Last week I was very lucky to be at the 14th (by my count) “Bellingham Summer Philosophy Conference”:http://myweb.facstaff.wwu.edu/nmarkos/BSPC/BSPC2013/BSPC_2013/BSPC_2013.html. The organisers, especially Ned Markosian, do such a fantastic job of running a conference. It really should be a role model for other conferences. (And in some places “it is”:http://midsummerphilosophy.squarespace.com/conference-information/.)

There isn’t a wikipedia page for the BSPC yet. I thought about setting one up, but I wasn’t quite sure what to say.

At the conference I presented the latest incarnation of “Running Risks Morally”:http://brian.weatherson.org/rrm.pdf. I got really valuable feedback, which will be incorporated into the paper. This incorporation will be made much easier by the fact that I have some lists of the questions that were asked. That was in part because I arranged for this, and in part due to unexpected acts of kindness.

And that got me thinking – it would be great if more conferences arranged for there to be someone at each session who took notes on what was being said. This could be useful to the person who is revising the paper, and useful to the participants who want to look back at what was being said. The job would be a little like the minute-taker that Arche used to have at project meetings. It’s not the most fun job ever, but it’s not impossibly hard. I did it at one session at BSPC, and some people naturally take detailed notes. Even if conference organisers don’t want to raise this into a formal position, I highly encourage anyone who is in a conference session where one of their colleagues or close friends is presenting to take as many notes as they can about what goes on in the session.