Following on my earlier post, ‘EclipseCon submission‘, needed to round out the tale with the ‘EclipseCon rejection’ entry.  They did it with what’s obviously an automated email.  However, it’s also one of the classiest approaches I’ve ever seen to such a letter.  Quoting from it:

‘We received almost three times as many proposals as we have space for, and thus have been forced to decline a large number of quality submissions. Unfortunately, and with our apologies, your proposal is one of those we had to leave out.’

Wow.  They balance that just right.  They don’t actually come out and say my particular submission is was a quality submission, so if they get submissions that are crap, they aren’t intentionally lying.  However, they do leave you with the overall impression that you were in good company in the reject pile.

They then go on to say: ‘There are still plenty of opportunities for you to participate at EclipseCon, including BOFs and posters, both of which tend not to be over-subscribed and will be open for submissions in February. We look forward to seeing you at EclipseCon 2009 and we urge you to register early to take advantage of the lowest price.’

Yep, the BOFs and posters aren’t nearly so over-subscribed, as they don’t have free admission tickets to the conference associated.  And I love the direct link to register here: great sales job, honestly.  My submission didn’t earn me a free entry to EclipseCon, and they’ve let me down gently about it, but they’ll give me a link to cut me a deal on the early registration deal open to everybody.

I know you could read this posting and ascribe some sarcasm to it.  It’s probably in there, too, but I also have to say that I was geniunely impressed by their handling of the submission process.  I do intend to go to EclipseCon this year, if I can swing it through my employer, and I REALLY want to go to the sessions covering the topic area on which I was intending to submit.  All I can say is, your stuff better be good!