[ANN] Second (and final) Call for Proposals for EmacsConf 2020 (closing Oct 7)

[Amin Bandali]

Fellow denizens of the Emacs-verse,

This is the second and final Call for Proposals for EmacsConf 2020,
which was extended through October 7 (next Wednesday).  Please see below
for details on how to submit your proposal(s), and how to chat about or
get help with your proposals via our #emacsconf IRC channel on freenode.

If you'd like to give a talk but you're not entirely sure what about, a
few folks have helpfully added some ideas on this year's Ideas page at
<https://emacsconf.org/2020/ideas/>, and previous Ideas pages contain
many interesting ideas as well.  Myself and the other folks hanging out
at #emacsconf would also be happy to chat with you about potential ideas
for your talk.

We look forward to your proposals!

                                 * * *

                          ___________________

                             EmacsConf 2020
                           Online Conference
                          ___________________


                        November 28 and 29, 2020


Table of Contents
_________________

1. Important dates
2. Talk formats
3. Topic ideas
4. Submission
5. Getting involved


Update 2020-09-14: Added timezone information (9am to 5pm Toronto/EST).
Moved CFP end date to October 7, 2020.

The [Call for Proposals] for [EmacsConf 2020] is now open, until
*October 7, 2020*.

After a successful EmacsConf 2019, we are back again this year and are
once again calling for your participation!

EmacsConf is the conference about the joy of [Emacs], Emacs Lisp, and
memorizing key sequences.

We are holding EmacsConf 2020 as a virtual (online) conference again
this year, especially now, given the current state of the world with the
ongoing global pandemic.  We remain fully committed to freedom, and we
will continue using our infrastructure and streaming setup consisting
entirely of [free software], much like the last EmacsConf.

We welcome speakers of *all backgrounds* and *all levels of experience*,
including newcomers submitting a proposal to give their first talk!


[Call for Proposals] <https://emacsconf.org/2020/cfp/>

[EmacsConf 2020] <https://emacsconf.org/2020/>

[Emacs] <https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs.html>

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


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

  Mark your calendars: EmacsConf 2020 will take place on November 28-29!
  We're planning for 9am to 5pm Toronto/EST (2pm-10pm UTC, 3pm-11pm
  Zurich/CET).  Depending on people's availability, it might be two
  half-days.

   CFP opens              August 24, 2020            
   CFP closes             October 7, 2020 (new date) 
   Speaker notifications  October 14, 2020           
   Schedule published     November 7, 2020           
   EmacsConf 2020!        November 28 and 29, 2020   

  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 bearing with us as we all navigate these trying times.


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

  The following are the main formats for EmacsConf 2020 talks:

  - *10 minutes* (Lightning talk): Quickly present a cool project,
    concept, or trick in 10 minutes or less!

  - *20 minutes* (Standard talk): Introduce the audience to a new Emacs
    mode, concept, or just talk about something not necessarily shiny
    and new but that you find really neat nonetheless.

  - *50 minutes* (Extended talk): Take your time going more in depth,
    and/or do a demo!  Extended talks are a great way of really
    educating the audience about something you enjoy.

  We hope to have lots of great submissions this year, just like last
  year.  In order that as many people as possible can present, it helps
  if presenters can be flexible about their time slots.  So, for
  non-lightning talk submissions, please let us know besides your main
  preferred format if a shorter format would also work for your talk.

  Q&A time is *included* in the Standard and Extended time slots; please
  time your presentation accordingly.  If you would like to take
  questions live, we recommend aiming for a 15-minute presentation for
  the Standard time slot, and for 40-45 minutes for the Extended time
  slot.  However, as the speaker, the exact allocation of your time is
  up to you, so long as it does not exceed the allocated time slot.

  Other session formats such as tutorials, workshops, and hangouts are
  welcome as well, especially considering all that is going on around
  the world, in case you would find those other formats preferable to a
  traditional talk format.  If you are interested in these or other
  session types, please get in touch with us publicly or privately; we
  will be happy to work something out with you.

  To help minimize disruptions in case of potential technical issues
  that may arise during the conference, we ask that our speakers either
  schedule a short tech-check with us, or submit a prerecording of their
  talk (especially for lightning talks, where the allotted time slot is
  rather small and any issues that cannot be resolved quickly will
  greatly detract from the presentation).  We will send an email about
  this with more details further down the line.

  Keynote speaker(s) for EmacsConf 2020 will be introduced in a future
  announcement.


3 Topic ideas
=============

  Not sure what to talk about?  You might 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 `chat.freenode.net' and
  say hi.  You can join the chat using [your favourite IRC client], or
  by pointing your web browser to [chat.emacsconf.org] which runs our
  self-hosted instance of [The Lounge] free software web IRC client.

  A great way to get started with writing a proposal is to start by
  exploring the programs from previous years: [2019], [2015], [2013].


[ideas] <https://emacsconf.org/2020/ideas/>

[your favourite IRC client] <ircs://chat.freenode.net:6697/emacsconf>

[chat.emacsconf.org] <https://chat.emacsconf.org>

[The Lounge] <https://thelounge.chat>

[2019] <https://emacsconf.org/2019/schedule/>

[2015] <https://emacsconf.org/2015/schedule/>

[2013] <https://emacsconf.org/2013/#program>


4 Submission
============

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

  All kinds of people use Emacs for all kinds of things.  We would love
  it if EmacsConf 2020 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, and
  non-developers) 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.

  This year, we are experimenting with an anonymized submission process.
  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.
  We hope this will help reduce bias and encourage contribution.  We
  look forward to hearing from you (and the people you want to nudge to
  speak)!


[submit] <https://emacsconf.org/2020/submit/>


5 Getting involved
==================

  If you would like to get involved with the various aspects of
  organizing the conference, such as planning the sessions and helping
  with the infrastructure, see our [planning] page and come say hi to us
  at `#emacsconf' on `chat.freenode.net'.

  Don't forget to subscribe to our mailing list, [emacsconf-discuss],
  for discussion and announcements about the EmacsConf conference.

  We look forward to your ideas and submissions!


[planning] <https://emacsconf.org/2020/planning/>

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

emacsconf-2020-cfp.org
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