Q: How do I vote?

A: Go to http://nten.org/ntc/10sessions.

Each page displays 25 session proposals. Under each session is a widget with 5 stars. Click the star rating that corresponds to your opinion of the idea. Easy!

At the bottom of each page, you'll likely see a "Next" button, since we do have 223 proposals (9 pages) this year. While you can vote just in your preferred track, it'd be great if you'd give us your feedback on every one of them. Please?

If that heartfelt appeal doesn't get you and you still want to vote for only the sessions in your track -- i.e., Communications or Leadership -- use the menu at the upper right of the page.

Q: Okay. What if I have something to say about the session idea?

A: Click the session title to be taken to its detail page. You can leave comments there. Try to be nice, though. Our comments are moderated, and mean and/or inappropriate comments will be laughed at by NTEN staff, then promptly deleted.

Q: Why aren't my votes being saved?

A: After you click a star, you should see a message that says "Saving your vote..." and then "Your vote has been saved."

If you don't, it's likely that somebody else in your office has already voted using a shared IP address. We're only allowing 1 vote per IP as our rudimentary security against ballot stuffing. Try voting from home.

Q: When I reload the page, it doesn't seem to remember how I voted. What's up with that?

A: The system we're using seems to have trouble remembering anonymous users. As long as you see the "Your vote has been saved" message, it's all good. Also, the number of votes posted next to the average rating should increment.

Q: I don't see any stars. Is that bad?

A: Not necessarily! If the page takes too long to load, you may see a dropdown menu that will let you rate the sessions (and you should talk to your service provider about a faster connection).

Q: How long will voting be open?

A: Until October 16th, 2009.

Q: Why does it take the pages so long to load?

A: We had to disable caching so that the average votes would show up for you as the votes rolled in. Placing 25 sessions per page involves a lot of database hits, but since we made you look at every session individually to vote last year, we figured this was a fair trade off.

Q: Will the highest rated sessions be the ones featured at the NTC?

A: Probably not all of them. If we did it that way, we'd have 40 sessions on social media, 30 on websites, and a score on e-mail. Yes, we're "How can you have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?" folks, so the community voting will count for 33% when we sit down to determine the final agenda.

Q: I wanted to submit a session idea. Is it too late for that?

A: Kinda. We closed session submissions on September 21st, so it's too late to get in on the voting, but if you have an unprecedentedly awesome idea, you should still let us know about it. The agenda will be firm after November 1st.

Q: I'd be a terrific speaker at [x] session. How can I get added to the panel?

A: If you'd like to speak at a session, leave a comment (by going to the individual session page) and let us know. We don't promise you'll get to join the panel, but we'll certainly consider it.

Q: When will I find out if my session made it in?

A: Session designers will be contacted by November 1, 2009.

Q: This takes a really long time. Will you hate me if I don't vote for every session?

A: We could never hate you. We appreciate that you've taken time at all to help us out. (Unless you just voted for the sessions you proposed; that seems a little self-centered.)

Q: How can you write an F.A.Q. before anybody's asked any actual questions?

A: These are the questions we asked ourselves. Since nobody else has asked any other questions yet, and 1 is greater than 0, these qualify as the most frequently asked thus far. We reserve to the right to update this document as real questions come in.