Re: Please bring the conference news back

Hi Marco On 2/8/07, Marco Tabini <marcot@tabini.ca> wrote:

All— First of all, let me say that I am sending this e-mail after a lot of very reluctant thought; since my company is in the business or organizing PHP conferences, I am clearly biased and, inasmuch as I think that I am writing objectively, I can hardly claim that as a fact. First a quick bit of background for those not in the loop: all conference-related news have been removed from the php.net homepage; this was discussed briefly at various intervals on IRC, and although general agreement had been reached that conference announcements were beginning to clutter the homepage, no decision was taken until yesterday, when they were abruptly removed from the home page and relegated to a separate page that can only be reached by clicking on a link at the top of the site template.. I think this was a bad decision for a number of reasons. The first—let me get it out in the open right away—is that it damages my business. In all honesty, if this change hadn't affected me directly, I wouldn't be writing this e-mail. This clearly doesn't concern anyone else (except those who also organize PHP conferences), but it needs to be stated to keep things in perspective. The second is that, although my event has now lost some exposure, this is a relatively minor problem for my organization, because we have other means to promote php|tek and we build the cost of that promotion into our prices. Other organizations—for example, all the non-profits that organize conferences, like PHP Québec or the Vancouver PUG, have different goals and probably rely on the exposure they receive through php.net much more. I cannot and do not speak for them, but I can't imagine them popping the bottles of champagne open right now. Conferences matter to the PHP community, and they matter to php.netvisitors. In the last thirty days, we have received approximately 9,000 referrals from the various php.net mirrors—these are people who saw the conference announcement on the homepage and clicked through to our site. It is by no means an astronomical number, but it is certainly significant enough to dispel any notion that the conference announcements are irrelevant or that they do not belong on php.net in the first place. Historically, conferences have also played a part in the growth and increased popularity of PHP. Many core developers have had opportunity once and again to meet face-to-face at the various events worldwide—not just among themselves, but also with PHP users from around the globe. In turn, conferences have helped (directly and indirectly) with spreading the word about PHP in settings where it might have otherwise made no inroads whatsoever. Many companies and organizations that organize conferences have also directly supported the PHP projects by contributing either financially or by other means. Removing the conference announcements from the homepage wholesale and essentially "disappearing" them from the site (if you think that the link at the top makes everything ok, I suggest you take a look at Fitt's Law of ergonomics and reconsider) has caused a number of (perhaps unintended) consequences: 1. While the fact that conference announcements appeared on php.net didn't amount to an endorsement, they certainly indicated that the PHP Group considered them relevant to the community. Removing them abruptly and with no explanation signals a shift in policy which, in my opinion, does not jive with reality. To the outsider, the removal could well mean that the people who run php.net no longer consider conferences useful, relevant or important to the community—and that is not what I have heard from the people I have actually spoken to.

This simply is not true. I consider the announcements that important that they deserve their own dedicated page where they can live happily among all other PHP events around the world, be it a quick coffee at the Daily Dose Coffee House and Bar or a whole week of lectures. These events have however absolutely nothing to do with php.net and are nowhere near the importance of a real news entry from php.net. Being so arrogant to add a 'call for paper' announcement as a top entry 25hours after the release of PHP 5.2.0 is quite an accomplishment btw... These announcements got so overwhelming that it was almost pointless adding any php.net related entry on there cause within a week there would be two new announcements making the real php.net related entry old and not as noticeable. The frontpage has been treated as conference holders private commercial ground for long enough. It is time for php.net to take the control back and give PHP related events their own dedicated page to keep their information on. It is a win win situation. Those who care about php.net news will check the frontpage, those who want to know whats is going on in the world of PHP events will check the event schedule and the conference page.

2. Removing all the announcements also means that calls for papers are no longer visible at all. This deprives the entire community of an opportunity to make their voices heard, and to make an impact on the PHP world. Ultimately, this damages PHP, simply because there is less opportunity to promote new ideas.

They were moved. Not removed. How exactly is this giving anyone less opportunity to promote new ideas? I see this a _better_ opportunity. We could even create a specific section for call for papers on php.net/conferences in the future (on the right side maybe?) Lets see how keeping them in between will workout. I can't however imagine how this could be a problem as they have been surrounded with lot of other things in the past.

3. The list of upcoming conferences currently shown in the right-hand side bar is completely useless. All the three conferences listed on the site right now (Vancouver PHP, OSDC Israel and UK PHP Conference) are to take place in the next three weeks. The problem is that the decision of attending a conference—particularly if it lasts more than a day—is hardly ever made on a whim. It usually takes careful planning, management approval of expenses, and so on. A list of upcoming conferences listed chronologically does not help anyone, while the old system was, in a sense, self-regulating, since every organizer tried to publish their announcement when they would strategically make the most sense, rather than have them categorized by an arbitrary algorithm.

Is your conference on the list? By clicking on a item on it you get a calendar listing what is happening in the world of PHP events (conferences, user groups & training). This is the perfect place to pick an event at your liking that fits your schedule. php.net/cal.php && php.net/conferences are your friends, not the enemy.

4. There are now two news items on the main page of php.net—one is from the beginning of November, and the other from a few days go. Even with an announcement coming about a 5.2.1 release and an explanation of what happened to the conference announcements (which will eventually fall off of the main page), that gives the impression that very little happened in PHP land since last fall. This is obviously not true—but you have to have intimate knowledge of the going ons of the platform to know it. 5. Conference announcements have also disappeared from the RSS feed. I am not sure how many people rely on it to get their PHP news, but they are now cut off from knowledge of these events.

At this moment there is no feed for conference announcements, but there will be soon enough.

6. There is a difference between desire for action and impulsiveness. I understand and appreciate that discussing things to death is not constructive; however, "we talked about it on IRC for three hours" is not a good justification for such a significant and far-reaching change. Allowing everyone to voice their opinion—karma or no karma—before making significant decisions has always been the norm.

After each announcement this is discussed, unofficially though. The last entry was the last straw for me. I started to consider these announcements as spam. Something _had_ to be done. I asked quickly around and did not find anyone who disagreed. How unpopular it may have been with conference planers I took it upon myself to regain the control of the frontpage and move all these events onto their own page for everyone interested to see. Those who don't care, these announcements will not bother again. Those who care, these announcements are easily (if not more) available. No release announcements. No news about the work from the doc team. Nothing will now get in conference announcement way again. -Hannes

All things considered, if the concern was to reduce clutter on the home page, I think that the situation could have been handled much better. Rasmus has mentioned that he is looking to have the site redesigned; the decision to move conference announcements could have been made part of the redesign and made to take place in a more organic way. Others might have suggested workable solutions that would fit in the current design without making rash changes that were obviously not well thought through. On a personal note, I am very dispirited; organizing conferences is hard, and very expensive work (you cannot fully appreciate this until you have been asked to pay $70 for a gallon of coffee) and, while it is my day job and obviously gives me a direct benefit, I have always felt that making these events happen was a great way to give back to the community and to the people who make PHP a reality. This decision feel like a huge (and unwarranted) slap in the face—again, probably something that won't matter to anyone other than myself, but something I wanted to get out there. Cheers, Marco -- Marco Tabini php|architect Phone: +1 (416) 630-6202 x.666 Fax: +1 (416) 630-5057 Web: http://www.phparch.com