GUADEC 2017 BoF days

Hi all,

There's been some discussion about the BoF days for this year's GUADEC on
IRC today. I wanted to summarise my thoughts here, as a kind of proposal.

Allan


*Background*

The BoF days are an important part of GUADEC, particularly for established
community members who need the time to have meetings and working sessions.
However, they can be impenetrable for new community members. There are a
variety of reasons for this:

   - Terminology: "BoF" is unfamiliar to many.
   - Documentation: we typically don't explain what these days are for, or
   provide guidance on how to get involved.
   - Informality: while the flexibility of BoF sessions is useful, it often
   isn't clear what the purpose of each session is, who is welcome to
   participate.
   - Fragmentation: if there isn't a BoF happening that you are interested
   in, or feel you can contribute to, there isn't a clear way to participate.

In general, there's a lot of assumed knowledge and reliance on established
social relationships.

While the majority of people who participate in the BoF days are
experienced community members, we do get some new attendees each year who
do encounter them. These can include interns or new professional
participants. The quicker we can enable these attendees to participate and
get contributing, the more GNOME will benefit.

*New terminology*

I propose that we rebrand the "BoF days" as "unconference days". A
potential description might be:

"Three days of informal hacking, working sessions, meetings and group
activities, with opportunities for newcomers to get involved in a range of
areas including programming, design, marketing, documentation writing and
more."


*Things we could do*

The following is a list of things we could potentially do to address the
issues I've outlined above. Not all of them would necessarily work, but
it's interesting to consider our options.

   1. Run a newcomers workshop on the first unconference day.
   2. At the beginning of each unconference day, hold a plenary where
   people can say what they'd like to work on.
   3. End each day with a plenary where people summarise what they've done.
   4. During the conference days, have a big noticeboard with the evolving
   unconference schedule on it.
   5. Have a noticeboard where people can write topics they're interested
   in and put names against them.
   6. When each unconference session is registered, require that the
   organiser provides a summary of what will happen at the session, as well as
   who it is for.
   7. Ensure that there's a central hacking space where people can work.
   8. Provide ad-hoc signage so that people can advertise what is being
   worked on where.
   9. Allow teams to permanently camp out in particular spots, so members
   can come and go depending on what else is happening.
   10. Have easily identifiable ambassadors on hand to provide guidance to
   newcomers on which sessions to attend and how to participate.
   11. Hold pre-arranged group lunches that people can join.
   12. Provide instructions on how to participate in the unconference
   sessions - on the website, on conference badges, on the schedule that's
   pinned up.
   13. Give an introduction to the unconference during the core day closing
   - say what it is, what's happening, how to participate.
   14. Allow people to offer small-scale mentoring or training
   opportunities.

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