[ANN] EmacsConf 2021 Second (and final) Call for Proposals (closing Sep 30)

[Amin Bandali <bandali@gnu.org>]

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Dear fellow Emacsians,

This is the second and final Call for Proposals for EmacsConf 2021,
open until September 30.  Please see below for details on how to send
in your proposal(s), or chat about them with us in the #emacsconf IRC
channel on Libera.Chat.

If you're considering submitting a proposal but think the remaining
time is not enough, please reach out to me off-list as soon as
possible and I'd be happy to try and work something out with you.

I'll close this portion of this email with a big thank you to all the
folks who have submitted their talk proposal(s) or will be doing so.
Myself and the other EmacsConf organizers look forward to reading over
them and getting back to you about them and about the next steps. :)

Best,
amin

P.S. please direct any replies to this post either to myself or to the
emacsconf-discuss list, so as to help avoid generating extra off-topic
chatter in the other lists cc'd in this message.

P.P.S. as a volunteer-run conference, we are always looking for new
fellow volunteers and/or organizers to help with various aspects of
organizing and running the conference, including reviewing proposal
submissions.  If you're interested in getting involved, please come by
our IRC channel or one of our public mailing lists (info below), or
any of the current organizers directly and say hi.  We look forward to
hearing from you!


                         ___________________

                            EmacsConf 2021
                          Online Conference
                         ___________________


                       November 27 and 28, 2021


Table of Contents
_________________

1. Important dates
2. Talk formats
3. Office hours
4. Submitting your proposal
5. Getting involved
6. Commitment to freedom


[EmacsConf 2021] will be a virtual conference on *November 27 and 28,
2021 (Sat-Sun)*.  If you'd like to present at the conference, please
[submit your proposal] by *September 30, 2021*.

EmacsConf 2021 is about the joy of [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: [2020], [2019], [2015],
[2013].  You might also find some neat ideas on the [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 [your favourite IRC client], or by visiting
[chat.emacsconf.org] in your web browser.

All kinds of people use Emacs for all kinds of things.  We'd love it
if EmacsConf 2021 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 expert enough to share their thoughts.  If you
let them know that you value their knowledge and maybe even suggest
something that you think others would like to hear more about, they
may realize that they have something worth sharing and that we would
love to hear from them.


[EmacsConf 2021] <https://emacsconf.org/2021/>
[submit your proposal] <https://emacsconf.org/2021/cfp/>
[Emacs] <https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/>
[2020] <https://emacsconf.org/2020/schedule/>
[2019] <https://emacsconf.org/2019/schedule/>
[2015] <https://emacsconf.org/2015/schedule/>
[2013] <https://emacsconf.org/2013/#program>
[ideas] <https://emacsconf.org/2021/ideas/>
[your favourite IRC client] <ircs://irc.libera.chat:6697/emacsconf>
[chat.emacsconf.org] <https://chat.emacsconf.org>


1 Important dates
=================

  For EmacsConf 2021, we are planning for 9am to 5pm Toronto/EST
  (2pm-10pm UTC) on November 27 and 28.  Depending on people's
  availability, it might be two half-days.

   CFP opens              August 5, 2021           
   CFP closes             September 30, 2021       
   Speaker notifications  October 15, 2021         
   Schedule published     October 31, 2021         
   EmacsConf 2021!        November 27 and 28, 2021 

  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 [get in touch]!).

  Please note that although we will try our best to stick to the above
  dates in the coming months, given the current state of the world, we
  may have to move things around a bit in case of unforeseen events.
  Thank you for your patience and understanding.


[get in touch] <https://emacsconf.org/contact/>


2 Talk formats
==============

  We'd like EmacsConf 2021 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 what you can share 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?

  When writing your proposal, please 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, outline what you might include if you had more time to
  present (up to 40 minutes, including Q&A).

  Here's an example for a potentially 40-minute talk:

  - 5-10 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.
  - 40 minutes: all of the above, including modifying the behaviour of
    the package in order to add something new.

  This flexibility would help us in devising the conference schedule
  so that as many people as possible could 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 [publicly] or
  [privately].  We'll be happy to work something out with you.


[publicly] <https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacsconf-org>

[privately]
<https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacsconf-org-private>


3 Office hours
==============

  We're aware that it can be intimidating to submit a proposal to a
  conference, so we thought we'd try to help!  This year, we're
  opening up the doors of our virtual offices for you to come talk to
  us about your proposals with hopes of helping you with any hurdles
  you may be facing with preparing your proposal.

  We'd like to publish a schedule of availabilities of volunteers for
  holding office hours.  Currently these volunteers consist of some of
  the EmacsConf organizers, but we'd love to have the help of other
  members of the Emacs community as well.  If you are a more
  experienced Emacs user and would like to help with this, please [get
  in touch]!

  Our first office hour this year is planned for Saturday, August 14,
  from 3pm to 4pm UTC with zaeph (Leo Vivier) at the following
  BigBlueButton room: <https://bbb.emacsverse.org/b/ban-qye-fd1-5kw>.


[get in touch] <https://emacsconf.org/contact/>


4 Submitting your proposal
==========================

  Once you're ready to submit your proposal, the [submit] page has the
  instructions on how to submit your talk.

  We use an anonymized submission process to reduce bias and encourage
  contribution.  Identifying information will be removed from
  submissions by a conference organizer who will not participate in
  talk selection.  The anonymized submissions will then be reviewed by
  a selection 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,
  [emacsconf-discuss], for discussion and announcements about the
  EmacsConf conference.

  We look forward to your ideas and submissions!


[submit] <https://emacsconf.org/2021/submit/>

[emacsconf-discuss]
<https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacsconf-discuss>


5 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
  [planning] page and come say hi to us at `#emacsconf' on
  `irc.libera.chat'.

  In addition to the [emacsconf-discuss] list, feel free to subscribe
  to [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 2021 the best
  one so far!


[planning] <https://emacsconf.org/2021/planning/>

[emacsconf-discuss]
<https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacsconf-discuss>

[emacsconf-org] <https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacsconf-org>


6 Commitment to freedom
=======================

  We remain fully committed to freedom, and we will continue using our
  infrastructure and streaming setup consisting entirely of [free
  software], much like previous EmacsConf conferences.  An article
  describing our infrastructure and tools is underway, and will be
  announced on the emacsconf-discuss list when published.


[free software] <https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html>


[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #2: EmacsConf 2021 Call for Proposals (Org file) --]
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#+title: EmacsConf 2021
#+subtitle: Online Conference
#+date: November 27 and 28, 2021
#+options: author:nil

[[https://emacsconf.org/2021/][EmacsConf 2021]] will be a virtual conference on *November 27 and 28,
2021 (Sat-Sun)*.  If you'd like to present at the conference, please
[[https://emacsconf.org/2021/cfp/][submit your proposal]] by *September 30, 2021*.

EmacsConf 2021 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/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/2021/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 2021 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 expert enough to share their thoughts.  If you
let them know that you value their knowledge and maybe even suggest
something that you think others would like to hear more about, they
may realize that they have something worth sharing and that we would
love to hear from them.

* Important dates

For EmacsConf 2021, we are planning for 9am to 5pm Toronto/EST
(2pm-10pm UTC) on November 27 and 28.  Depending on people's
availability, it might be two half-days.

| CFP opens             | August 5, 2021           |
| CFP closes            | September 30, 2021       |
| Speaker notifications | October 15, 2021         |
| Schedule published    | October 31, 2021         |
| EmacsConf 2021!       | November 27 and 28, 2021 |

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]]!).

Please note that although we will try our best to stick to the above
dates in the coming months, given the current state of the world, we
may have to move things around a bit in case of unforeseen events.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.

* Talk formats

We'd like EmacsConf 2021 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 what you can share 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?

When writing your proposal, please 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, outline what you might include if you had more time to
present (up to 40 minutes, including Q&A).

Here's an example for a potentially 40-minute talk:

- 5-10 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.
- 40 minutes: all of the above, including modifying the behaviour of
  the package in order to add something new.

This flexibility would help us in devising the conference schedule so
that as many people as possible could 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.

* Office hours

We're aware that it can be intimidating to submit a proposal to a
conference, so we thought we'd try to help!  This year, we're opening
up the doors of our virtual offices for you to come talk to us about
your proposals with hopes of helping you with any hurdles you may be
facing with preparing your proposal.

We'd like to publish a schedule of availabilities of volunteers for
holding office hours.  Currently these volunteers consist of some of
the EmacsConf organizers, but we'd love to have the help of other
members of the Emacs community as well.  If you are a more experienced
Emacs user and would like to help with this, please [[https://emacsconf.org/contact/][get in touch]]!

Our first office hour this year is planned for Saturday, August 14,
from 3pm to 4pm UTC with zaeph (Leo Vivier) at the following
BigBlueButton room: https://bbb.emacsverse.org/b/ban-qye-fd1-5kw.

* Submitting your proposal

Once you're ready to submit your proposal, the [[https://emacsconf.org/2021/submit/][submit]] page has the
instructions on how to submit your talk.

We use an anonymized submission process to reduce bias and encourage
contribution.  Identifying information will be removed from
submissions by a conference organizer who will not participate in
talk selection.  The anonymized submissions will then be reviewed by
a selection 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.

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/2021/planning/][planning]] page
and come say hi to us at =#emacsconf= on =irc.libera.chat=.

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 2021 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.
An article describing our infrastructure and tools is underway,
and will be announced on the emacsconf-discuss list when published.


* COMMENT Copyright & License

Copyright (c) 2020 Amin Bandali, Sacha Chua, David Bremner
Copyright (c) 2021 Amin Bandali, Sacha Chua, Leo Vivier,
Sebastian Crane

The EmacsConf 2021 Call for Proposals 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.

* COMMENT How to export this file

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