For Drupalcon we've set an explicit goal of trying to raise the quality of the conference. But like all goals, you've got to adjust based on feedback.

In order to help make the conference as high quality as possible we would like to have session drafts and a public announcement about your session being selected. This helps to accomplish two goals. First, having a session draft gives the co-chairs the opportunity to review your session and provide feedback. It helps to identify topics that might not be covered in a track, and it helps to identify topics that might be repeated. Second, asking for a blog post helps promote you, and your session. There's a lot of people coming to Drupalcon and getting a chance to learn about your session in advance can be very helpful to them.

Unfortunately, making a good idea a requirement is not necessarily a good idea. Making it a tough mandatory requirement turned out to be a bad idea. This was my idea, and I'd asked my co-chairs to enforce it, to ensure they got a chance to review the sessions and could be confident in the quality of each and every session in their track. I am asking the co-chairs not to enforce this request as mandatory any more. This was my mistake, and I apologize to the session presenters and co-chairs who had to bear both sides of this.

I am asking the session presenters to do their best to both announce their session via one announcement: blog, email to mailing list, group posting, forum topic or how ever you see fit. I am also going to ask that all session presenters get a draft of their proposal to their co-chairs. If you don't then I'll follow up with you individually to ensure your session is on track, and that people know you are giving a session.

We've modeled much of the conference on what we learned from the Plone 06 conference. They kept a wait list of sessions, in case presenters were unavailable to present. It would be a shame to have an unplanned presentation presented when 90 people were more than ready to present a planned one. I'd like to avoid this at Drupalcon. So please prepare and give your hard working co-chairs a chance to do their jobs.

Kieran Lal
Druaplcon Boston organizer