[socal-piggies] Apologies for starting the heckling last night

[Daniel Greenfeld]

Last night's SoCal Python meetup had a pair of great talks by Jathan
McCollum (our wonderful host) and also Jeff Schenk. However, I feel
like I stepped over a line in butting into Jathan's presentation with
a question. Since his talk was of reasonable length, I should have
done what I normally do and just wait until the end to ask my
question.

Unfortunately, I think I opened a gateway to questions and eventually
outright heckling. Interruptions got more and more frequent, to the
point that once Jeff got started the commentary was so frequent he was
down to uttering single sentences because he was dealing with color
commentary.

Jeff is a great guy and accommodated things masterfully, in fact he
did so much better than I would. However, as a presenter he shouldn't
have to deal with this kind of thing, which is why I spoke up.

Presenting before large groups is hard enough without the community
making it harder. I have to admit while I'm happy to present at PyCon,
DjangoCon, PloneConf, and other events, SoCal Piggies is not a group
I've ever felt qualified to present for - with the exception of the
humorous Python Worst Practices.

I don't want to kill the fun, informal vibe of SocalPiggies but I
think a little moderation would go a long way. Presenters should know
they can ask the audience for comments/questions to be asked at the
end. Organizers can request 30-45 minute talks so people get a chance
to break and move.  And as a community we can be more supportive as a
group and keep our brilliant remarks and insights until the end.

I'm going to close this with an apology to Jeff and Jathan. You guys
are great! I want to hear more about your experiences and lessons
learned with heapq, Decimal, Simian, and Nudge.

Cheers,

-- 
'Knowledge is Power'
Daniel Greenfeld
http://pydanny.com
http://cartwheelweb.com