Starting a new thread for this instead of hijacking others.

Motivating Questions:

What is the difference between an "Online Conference" and watching something on youtube?

If the answer is nothing, don't bother with a conference, just create a youtube channel.

If the answer is a conference is nothing like watching stuff on youtube... you better consciously and actively organise it to be different.

What is the difference between "Online" and "Meat space"?

If the answer is "Nothing", you will have a guy, selected by a papers committee, standing in front of an empty hall talking at the camera.

Otherwise you can think much much wider...

* screencasts
* massively multiprogrammer online sessions
* remove the paper selection committee and replace it with redditlike upvotes
* or write a paper like you write a library, collaboratively, on github, with PR's.
* Have game sessions, virtual choirs, ... whatever can turn online handles into humans.


Disclaimer: I was involved in arranging linuxconfau 2019 and observed first hand that meatspace conferences impose huge and tight constraints on what is possible...

Some things are about meatspace are very nice (eat! drink! be merry!). Some things cost a huge amount and decrease the value of the conference. (Very tight limits on number of tracks / papers, attendees, health and safety, transport, accommodation, flights, .....)

On Tuesday, 17 March 2020 at 00:58:18 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> Starting a new thread for this instead of hijacking others.

I've seen announcements by Apple, Microsoft, etc to host their conferences online. That's what some are doing in the current situation so lets learn from them.

On Tuesday, 17 March 2020 at 01:48:40 UTC, John Carter wrote:
> Motivating Questions:
>
> What is the difference between an "Online Conference" and watching something on youtube?
>

A month after the online conference, the difference (between it
and a Youtube channel) is that you have a fixed playlist of
videos to browse through, and their content contains some
sense of community - there are questions in the video (vs.
response videos), there's chat and people milling around at the
time of the video (although livestreams get this), and there's
a measure of professionalness: people show up with their real
names and aren't viciously rude or vulgar.

So after some time, the difference is all in the content of the
videos, and not in the experience of watching the videos.

The big differences then must be in the experience: in
attending a conference vs. submitting a video and seeing it
posted later.

> If the answer is nothing, don't bother with a conference, just create a youtube channel.
>
> If the answer is a conference is nothing like watching stuff on youtube... you better consciously and actively organise it to be different.
>
> What is the difference between "Online" and "Meat space"?

1. You can directly see other people and watch them react to
events in real time, and they you.

You lose this quality very quickly with online solutions, but
some can still give you a clearer sense of your audience.

2. When the presenter is speaking, others are silent. The
presenter has probably practiced a bit and isn't expecting to
improve the speech later with a video editor.

Some people could benefit from seeing a stream of people
chatting about their talk, while they make it, but I imagine a
lot of people are going to find any such thing distracting or a
detriment - not "the audience talking amongst itself" but "the
people in the audience wanting me to respond to them".

3. There are visual aids and, alternately, the person of the
presenter who are visual focuses.

You have body language, you have physical gestures for
emphasis, which rely on seeing who's talking, and you also have
a slideshow or terminal interaction.

You lose the first quality very quickly in online solutions, but
with cameras and "presenting modes" the person giving the talk
can still consciously switch the visual focus.

> If the answer is "Nothing", you will have a guy, selected by a papers committee, standing in front of an empty hall talking at the camera.
>
...
>
> Some things cost a huge amount and decrease the value of the conference. (Very tight limits on number of tracks / papers, attendees, health and safety, transport, accommodation, flights, .....)

All of this also serves as an up-front quality check, which is
at least much easier than moderating for quality after the
fact.

A very bad speech can be hard to sit through at the time, but
it's also bad a month later, as it reduces the average quality
of the conference playlist. You can't just say "here, check out
this link for some good D videos"; you have to make specific
recommendations or disrecommendations.

--

For technology, if you go to https://dlang.org/ and click on
Community, there's a "Community Discord". I'd suggest a
pre-conference period where people can get used to that (and
some people used to making videos out of voice chats on it),
and then just using that for the conference. And I say this
while not being a fan of Discord itself.

On Tuesday, 17 March 2020 at 00:58:18 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> Starting a new thread for this instead of hijacking others.

I shall again use libreplanet as a good point of reference for how it could be done. One nice touch was providing speakers who came physically a private booth (deep cleaned) to deliver their talk from.

https://libreplanet.org/2020/live/

On Tuesday, 17 March 2020 at 00:58:18 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> Starting a new thread for this instead of hijacking others.

good reference. watch about doing live events https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MHCN_v_ubM

On Tuesday, 17 March 2020 at 19:40:32 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:
> On Tuesday, 17 March 2020 at 00:58:18 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>> Starting a new thread for this instead of hijacking others.
>
> I shall again use libreplanet as a good point of reference for how it could be done. One nice touch was providing speakers who came physically a private booth (deep cleaned) to deliver their talk from.
>
> https://libreplanet.org/2020/live/

And now a blog post about the experience.

https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/how-to-livestream-a-conference-in-just-under-a-week

On Tuesday, 17 March 2020 at 00:58:18 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> Starting a new thread for this instead of hijacking others.

I'm in favor of that, if you decide to have an online conference then count me in. I've got lots of ideas for talks that I could give. And I'd love to see the ones you guys have to teach.

On Tuesday, 17 March 2020 at 02:30:25 UTC, aberba wrote:
> On Tuesday, 17 March 2020 at 00:58:18 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>> Starting a new thread for this instead of hijacking others.
>
> I've seen announcements by Apple, Microsoft, etc to host their conferences online. That's what some are doing in the current situation so lets learn from them.

I am not sure if comparing to or copying from these large companies is doable.

Next week there will be the European Lisp Symposium[1].
I think it is roughly the same size as the DConf (and has roughly the same resources?).
I know that they plan to prerecord their talks and then stream via twitch[2].
Afterwards the videos will be available on YouTube.

We could peak how well it goes.
If it is of interest to you, I will be probably able to provide feedback from one of the committee members.


[1]: https://european-lisp-symposium.org/2020/index.html
[2]: https://www.twitch.tv/

On Friday, 24 April 2020 at 07:34:56 UTC, Jan Hönig wrote:
>
> I am not sure if comparing to or copying from these large companies is doable.
>
> Next week there will be the European Lisp Symposium[1].
> I think it is roughly the same size as the DConf (and has roughly the same resources?).
> I know that they plan to prerecord their talks and then stream via twitch[2].
> Afterwards the videos will be available on YouTube.
>
> We could peak how well it goes.
> If it is of interest to you, I will be probably able to provide feedback from one of the committee members.
>
>
> [1]: https://european-lisp-symposium.org/2020/index.html
> [2]: https://www.twitch.tv/

The link of the conference: https://www.twitch.tv/elsconf
Starting today 9:15 CEST