far!
* Commitment to freedom
We remain fully committed to freedom, and we will continue
using our infrastructure and streaming setup consisting entirely
of [[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html][free software]], much like previous EmacsConf conferences.
Articles and documentation about the EmacsConf infrastructure are
still underway, and will be announced on the emacsconf-discuss list
when available. If you are curious about the EmacsConf infrastructure
or are interested in working on it, please join our =#emacsconf-infra=
channel on =irc.libera.chat= and say hi!
* COMMENT Copyright & License
Copyright (c) 2020 Amin Bandali, Sacha Chua, David Bremner
Copyright (c) 2021 Amin Bandali, Sacha Chua, Leo Vivier,
Sebastian Crane
Copyright (c) 2022 Amin Bandali
Copyright (c) 2023 Sacha Chua
The EmacsConf 2023 Call for Participation is part of the EmacsConf
wiki, and is dual-licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Public License; and the GNU
General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation,
either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later
version.
A copy of these two licenses is available on the EmacsConf wiki, in
the [[https://emacsconf.org/COPYING.CC-BY-SA][COPYING.CC-BY-SA]] and [[https://emacsconf.org/COPYING.GPL][COPYING.GPL]] files.
