Re: Guix Days and FOSDEM 2021?

[zimoun]

Dear,

Thank you for your replies.


> >On Sat, Sep 12, 2020 at 12:12:14PM +0200, zimoun wrote:
> >> Well, I am proposing to do that on the week-end November, 21th,
> >> 9:00am-6:00pm CEST.
> >
> >Summer will be over in November (even in Southern France), so I would
> >suggest CET :)

It is always "summer" in Southern France. ;-)
Aside the joke, thank you: I have always missed the meaning of 'S' in CEST.

Well, let's wait a bit more before writing down the date.  What do the
others think?


> >> The schedule of the day could be:
> >>  - introduction
> >>  - 2-3 short presentations
> >>  - smaller discussions and working groups on specific topics
> >>  - break
> >>  - short live demo: how to submit or test a patch, how to configure
> >> Emacs (or others), how to use Data Service, etc.
> >>  - 2-3 short presentations
> >>  - smaller discussions and working groups on specific topics
> >>  - end
> >
> >I agree that a mix of presentations and break-out rooms is a good idea.
> >The latter are supported by BigBlueButton. As for prerecorded talks, I
> >am
> >not even sure whether it is easier to stream prerecorded videos, or
> >simply
> >let people talk over BBB. Personally, I think that live talks could be
> >more
> >engaging, and would suggest to give it a try (since this is sort of a
> >"test
> >event", it matters less if there are failures).

>From my little experience, online live talks always fail somehow.
Well, I speak for myself: in real life talks where we are all in the
same room, when something is going wrong, I do not have too much
temptation to switch my focus (waiting the fix) because I am just
sitting in the room, feeling the atmosphere, eyes contact etc.;
contrary to online talks, where there are more temptations (switch the
stream when waiting, go from the couch to the kitchen prepare a
coffee, etc.) or I feel frustrated.


> >Julien has been chairing Linux from Scratch sessions online, maybe his
> >experience could be helpful.
>
> Oh no, I stream to twitch (because I want to be popular :p), but the platform 
> requires proprietary javascript, and probably spies on its users. Also, my 
> "sessions" are completely free-style, no preparation except for the creation 
> of the VM I build on. Finally, the sessions are streamed, so interaction is 
> actually me speaking, and my audience writing on a chat.
>
> I think doing a presentation live is nice, but not ideal (there could be 
> technical issues, is usually less prepared, …). With a pre-recorded talk, you 
> can easily do things you wouldn't be able to do with a presentation, because 
> you can use a video editing software. For instance, I was able to fix my 
> crapy audio with audacity, you can easily include a screen capture, 
> animation, …

I agree that pre-recorded videos are a bit more work before, but it
helps to keep the schedule on track, IMHO.

Obviously, it is not exclusive. :-)
We could have both, the important is that people speak about the topic
they matter.
Pre-recorded is a suggestion.


> >> Well, what is missing is a kind of social event but I have no idea.
> >> Maybe, something real life by city: the Parisian Guix could meet
> >> and/or diner together, idem for the Londonians, Berliners, etc.
> >> However, I do not know if enough Guixers are clustered in the same
> >> place or if they are too scattered.
> >
> >I do not think we are enough people in any given place; and indeed,
> >social
> >events online are a bit strained. At work, we moved our weekly tea
> >break
> >online during lockdown. It was already nice to see people at a time
> >where
> >otherwise everybody was more or less locked in at home. But it lacks
> >the
> >possibility of having informal discussions in groups, of moving to
> >someone
> >and asking them the silly question about X one has always wondered
> >about,
> >and so on. On the other hand, seeing people one only knows online could
> >also be nice, I enjoyed it for our yearly Guix Europe assembly.

Well, I will try to organize a diner with the Paris-area's Guixers.
>From what I remember, we are at least 5 reading mailing lists or
around, so probably more.

> I think I enjoyed in libreplanet the fact that there were only a few people 
> talking, and that they were streaming that, with a different channel for the 
> audience. We won't have as many people I guess, but with more than a handful 
> people, n to n voice communication online just breaks.

I agree that n to n online voice communication breaks for n greater
than 10.  Well, we were ~15 people joining the reproducible science
hackathon day and from my point of view the limit of the Jitsi
instance was almost reached, I mean the discipline for audible
discussions is too high.

At the real life Guix Days, we are more or less 50, I guess.
Therefore, IMHO, around 100 people would be simultaneously connected,
maybe more.  With 50 active people.


> I use this model for my LFS sessions, I speak, others can interact through 
> the chat. This is also what happens with presentations online at my 
> university: a chair presents the speaker, others are muted and ask questions 
> on the chat. The chair keeps an eye on the chat and interrupts the speaker to 
> ask the questions, at the end of a slide, or other appropriate time.
>
> For group meetings, everyone is muted except for the group leader, then 
> everyone can speak turn by turn, as if we were speakers in the previous model.
>
> With delays and varying audio quality, it can be hard to follow what's going 
> on, so we should make sure we're not going to all talk at the same time. 
> Making separate rooms could be nice to reduce the number of participants in 
> the same chat.

I agree.  What I had in mind when proposing the schedule is:

 - start with a 1 to n stream with thematic pre-recorded videos,
presenting the rooms
 - in each room let consider a chairman
 - the room could do a n to n voice/video communication, if the number
is participant is enough low, or 1 to n voice/video if higher and the
n to n communication happens on IRC, the chairman reporting back
 - at the end of the session, all the chairmen explain in m to n
communications what had been discussed

Technically, what we need is:

 - something to stream
 - check the BBB instance: if it works well for people around the
world (far from Southern France :-))


WDYT?

All the best,
simon