testingconferences / testingconferences.github.io

A simple list of Software Testing Conferences and Workshops

Testing Conferences

This is a simple list of software testing conferences and workshops published collaboratively with the testing community.

Quick Start

1. Clone or download the project and cd project dir

git clone [email protected]:TestingConferences/testingconferences.github.io.git cd testingconferences.github.io

2. Make sure you've got Docker (or Orbstack) installed and Run the setup process

/devops/setup.sh

Contributing Guidelines

The list of events is driven by files in the _data folder - if you have an update for those things, just change the current.yml and past.yml files and send a PR.

• The order of the events listed in current.yml and past.yml dictates the order displayed, please make sure to properly insert events.
• If possible, spell out the conference name and add the abbreviation. Otherwise just use the abbreviation:
  • Example: Workshop on Performance and Reliability (WOPR)
• If the conference name has a colon (:), place the entire name in quotes. Otherwise this can cause build errors.
  • Example: "test:fest 2099" or "IBCU: Workshop on Testing 2099"
• Include the year
  • Sometimes workshops use a version instead of a year
    • Example: Workshop on Performance and Reliability (WOPR) 24
• Don't include the @ symbol for the twitter handle. If there is no twitter option, leave it blank
• Optionally include a status such as:
  • CFP is open / closed (CFP == Call for Proposal)
  • CFP is closed
  • Early Bird Registration is open
  • Registration is open / closed
  • Feel free to put in dates about when things expire
  • Feel free to put the status as a link to the correct place
• Optionally include a link to a conference video playlist. This will only appear for past conferences and can be added directly to the past.yml file.
  • These should be videos from the conference presentations or talks. No marketing videos please.

Eligible Conferences and Workshops

Focus is a goal of this project and as a result, only conferences, un-conferences and workshops that are specifically for software testing are listed. That means that if a conference covers software testing, but is not specifically for testers, then it is left out.

A good heuristic for whether a conference should be included is if its name includes Test(ing) or Quality and/or how it describes itself.

Mailing List

Don't forget to sign up for our once monthly newsletter.

License

TC.org is released under the MIT License.

testingconferences.github.io's Issues

favicon.ico not found

When running jekyll I get an ERROR /favicon.ico' not found.` Perhaps we need to add a favicon now?

Additional speaker related info

Can we show the following:

• Speaker Policies. The actual policy and someway of showing they have one
• Are they PayToSpeak or not?

Make this list embeddable

This would make testingconferences way more useful. Is there a way to make this list (or a part of this list) embeddable into someone else's site? So they wouldn't have to make this list themselves?

Add HTTPS

Google is going to move away from ranking HTTP only websites highly. Which means out ability to reach people will be greatly impacted.

Need to add a certificate either through Cloudflare or our Domain Registrar. (Go through Domain Registrar first).

New Page: Top 2019 testing conferences

• Add it to the /root directory so it becomes a page like /about.
• Name the file best-software-testing-conferences-2019.md. Call it The Best Software Testing Conferences of 2019.
• How do we reference this in the News pages?

Add a readme file

Add a readme file with basic instructions on how to contribute.

Create a separate list of conferences with a testing track?

TestingConferences.org only lists testing conferences and workshops. There are however conferences and workshops not aimed directly (or wholly) at testing but that still have testing tracks. Might be possible (with support from the community) to create a new list.

Perhaps within a subdomain?

Turn the list into a subscribable calendar

A few people have asked for a way to import the list of conferences into a calendar that they can then subscribe to.

My first thought is that might it be possible to import the testing conferences list into Google Calendar. This might make it "easier" to embed and share the list (and who knows maybe encourage more people to submit).

https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/37118?hl=en

Add an attribution in footer

Add an attribution to rubyconferences.org in footer

Add RSS feed to conference list

This might be a way to address #58.

Update current.yml and create past.yml

Update the current.yml file so it contains /actual/ software testing conferences and workshops. Move the other conferences to past.yml (create it).

Add Registration and CFP details

For upcoming conferences and workshops add details such as:

• Open for Registration
• Closed for Registration
• Calls for Proposal

Typography adjustments

Feedback from Tim:

• Pick colors that aren't default web blue
• Off White background (already have?)
• Different font than Arial but still sans serif
• Transitions always make things look better, and they're one line of css to add a gradual color change rather than immediate: transition: color .2s
• ditch the underline on hovering over links, decrease the font-size on the conference links, increase the header font-size, add a text-shadow: 1px 1px 1px #CCC to make the header look a bit fancier
• highlight the current tab
• change the bullets between the date / location / twitter with either http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_XML_and_HTML_character_entity_references or font awesome
• make every other entry in the list have a slightly different background color, like alternating - the css selector for that would be li:nth-child(even). Then pad them a little bit so the text isn't right on top of the edge.

Posts: 2 on Top Software Testing Conferences

1. Top Software Testing Conferences in 2017
2. Top Software Testing Conferences in 2018 -> delayed posting?

• The best conferences really depend on where you are located in the world. Most of the "Top" or "Best" lists assume you are located in the United States.
• There are a few online conferences popping up that we love but they aren't quite the same.
• Let's summarize the number of conferences we have in each continent for 2017 and 2018 with links back to the site. According to TC.org...
• Make a call to action (can we add a button?) that asks the reader to add any conferences we may have missed no matter what country they are in.

Post: Posts on past years conferences with Event Videos to watch

1. Make this post very SEO-ish
2. We want to highlight that our Past Conferences list does link to Event Videos from testing conferences.
3. There's added expense for conferences that do this, so I think it's worth highlighting. It's also worth promoting. I'd like to encourage this a bit.

• This could be a cross post between Kenst.com and TC.org

Set up basic automated tests and integrate with Circle CI

This seems like a fun and worthwhile experiment.

1. Build some basic automated UI tests for TC.org. Probably in a TC.org subdirectory
2. Set up a build process that uses Circle CI to run those automated tests each time we commit a change.

Ask if existing conferences would like to track our referrals

Write a blog post about this and if it's true add this to the wiki. Basically if conferences have a tracking query / format they'd like to use, we can make sure to use it across their urls for better tracking.

We'd like to help them track the value TC.org is providing

Code of conduct to conferences

Add a separate page: Code of conduct
In there we have two or three sections:

1. Guidance on how to get most out of a conference as an attendant.
2. Guidance on how you can prepare, speak, present on a topic of interest at a conference as a Speaker or Workshop provider.
3. How to organize a conference: what you have to keep in mind, what details are there needed to prepare, funds and sponsors, people, speakers invitations, location, and so on.

Make Twitter link optional

Make it so the link to twitter is optional. Maybe also make it possible to include twitter hashtag of event?

Build Pipeline: Cache dependencies

Let's cache the dependencies in the build configuration file so the bundle install step moves much quicker!

Highlight the current tab

Highlight the current. Current should be the default.

Make website responsive

When viewing the site from the mobile web, the titles / pages don't fold into the hamburger menu. Either we should remove this hamburger menu or place the titles / pages underneath it. Would also be great to fix up the footer.

Update about page

Add my profile photo to the about page.

Add event videos for Past Conferences

Both CAST and SeConf 2015 posted videos online and it would be nice to have a link to those event videos. Probably add these to the past conferences list.

Remove original footer

Delete the original footer from _includes directory.

Create a mailing list?

We could create a mailing list and send out emails to subscribers based on the next month's current and past events. Then we could directly ask if we are missing anything.

This would be a manual thing at least initially.

Stylize the current and past lists

Find a suitable format / style for the current and past lists so it's easy to differentiate the available information.

Posts: How to Run a Workshop

This seems like a potentially interesting and valuable news post. Who would be best to write it?

Transfer this repo it's own Organization

I'd like to transfer this repo into its own organization so I can get ckenst.github.io back.

Should we add more events

Should we add more events like meetups and trainings? or spin off another site?

Look into automated ways of adding conferences

Look into automated ways of adding conferences and workshops. We have a rather large list of conferences, now we just need to occasionally check or ping those conferences to determine when future conferences or updates are planned.

Mailchimp - Send an automated welcome email

• Create an Automated Welcome Email that welcomes new subscribers and recommends where to start.
• https://kb.mailchimp.com/automation/create-an-automated-welcome-email

Improve readability of news posts

I'm not sure if this is as simple as changing the font, font-size, or another dimension but currently the content text is difficult to read:

Make current list default view

Make the current list of conferences the default view instead of the blog posts. Move the blog posts & categorize as news.

Update automated build process to run tests locally

Update the automated build process such that:

1. Pull requests are deployed locally
2. Automated tests run against these pull requests
3. All this happens before we merge to Master.

I'm assuming this means we'll need separate branches, maybe a staging or develop branch in addition to master.

Update footer

• Move the "created & maintained" and "inspired by" blurb to the about page. Should clean up the footer a bit.
• Make the items in the footer one line, equally spaced from one another? (look at Github)
• Add the We heart icon Testing to the footer?

Add dismissible banner to top of page

1. Add a promo banner thats dismissible
2. Move newsletter sign up here

Remove subscribe link from index.html

currently it's commented out, remove it.

Set up TC.org in container

1. Create a docker container for TC.org
2. Get this container to run at CircleCI for each build

Every other list item could have a different background color

Make every other entry in the list have a slightly different background color, like alternating - the css selector for that would be li:nth-child(even). Then pad them a little bit so the text isn't right on top of the edge.

Add current conferences list

I'm thinking I can add a new class for current conferences to index.html and then pull in data from that new class from a file. Somehow.

Add tag for "free" events

Is there an icon or tag we could use to highlight free events? Of course we'd need to define what free meant. Often workshops don't have a conference fee but might charge a small fee to help reserve a room, etc.

Add filtering for events

Add filtering for:

1. Continent
2. Country

Add a license

Updates for the Auto-join newsletter

1. Add more links, references, etc. for people to click on other than adding conferences
2. Add a link to past emails / campaigns
3. Make the contribution section a call to action
4. Small text / grammar updates:

Add Search

Add search functionality so once users are on the the current and past pages it's easier to find conferences / workshops.

New Page: Top 2018 testing conferences

Do this before #214.

• Add it to the /root directory so it becomes a page like /about.
• Name the file best-software-testing-conferences-2018.md. Call it The Best Software Testing Conferences of 2018.
• Copy our "Best Remaining of 2018" posts for content.

Rebuild Navigation

I need to completely rebuild Navigation so it doesn't auto-add pages. Also I need page titles to remain "Software Testing Conferences". I only need 3 basic pages, in this order:

1. Current (homepage)
2. Past (/past)
3. News (/news) - the original blog Posts

Not yet sure what to do with About page. Is it necessary?

Add transitions

Transitions always make things look better, and they're one line of css to add a gradual color change rather than immediate: transition: color .2s

Add google analytics

add to existing account.