Our Call for Presentations (CFP) has now closed. We expect to have let everyone know the status of their submissions by June 17 2018

This page details our CFP review and selection process, as well as guidelines about how to write an anonymous proposal.

If you are looking for a link to our PaperCall submissions page, mentoring, or speaker benefits, you want our Speak page.

Contents

CFP Review and Selection Process

Phase One: reviewing of anonymised proposal contents

During this phase, the PyCon AU proposal reviewers will review and score each proposal solely on the merits of its contents, without any identifying information or other knowledge about the speaker(s) proposing the talk.

Proposal reviewers come from the following groups:

Any members of the aforementioned groups who are acting as PyCon AU CFP mentors, reviewing CFP submissions for identifying information, or who are answering questions at the program@pycon-au.org email address are disqualified from reviewing proposals, as through these activities they are likely to gain knowledge of the personal details of some people who have submitted talk proposals.

Phase Two: identity-aware ranking and curation

Once reviewing is finished, all proposals will be de-anonymised.

PyCon AU proposal reviewers are then joined by the remaining members of the PyCon AU core organising team in order to curate the PyCon AU 2018 program. This group will use the reviewed proposals, in conjunction with speaker profiles, to rank and organise a program that meets our goals for diversity of speakers and topics.

Anonymity Guidelines

PyCon AU aims to curate a diverse and interesting lineup of talks for our 2018 conference.

In order to review talk proposals with as little bias as is humanly possible, we have made our proposal review process anonymous.

This may be different to the processes you have seen at other conferences, so we have created this FAQ for you. If you have questions that aren’t answered here, you can email program@pycon-au.org.

Quick answers

Put any and all personally-identifiable information in the “Profile Details” section of your submission. This is where we want it to be!

PLEASE NOTE: If your proposal still contains identifying information by the time the CFP closes on Monday, May 28 Anywhere on Earth, it will be disqualified from consideration for PyCon AU 2018. This is because, if this information is included, we cannot guarantee that your talk will have been reviewed without bias.

Organisers have no way to edit your proposal. If we identify that you have included information that idenifies you, we will contact you via the Speaker Communication function of PaperCall. Organisers will not identify themselves when they contact you, so please do not identify yourself in replies. This includes signing off your reply with your name. If you do this, we will return your proposal to you for resubmission.

Detailed answers

How do I write a proposal that doesn’t identify me?

The basic guiding principle is to give only the information about yourself that is relevant to the talk.

This means:

Here’s an example where identifying your affiliations is relevant to the talk:

“This talk will explore the ways that the Dog Patting Corp team used Python to make their work patting dogs easier.”

Here’s an example where identifying your affiliations is not relevant to the talk:

“The speaker, who is a Lead Canine Appreciator for Dog Patting Corp, will explore how to build a home automation system using MicroPython.”

How do I tell you about myself and why I am the best person to give this talk… without identifying myself?

There is plenty you can say about your work without including your name, references to your gender, or other links. You can accomplish this even without referring to your employer’s name or affiliation with a project.

Things we want to hear about:

e.g.

“I have worked in the dog patting industry for several years and am particularly interested in the problems of how to pat extremely fluffy dogs. I have also worked on patting short-haired dogs. This experience gives me a unique perspective on the problem of dog patting, which I am looking forward to sharing with the audience.

I am also passionate about the history of dog patting, and have both attended and run several workshops on the cultural legacy of being nice to our canine companions.”

Another example:

“I started dog patting this year. I have a lot of thoughts about effective ways to teach dog patting to beginners, and I am enthusiastic about making other people’s journeys into the world of patting dogs more enjoyable and accessible. “

Can I still identify myself as a [insert gender/minority/attribute here]?

tl;dr: This information belongs in the “Profile Details” section of your submission.

During the first phase of our review process, the PyCon AU reviewers will not know anything about your identity. Reviewers will use only the talk topic and the details provided in the abstract and notes to rate your talk.

Once all proposals have been rated and reviewed, we will de-anonymise all talks. This means that the information you provided in your PaperCall “Profile Details” will become visible to the PyCon AU organisers, and we can begin the work of selecting talks, and putting together the beginnings of the conference schedule. You are welcome to provide demographic information in this section.

Additionally, we provide financial aid to ensure people from a wide variety of backgrounds are able to attend PyCon AU. The financial assistance application process is separate to the CFP review process, and you may provide information about your background and circumstances there as well. See more about financial assistance at https://2018.pycon-au.org/assistance.

What about my PaperCall “Profile Details”?

tl;dr: Put any identifying information in the “Profile Details” section of your submission! This is where we want it to be.

PaperCall will hide the information you provide in your “Profile Details” section from PyCon AU organisers until we choose to de-anonymise it. De-anonymisation is a one-time process that will apply to all submissions at the same time. We will trigger this once the review process has been completed.

This means that the information you provided in your PaperCall Profile Details will become visible to the PyCon AU organisers, and we can begin the work of selecting talks, and putting together the beginnings of the conference schedule. You are welcome to provide demographic information in this section.

Information in your PaperCall “Profile Details” includes:

How will you know how to contact me about the talk if it is accepted?

Once talks have been reviewed, we will de-anonymise all talks. (This is a process built into PaperCall.) This will reveal the personal information provided in the PaperCall “Profile Details” section, and allow the PyCon AU Organising Committee to see it.

Once we have decided upon our PyCon AU 2018 talks, we will send you a message through PaperCall to let you know what the next steps are.

I didn’t have to do this for [other conference]. Why do I have to do this for PyCon AU?

All conferences will have different processes for reviewing talks based on the needs of their communities.

This process is the way that PyCon AU believes is the most likely to reduce bias in the rating and reviewing of talk submissions.

PyCon AU takes our commitment to anonymous reviews very seriously. This means that non-reviewing members of the PyCon AU organising team will check incoming proposals to make sure they do not have identifying information, and message submitters if they discover anything that needs changing.

Oh no! I already submitted something that identifies me! What do I do?

tl;dr: Until the CFP closes, you can edit your submissions in PaperCall. You will be able to remove identifying information from your proposal until this time.

If your talk contains identifying information, it is likely you may have been contacted by a PyCon AU organiser already and asked to remove this from your proposal. If you have not, it is always worth a double check.

You are also welcome to make tweaks and changes to your proposal up until the CFP is closed. This gives you a chance to polish submissions based on feedback, and to remove identifying information if you notice it there.

I have removed all the identifying info, but my talk title/topic is pretty unique and could identify me. What do I do?

We have reviewers who are both frequent and infrequent conference reviewers and attendees. We will be asking any reviewers who recognise your talk by title or abstract to refrain from reviewing your proposal.

This will give other reviewers the chance to review your proposal without prior knowledge of you or your talk.

My submission was returned to me! What do I do?

In some cases, there are items of a submission that cannot be edited by anyone. This includes speaker feedback. Feedback is an important mechanism for reviewers to ask for clarification or updates to your propoosal. The only way we can remove this historical information so that reviewers cannot see it is to return your submission to you and ask for a fresh submission.

Please do not sign off your feedback to reviewers with your name.

If you have had your submission returned to you and you have been asked to resubmit:

We will only ask for a resubmission in extreme circumstances. If you resubmit, and your new submission still contains issues regarding identifying information, your submission will be disqualified from consideration for the conference.

I have a different question.

Great! You can email it to program@pycon-au.org and a non-reviewing member of our organising team will get back to you.

I think I’ve done everything right. What’s next?

Submit your proposal through PaperCall, and wait to hear back from us! Make sure to read all the speaker information.