C4P management

The Call for Papers workflow is how organizers source talks from the speaker community. The C4P page for an event is at /dashboard/space/<id>/event/<eventId>/c4p.

Open a C4P

A Call for Papers can be enabled when you create the event or later:

1. Open the event home and switch to the C4P tab.
2. Click Open C4P and configure:
   • Submission deadline (date and time, in the event timezone).
   • Topics / tags — used by the recommender to surface the C4P to matching speakers.
   • Languages accepted.
   • Format allowed (in-person, remote, both).
   • Reviewer team — pick collaborators with the Reviewer role (see Team).
3. Save. The event now appears under the Call 4 Papers feed for speakers, and the public event page exposes a Submit a talk call to action.

The C4P stays open until the deadline; you can close it earlier by toggling Open C4P off.

Review applications

Each submitted application appears in the C4P queue with:

• Talk title and abstract.
• Speaker (link to their /speaker/<username> page).
• Suggested format and duration.
• Languages.
• Submission notes left by the speaker.
• The state (Submitted, Under review, Accepted, Waitlisted, Declined).

Review actions:

• Move to "Under review" — signals the speaker that you are looking at it.
• Accept — moves the application to the Accepted state and unlocks it for the Agenda.
• Waitlist — keep the application as a backup if a slot opens.
• Decline — close the application; the speaker is notified.
• Leave organizer notes — visible to the speaker on their application detail.

Multi-reviewer voting is supported: each reviewer can leave a private score and comment, and the C4P page shows the aggregated reviewer view to the organizers with Editor role or higher.

Filtering and triaging

The queue supports:

• Filter by state.
• Filter by tag / topic.
• Filter by reviewer score.
• Search by title or speaker name.

Use the filters to triage at scale during high-volume C4Ps.

Anti-duplicate detection

When a speaker submits a talk, the platform checks if the same catalog talk was already submitted to the same event and warns both the speaker and the organizers. This prevents duplicate applications from spamming the queue.

Closing the C4P

After the deadline:

• The C4P is automatically marked as Closed.
• New submissions are rejected.
• The queue stays accessible for review until the event ends.

You can still Accept, Waitlist or Decline applications after the deadline.

Notifications and emails

Speakers are notified on every state change (Submitted → Under review → Accepted/Waitlisted/Declined). Optional email templates are sent through AWS SES; the email body uses the Emblema base template plus the message you left as Organizer notes.

Tips

• Triage to Under review within 48 hours of submission — speakers appreciate the signal that the application is alive.
• Use organizer notes when declining: a one-line "We decided to focus on Kubernetes this edition" is far better than a silent decline.
• Set the C4P deadline at least 4 weeks before the event so you have time to review, build the agenda and announce speakers.