Welcome to DEF CON 21! How would you make DEF CON 22 even better?

[astcell]

Re: Welcome to DEF CON 21! How would you make DEF CON 22 even better?

I would demand a coffee machine in the hotel rooms. I don't care about the weight room and other amenities they insist I pay for. I NEED COFFEE!

[tecknicaltom]

Re: Welcome to DEF CON 21! How would you make DEF CON 22 even better?

While I'm amazed at how all aspects of Defcon seem to run smoother every year, the one place that still needs optimization is the swag booth. It seems to be the slowest moving line at the entire con. Even when it's a relatively short line, the wait times mean that you're missing other events. Those who know more about its inner workings than I should look to figure out where the bottlenecks are and optimize them. From an outsider's point of view, it seems that most people aren't able to get a good look at the products and availability until at the front of the line, which holds everything up. Waiting around for somebody to take your order once up there makes the process slower for those who already know what they want. Perhaps some way to allow customers to see the products (closer than from behind the rope), prices, and what's currently available while still in line could allow the front of the line to move faster. This could be a display case, or a TV with rotating images of the products. Also, allowing people to fill out the order slips themselves while in line could speed things up, if we can trust people to not be stupid when filling out the order form. Again, these are just observations by an outsider and I'm sure those who organize the booth can better identify the problem areas.

[Fullpint]

Re: Welcome to DEF CON 21! How would you make DEF CON 22 even better?

Script fonts in the program for speakers - bad choice...especially since the talks were sorted by Speaker, not Talk name, as you'd expect. It's bad enough the fonts are microscopic in the program. It really shouldn't be an obfuscation contest.

Suggestion to fix it: Make fonts readable to normal humans and sort talks by name of talk in the program.

[adh4wk]

Re: Welcome to DEF CON 21! How would you make DEF CON 22 even better?

I was allowed the honor of working as a Security Goon during the last couple days of the con. I am proud that they allowed me into their tight group to help and experience a part of DefCon few get to.

I would love next year to help out on a contest or event. I think I am going to be helping someone will a possible lite CTF style contest next year. I would also love to work with the Wall of Sheep to make their event even better for next year.

Also, it would be nice to be introduced to the NOC. I am a network admin. I definitely know the NOC does a ton of work to make sure the network ways are clear, DOS monkeys are kept at bay, and the defcon media server is available.

Oh. And we need more cow bell. Defcon needs more cow bell for next year. I do know that was a popular request.

[Smag]

Re: Welcome to DEF CON 21! How would you make DEF CON 22 even better?

Edit: Moved to proper location

[lexxmac]

Re: Welcome to DEF CON 21! How would you make DEF CON 22 even better?

Edit: Nevermind, problem solved

[TheCotMan]

Hello,

Welcome to the yearly thread, "How can DEF CON be made better?"

For some goons, DEF CON started last week. Several more arrived on Sunday and today to prepare for what comes next.

Soon, I will be away from the forums. I am not sure if any other admins or mods will be staying home this year, but I have no plans to shut down the forums during DEF CON this year... in fact, I don't plan to do much on the forums except maybe one or two check-ins on Tuesday, and Wednesday. Beyond that, I'll probably not visit these forum unless Jeff asks me to.

What is going to happen:
1) I am going to alter the waiting period for new accounts to give them immediate promotion from "Member" (with no access to post) to "L3" a user that can make new thread and reply to existing threads. (This should now take 1 hour or less. You may need to navigate around on the forums once or twice in that hour-period as your logged-in self to trigger the process that does the promotion.)
2) I'll be doing another backup and off-site store of the DB in case the server dies.
3) If spammers or lamers find the forums and trash them with junk, the mods can deal with that silliness when we get back. (Again, please do not reply to spam. I state in the rules that I remove all spam and replies from public view, so please don't reply to spam so I don't have to move your post with it.)
4) Forum use in other ways will be more restrictive, and you may notice limits in place that were not there before... some will include timers that allow you to try your action a little bit later after taking other actions.


Now that DEF CON has started, what do you see that you think sucks, and what would you do to make it better?

Is there something missing? Is there something that seemed out of place? If you were DT, is there some decision you would have made different, and if so, how? Any comments for speakers, or speaker tracks? Security goons? Help/Info Desk? Those jerks that run the forums? ;-)

There are several ways to make DEF CON better:
1) Volunteer and contribute to add what you see is missing (best)
2) Volunteer and join with other people that are looking to contribute what you think would be a great addition to DEF CON next year
3) Provide advice on how to improve DEF CON next year
4) Provide constructive criticism on what was broken and how it could be fixed.
5) Something else.

Let it begin!

The rules for "flaming" that is (complaint about specific people without constructive criticism) is still against the rules...if you want to whine, you can use "/dev/random" or whine and say HOW it sucked and WHAT could be done to address the issue.

Good luck!