Calls for papers

Aggiornato il 2 nov 2026

A community's owners and admins can open a call for papers: a page where speakers send proposals for talks, with the answers and files you ask for. The same call works for sponsors or anything else people apply for — its title says what it is.

A call is for one of the community's events, or for the whole community, as a standing "propose a talk" form.

Creating a call

  1. On the community's manage page, open the CFP tab and select New call for papers.
  2. Give it a title and pick its Event — one of the community's upcoming events — or No event — a call for the whole community. An event has one call for papers.
  3. Select Create. The call opens on its own page as a Draft, which only the community's owners and admins see.

Under Settings:

  • Description — the call itself: topics, formats, how you choose. It supports markdown.
  • Opens and Closes — when proposals are taken. Picking an event sets Closes to the event's start; change it as you need. A call with no closing date stays open until you close it.

Questions

Every proposal has a title and a description, and comes with the speaker's name, picture and email. Under Questions, add anything else you need:

  • File upload — one file per question; to ask for slides and a paper, add two. Speakers can upload PDF, PowerPoint, Keynote, Word, Excel and images (JPEG, PNG, WebP, HEIC), up to 100 MB per file.
  • Short text with Long answer turned on — a few paragraphs, for a bio or notes.
  • Choice — talk length, track, or sponsorship tier.

The other types are the ones registration questions use. Mark a question Required when every proposal needs it.

Opening and closing

Select Open for proposals to open the call now, or set an Opens date to open it later. The call closes on its Closes date, or when you select Close now. Open for proposals on a closed call opens it again, with no closing date.

While a call is open:

  • For an event — the event's page has a Call for papers section after the speakers, with the closing time and Submit a proposal. A Call for papers chip at the top of the page leads to it, and the event's card shows CFP open in event lists.
  • For the whole community — the community's page shows it under the community's name, with Submit a proposal.

Every call has its own page — the link to share. View on the call's manage page opens it. A call for an event is seen only by people who can see the event. Once the call closes, its page says so.

Sending a proposal

  1. Open the call's page — from the event, the community's page, or a link the organizers shared. Signed out, Submit a proposal asks you to sign in first.
  2. The form shows your name, picture and email: they go to the organizers with your proposal.
  3. Fill in the title, the description and the organizers' questions. The description supports markdown, without images. Select Send.

You can send more than one proposal to the same call. They are listed under Your proposals on the call's page, and on the CFP tab of your events, with their status: Submitted, Accepted, Declined or Withdrawn. You are notified when the organizers accept or decline one.

  • Edit — while the call is open and the organizers have not decided. They see when you last edited it.
  • Withdraw — any time. The organizers keep its title; the description, answers and files are deleted. If it had been accepted, they are notified.

Reviewing proposals

The community's owners and admins are notified of every new proposal. The CFP tab's badge counts the proposals waiting for a decision, across all the community's calls.

On the call's page, Proposals lists them, waiting ones first. Filter them by Status, or select Export for a CSV: name, username, email, title, description, status, dates, and one column per question.

Select a proposal to read it: the speaker and their email, the description, the answers, and the files, each with Download. Files have no public link — only the speaker and the community's owners and admins can download them.

At the bottom, pick Accepted or Declined. The speaker is notified and can no longer edit the proposal. To undo a decision, pick Submitted.

The next event's call

Duplicate on a call's page makes a new draft with the same title, description and questions — without dates, an event or proposals. Pick the next event and open it.

If the event changes

When an event moves out of the community, it leaves its call for papers: an open call closes, a scheduled one goes back to a draft, and the proposals stay with the community that ran it. The event's new community can open a call of its own. A call for a cancelled event stops showing.

Deleting a call

Delete, in the Danger zone at the bottom of a call's page, deletes the call and every proposal sent to it.