Summits, Conferences and Meetups workgroup - 2022-12-28

Hi folks, hope everyone had/is having a good holiday period :)

A couple of questions:

1) Any news on the Cisco office space? I noticed the offer from https://hsbxl.be/ on the FOSDEM list... not entirely sure if it would be appropriate for a summit, but it could be interesting

2) Are we printing hoodies/t-shirts this year, and if so, who is working on that? We were wondering about possibly doing some Prosody (maybe Snikket?) swag. I'm just not sure about logistics though, e.g. how to get them to FOSDEM.

The hsbxl looks a lot more to what I expect from such an event (than Cisco offices). But I won't be there this year so it doesn't really matter :x

Depends on the kind of event. Summit benefits more from the large discussion space and remote attendance facilities.

Hackerspace would be great for smaller sprint-like stuff I think

I like the hackerspace potential for introducing people from "outside" the community to XMPP

The traditional summit venue isn't great for that, since it requires registration and is a trek outside the city centre

This last part yes, very much ^

I don't know if I agree with your first sentence. I mean it's not like we were 50 at summits the times I've been there. But it's true we may not all fit in there

I think average attendance is around 35-40 people

Maybe it would help finding a venue (or close venues!) where we can split into working groups ✏

Cisco has that option, and we've exercised it before (there are 2 smaller adjacent rooms)

The large room also has a divider, though I don't recall we've ever used it

Even though.. it would be at the detriment of being able to listen/participate to everything. I've been to summit 3 times? I don't think we've split more than once on a very specific topic

IIRC splitting up was always discussed as on option but most of the time most people where interested in most topics. or at the very least there was never a clear divide of people only interested in one thing and willing to miss another

Yeah

in general - now that the pandemic is over … - we should have more sprints (again) but summit and sprints are not the same (imho)

Still I'd appreciate if summits were also more welcoming. Because it's about protocols doesn't mean it has to be select and corporate-friendly :P

I don't think it's select and any more friendly to corporate than e.g. individuals

what do you find not welcoming about the historic summit format?

Most people who attend are individuals, and every summit generally includes new faces

daniel, what MattJ said earlier

needing to preregister is not ideal. but it's not a major hurdle

Okay, I think there is a space between something I'd call "select" and something that's not going to attract passers-by

preregistration, also the fact that it's out of town

And well, the general issues at the XSF, white males and all

But that's not specific to summits

I don't understand what skin colour has to do with this, or why you make it about that

I don't "make it" about this

I don't understand why you say "white males" in this context, then

It was in the context of "welcoming"

Well have a look at the crowd attending summit. It could be made more welcoming to other parts of the population.

I find the general facilities (the actual rooms + the fact that there is a cafeteria) quite nice. yes it's a bit out of the way. yes you need to preregister. but to me that's acceptable

We're talking about summit venue, if you think our venue is excluding people, I'm curious to hear the reason. Otherwise, let's stick to practical stuff.

Hackerspaces aren't perfect either in this regard mind

But it'd already be a change

given that it is free (compared to how expensive renting out rooms at the Thon hotel would be presumably)

MattJ, I'm sorry we always cross swords on this, really. I don't understand how you don't see it

But anyway, I won't be there this year so..

daniel, well money is another weird topic at the XSF :P

I agree about the pre registration thing being a hurdle

I'm sorry too, because I don't want our events to be unwelcoming, and I don't feel they are. But rather than pointing out any actual problems or providing solutions, you casually drop weighty stuff into a practical discussion about venues.

msavoritias, care to explain why?

If our venue is excluding people people based on colour (or anything), then please explain why and we can see what we can fix

But I feel like something is being made out of nothing, here

I said this is not exclusive to the venue

To summit*, even ✏

I'm all for initiatives to increase diversity in the community, but I don't feel the summit venue is the problem

This is an XSF issue.

Personally because: 1. I may not be sure I can go until its late. 2. Pre registration and the whole thing feels very corporate like. 3. I will have to be "in the know" for the event before hand to register otherwise i missed it

Even though hackerspaces may allow for a different crowd

And that's what I'm interested in here

I mean the downside of preregistration is that you need to decide a few days ahead if you are going or not. but you have to make travel arrangements and stuff anyway

Yeah basically what pep. Says

For my second point :)

msavoritias, you can always attend remotely (even anonymously), and that is one of the benefits of the current venue (it has a good a/v setup)

Let's be honest about remote participation, it's good that it's available but I feel it's mostly a viewer position

True. You can. But its always a worse experience personally. And doesnt really stop the problems

What problems?

i mean if that's a pratical problem you can register and not go

Registration is quite common to many events. It helps with planning, and ensuring people can actually fit in the venue.

it's not like we are charging a fee

MattJ: The problems i listed. With preregistration

1. You can register but not turn up

2. ...and the problem is?

And yeah its basically a viewer position

3. That applies with or without registration

Until time machines are invented

The second is what pep. said better: > pep.: > Even though hackerspaces may allow for a different crowd > And that's what I'm interested in here

If the other venue doesnt have it

Doesn't have what?

MattJ, I agree with 3., but not having preregistration allows to be more lenient about timelines.

Preregistration

Yeah. Then i dont have to follow all groups and feeds ;)

If you're not following XMPP then it's probably not an event for you anyway

it's not like they do background checks on you. most events I've been to require you to get (sometimes free) tickets in advance

Its part of the diversity that was said earlier

fosdem ist the weird outlier here

FOSDEM is growing uncontrollably year-on-year

This I also agree with

Part of the reason I'm not going

> MattJ: > If you're not following XMPP then it's probably not an event for you anyway If its meant to be an exclusive event only for people in our circle then ok ✏

I guess it doesnt matter to lower friction

It's not *exclusive*, that makes it sound like we're barring people from joining, or being selective about who can join

It's open to anyone who wants to waste a couple of days discussing protocol stuff

That is, naturally, not everyone

If you think there is someone would would be interested in such an event, please spread the word

Ok then we're not discussing the venue anymore and we can make it about diversity in the community again? :P

Yeah, you successfully derailed the venue discussion I guess

and whatever I was doing

I didn't. I said I'd prefer hackerspaces and why

I think there are advantages in both directions. I think hackerspaces are a clear win for sprints and smaller gatherings. The summit is slightly different to those.

It's different because we want it different. I think

Sure, active members of the XMPP community need somewhere to gather IRL and discuss stuff

if we were charging an entry fee I'd be very much in favor of removing that hurdle. an entry fee can be very prohibative. and i've year after year advocated for not making the official hotel the most expensive one in town

but registration... in a wiki... i don’t get

It's not an outreach event, but we have discussed a separate event for that

(have we?)

Yes, something that's not about protocol discussions but more for people outside the community

Kinda what the FOSDEM booth is meant to be, but not at FOSDEM

Ok I'm interested. But I'm happy to hear about it later

Yeah that sounds nice

But you're talking about a community that is only just scraping together the summit, it would need some energy to figure out such an event (venue, funding, etc.)

I think the tentative plan was to add another day before/after the summit/FOSDEM, or potentially convert one of the summit days (sometimes we run out of topics on the second day, suggesting we don't always need two full days)

fwiw we sort of tried to do this with a dev room at froscon. doing more developer/user oriented talks (instead of indepth protocol discussion)

but interests was very low

In some ways I think the sprints idea is better

plus it was still the pandemic which i guess took a toll on people

They can be in different locations, so people don't need to commit to travel

and tailored to the audience skill level and familiarity with XMPP

and potentially actually get stuff done, if devs are there

fwiw, yet another crowd, closer to hackerspaces, it's not very close yet but I plan to organise stuff for CCC (Camp) this year.

Re sprints, I've been very careful not to call them events for developers in the past. I'd like any kind of contributors to come and I'll probably try to do more outreach in this regard next time I organize one

Agree, I'd be happy for anyone to turn up, even if they're only curious about XMPP and want to learn more

It's easier to help such people in a smaller gathering

I'm sure they'd help me instead :P

Such people turning up to the summit in the past has been a poor experience, I'm afraid... since it's very much "jumping in at the deep end"

We used to have a regular XMPP introduction talk at FOSDEM, which was good

But I think FOSDEM is a bit too crammed for repeating talks like that now, we don't get our own devroom

> MattJ: > 2022-12-28 02:32 (GMT+01:00) > We used to have a regular XMPP introduction talk at FOSDEM, which was good +1

> It's open to anyone who wants to waste a couple of days discussing protocol stuff > That is, naturally, not everyone ^^ who wonders its some geek tech focus so abstract I am happy if I can even get an engineer interested in...