Guidelines not Censorship

OK, I went with the sensational headline. But it seems like this whole issue has gone seriously sensational.

If you read this blog, you probably already know about the incident with Hoss Gifford at this year's flashbelt conference, and the subsequent storm on twitter. Hoss gave the keynote address, in much the same way he gives track presentations: he goes for shock value with explicit content. This didn't go over so well in the mid-west. Go figure.

There have been some great blog posts in the wake of the storm. Stacey wrote a particularly good and soul-searching article, in which she proposed some ideas for moving forward. Yeah Stacey!

One idea Stacey listed, was for speakers to submit their slides ahead of time for review. Many of the bigger conferences do this, and it could work well for some of the smaller conferences. But this does result in a corporate feel.

This got me thinking...what if Flash conferences provided guidelines for speakers? The conference organizers could decide if they wanted to allow explicit content with disclaimer warnings, or not at all. Should it be in the keynote?

With these guidelines, speakers would have a clearer idea of the tone the conference is going for, and the sponsors and attendees could make more informed decisions.