We’re going to have another FtBCon on 22-24 January 2016, and we’re beginning to assemble a program. Your friendly bloggers here have some plans and ideas, but one of the virtues of having a conference entirely online, besides the fact that you all get to watch, no matter where you are, is that we can open it up to suggestions for talks and panels from you, the readership. If you are interested in putting your face and voice online, talking about freethought, science, social justice, video games, whatever, we have an online form for you to fill out. It’s easy!
A few important points: only fill out the form if you want to host a session. Don’t nominate others: you might want to hear Neil deGrasse Tyson (so would I), but we don’t need you telling us that you want us to draft him to speak. If Neil deGrasse Tyson wants to address our little con, on the other hand, he should fill out the form. We’ll probably accept his proposal.
You can propose talks, where you all by your lonesome talk at your computer’s camera, or panels, where you get together a small group (keep it to 4 or fewer, please: big groups don’t work well) and have a round table discussion. It’s all good. Again, don’t tell us you want to host a panel and ask us to fill up all the seats: you find your co-panelists first.
This form is for proposals. They won’t automatically be accepted. Make it enticing so we want to accept it.
Do tell us when you’d be available that weekend, and when you’d prefer to have the panel. We also love to have people outside US time zones participate, so it’s great when we’ve got panels/talks at times convenient for Europe or Australia.
Trolls: don’t bother. Submissions from this form will not be displayed publicly — we’ll just screen them first, and we’re quick on the delete key. If you think you can lie your way into getting on the schedule and then switch topics on us at the last minute…won’t work. All talks and panels will be sponsored by an FtB member, who will be able to pull the plug on you. So don’t waste your time or ours.
