Question Time

[dcvr]

On the assumption that there'll be the opportunity once again to put questions to the GAC speakers, I wondered if anyone had any views on the method, or if the organisers had thought of changing the format?

I attended Maryam Namazie's talk in Melbourne last night and the Q&A afterwards was remarkably similar to last year's GAC: Everything from insightful questions to raving loons in search of (someone else's) platform to get their own opinion across. Most people simply wanted to make a statement, and the questions were few and far between. At least one lady who wanted to spruik her new book managed the good grace to throw in a question as well, but only -after- she'd spruiked her book. :)

Worryingly, some of those tending nearer the "loon" end of the scale I recognised as questioners from the last GAC, and my money's on them being first in-line to get their hands on a mic at the next one.

Is there a better way to do it? Tweets a la Q&A perhaps? Pre-submitted questions?

Or does this simply come with the territory? Hey... the aforementioned spruiked book actually sounded quite interesting!

[Dan]

There's always someone who wants to take advantage of question time. The solution is for the control room to be quick with the off switch. :D

At the end of the day it comes with the territory. Wankers will always find a way.

[Martin_Madej]

one option could be that the questions are submitted to a mediator (through writing ether by cards provided to the audience or submitted through twitter or Facebook) which will filter and group together questions to present to the guest speakers.

That dose takes the personal aspect out of the conference and can be seen as a type of censorship which is what it is.
It will also allow more questions and less statements being submitted.

[cyclist]

one option could be that the questions are submitted to a mediator (through writing ether by cards provided to the audience or submitted through twitter or Facebook) which will filter and group together questions to present to the guest speakers.

That dose takes the personal aspect out of the conference and can be seen as a type of censorship which is what it is.
It will also allow more questions and less statements being submitted.

The idea of having pre submitted questions is a good one, but I think that you should still have a way of asking questions directly. My reasoning for this, is that if you only have pre submitted questions, then you may not get questions which people think of during the actual talk, and of course the reverse is also possible, which is that a pre submitted question could be answered during the talk.

James

[Martin_Madej]

True this could be done during the talk itself it will take some good organization with ppl walking up and down the isles collecting offerings of Question and a live feed of Questions through Twitter for the tech savvy.

I assume that there is an allocation of time for each speaker so before the talk begins an announcement can be made to the audience that the questions will have to be submitted in this manner and will be sorted during the talk.

Just a thought.