Re: [Conlangs-Conf] Second Language Creation Conference - Pre-pre-registration!

On 4/28/06, Jim Henry <jimhenry1973@...> wrote:
> > * How many days long you'd want (1, 2, or 3)
>
> Two or three days would be better, assuming enough speakers
> to fill out the program.  With a longer program you
> could give the same speakers more time and give
> longer breaks between presentations, which helps
> ensure things run on time; the conventions I've
> attended and organized with 1-hour program items
> and 15 or 30 minute breaks were more on time
> than those with theoretically 50 minute program
> items and 10-minute breaks, where speakers
> almost always use the full hour and leave no break
> time or even run into the next speaker's time.
*nod* Could you suggest some events to hold during the conference to
flesh it out more (other than just talks)?

> > * What topics, format, people, or etc you'd like to see (different
> > from this year's)
>
> Since I missed this year's (vacation days budget too tight,
> not enough advance warning), I wouldn't mind seeing a
> repeat of this year's.
Heh, *nod*. But that'd probably not attract the people who *did* come
to come again - so if there are repeats (I'm certainly not opposed to
bringing 'em back), it should be on a related / followup / corollary
topic of some sort, so as to still be interesting to the same crowd.

> > Most importantly:
> > **** What topics YOU can talk about
>
> If I can come I'll probably give
> a talk about gjâ-zym-byn and my experiences developing
> it, becoming reasonably fluent in it, and using it.
Could you elaborate on this?

It's the sort of thing that is a bit grayarea from my perspective as
an organizer (rather than as a fellow conlanger per se, from which
it's of course interesting and worth listening to). It may be
interesting, but it would have difficulty being different enough to
not flag the "but everyone wants to tell their own story, and I can't
play favorites" thing. (This is the same reason I didn't allow any
talks that merely describe particular languages - everyone wants to
show off their own baby!)

Unless of course this story is used as an example or leadin to some
broader, or less obvious point - like perhaps what the obstacles /
solutions are, etc. (I'm having trouble coming up with good examples.)

> > **** Whether YOU can help organize it by:
> >  * providing financing (on the order of $800-1500)
> >  * doing backend organization (i.e. venue, food, financing, tech,
> > permits, etc - everything OTHER than getting the program & people to
> > show up)
>
> I have the experience to do that, and I would like to help,
> but this far out I hesitate to definitely volunteer.  I'm doing
> the same kind of work for the Esperanto League for
> North America, helping local groups that organize each year's
> convention; this year it seems almost another full-time job.
Well, let me know if you think you can. I'd like to make a list of
plausible people/locations within the next couple months, then narrow
it down to the best candidate.

> I wonder if it might make sense to combine this conlangs
> conference and the Esperanto League convention?  Or
> the Lojban group's Logfest?  There might be cost benefits
> in sharing space, as well as cross-fertilization between
> groups with similar/overlapping interests, etc.
I wonder how the community would take to that. I could see it going a
few different ways, some useful and some just flame-prone.

> > I'm totally willing to do the frontend organization, but I won't be
> > able to do the backend. I'll be putting online a pretty detailed
> > accounting of what I did and how here at Berkeley (including the
> > various documents, applications, budget, etc etc) that you're welcome
> > to copy from for doing backend stuff. It's really not that hard, and
> > should be easier still when you get to copy what I did.
>
> I have a similar document (about 70k) in Esperanto about
> organizing the Esperanto League convention.  I've been working
> (off and on)  on an English abridgement of it.
If you get the English one done, please send me a link/copy.

Thanks,
 - Sai

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