2008 MountainWest RubyConf: CFP Revisited

With the end of RubyConf, I’ve seen a couple more talk proposals for the 2008 MountainWest RubyConf. I also got an email from a RubyConf presenter. With his permission, I wanted to share it with you since it’s a question that may be on your mind too.

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Hey Pat!

I was wondering how much attendance overlap you (as in MountainWest) have with the general RubyConf? I was thinking about submitting a proposal for the talk I gave at RubyConf, but if the audience is going to have seen it already, it’s probably not worth it.

Probably <10% of the MWRC attendees are also RubyConf attendees.

What do you think? Are you interested in recycled RubyConf proposals?

Sure! Recycled or rejected proposals would be welcomed. (Of course a recycled talk is less likely to be selected compared to a new proposal of equal quality.) In fact, if you’d like to propose something that you already proposed to another conference besides RubyConf, feel free (with the same caveats).

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I’ve also been asked what kinds of talks we’d most like to see. Our biggest selection criterea is going to be “How interesting is this talk going to be for a bunch of Ruby/Ruby on Rails hackers?” If you’re thinking of proposing “Why I should write my next web app in Django”, this is probably the wrong venue for you. On the other hand, if you wanted to do a 45 minute overview of why Rubyists should learn to program in Factor/Erlang/Haskell/Prolog/Intercal … well, a talk like that just might work (except for the Intercal variation).

If you don’t think you have 45 minutes worth of material, don’t forget our lightning talks. We’re hoping to open up the floor to eighteen or so 5 minute long lightning talks.