Livre d'Or

Ah see, the beauty of it is, the people talking are usually not talking about things they're amateurs at. Instead it's things they do for a job or are head of the society for or are writing a book on or have researched enough to have a talk's worth of stuff to say. I'm not saying you never get duff talks, but the quality is much more reliable.

Also it struck me to say, the diversity conversations do go achingly slowly, but remember this is a group of people who come together as a group maybe once or twice a year. Although cons pack a lot in, that still doesn't leave nearly as much time to have the discussions as being on Dreamwidth all year. (I do also agree with you about more specific panels being more useful!)