Add notes from last session

1 files changed, 137 insertions, 2 deletions

diff --git a/2021/meetings.org b/2021/meetings.org
index a4d39598..f13ad338 100644
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@@ -69,7 +69,142 @@
   - mplsCorwin's livestreaming project, working on trimming
   - Diversity outreach: gopar, sachac, zaeph, mplsCorwin
 
-* Sat 26, 2021 meeting
+* July 24, 2021 meeting
+
+- Check-in
+  - zaeph:
+    - A whole lot of swimming, and a whole lot of happiness as a result. :)
+    - Feeling overworked after the return from the break, and has had trouble readjusting to the life of the freelancer
+  - sachac:
+    - Still taking care of the kiddo, and introducing math into their play
+  - bandali:
+    - Enjoying some time outside after having spent *months* inside
+    - Started picking up sports again
+    - Started watching documentaries on YouTube about people building cabins, and got some ideas as a result. :)
+
+- Debrief the first improvement meeting
+  - The meeting went really well!
+  - Lack of publicity might have prevented some people to join us.
+    - We do have facility with many Emacs communities to make the posts more visible, but it’s not sure if we even needed to do so
+  - We went a little overboard with the discussion about reviewing submissions at the end, but it was very interesting, so we’re too bummed about it.
+  - The turnout wasn’t anything super large, but it was pretty good for what we had set out to do; we had productive discussions, and people were able to feed us questions relatively smoothly.
+  - Questions
+    - Do we need another meeting?
+      - As happy as we’d be to have another one, it doesn’t feel like this is particularly warranted.  Thanks to jcorneli’s notes, we have good notes on the improvement meeting.
+
+- Plan the next CFP
+  - Methods
+    - What are the elements that we need to take into account for the CFP?
+      - With the outreach program, making sure that we provide a private incubator for the ideas of people who might be shy
+        - The raison-d’être of the office hours
+      - Allowing people to submit proposals even though they might not be able to make it for the next *main* EmacsConf
+        - This could either be handled via pre-recordings or a separate track for timezones which are not working well with the times we’ve picked (e.g. APAC)
+        - Therefore, we might add people to describe their availability in the CFP
+      - We want to involve people in the review process
+    - Asking for volunteers
+      - Around the time when we publish the CFP, we should also make a call for volunteers to help us with all aspects of the CFP and of the conference itself
+        - We’re probably going to need more organisers based on the fact that EmacsConf 2020 was a success, but also because we will definitely need extra pairs of hands if we are to have another track for the next EmacsConf
+    - How to publicise the proposals
+      - Separate mailing list?
+        - Some people might hesitate
+    - How should we review submissions?
+      - Based on the improvement meeting, we’d be interesting in having a public or semi-public mode of review (the details still need to be ironed out, either in a closed meeting or in a public improvement meeting if we consider this to be necessary)
+      - Keeping the proposals private is fine (it’s what we did the previous years); what we might want to encourage people to publish their proposal on their own platforms (or on any community platform like Reddit)
+      - Adding a blurb to the CFP: ‘If you want to share your proposal publicly for people to review, tick this box: [ ]’
+        - We might not get a lot of people ticking this box, though, since people are a little cagey when it comes to sharing WIP proposals that can be refused
+      - If we were to open all the proposals, we would most definitely have to anonymise the data
+        - On the other hand, if we invite people to put it on their platform, they lose the anonymity (but, at the same time, if they already have a platform, they’re already willing to share)
+      - This is a dense problem, 
+    - How should we modify the CFP
+      - We should ask people what their availability will be, notably to get their timezone
+      - We should further nudge people to think that they have something to share
+        - We will also be sharing this message with the office hours
+      - We can include a section for people to suggest modifications to the CFP process as a follow-up to the improvement meeting
+        - ‘Even though the CFP is out, not everything is set in stone, and we can have other improvement meetings’
+        - Since the period between when the CFP opens and when it closes won’t bbe more strenuous on the orgas as the debrief period after EmacsConf 2020, we can afford to have office hours, or to turn some of those office hours into public meeting according to needs and demands
+  - Calendar
+    - Last year the CFP started on Aug 24
+    - Tentative calendar
+      | [2021-08-02 Mon]                         | CFP opens             |
+      | [2021-09-30 Thu]                         | CFP closes            |
+      | [2021-10-15 Fri]                         | Speaker notifications |
+      | [2021-10-31 Sun]                         | Schedule published    |
+      | [2021-11-27 Sat]--[2021-11-28 Sun] (TBC) | EmacsConf 2021        |
+
+- Updating the website for EmacsConf 2021
+  - We can modify the wiki in place and just prepend ‘[DRAFT]’ to every page (to prevent those pesky redditors from blowing off the surprise :o) )
+
+- bandali’s plan to publish a streaming guide
+  - Rather than obsessing about it in the weeks leading tot eh EmacsConf, we should keep it operational so that sachac and zaeph can have the essential stuff
+  - We can also sublimate a lot of the energy that would go into this guide into a presentation for the actual EmacsConf
+  - sachac could also present the stuff that she’s been doing on her side
+  - zaeph could also talk about the organisation of the debriefs and the organisation of EmacsConf 2021
+  - bandali has been *dying* to do such a guide since EmacsConf 2019 (even before online conferences were cool #pandemic)
+  - We could record lightning talks to be played during down-time (if any), or at the end of the conference; they’re just nice extra bonuses, and the meat of the content will be in written form published afterwards
+  - For now, we can leave at that, and revisit the topic later on
+
+- Office hours
+  - Periods of unavailability
+    | zaeph   | [2021-07-31 Sat]--[2021-08-07 Sat] |
+    | bandali | [2021-08-21 Sat]--[2021-08-28 Sat] |
+    | bandali | early Aug                          |
+  - Parameters that we need to keep in mind for choosing times for the office hours
+    - We need to leave the 2h slot we have weekly for preparing the conf:       NO CONFLICT
+    - We need to have slots which are friendly to most timezones:               TIMESLOTS AROUND THE DAY
+    - We need to have slots which are respectful of the orgas time:             NOT TOO MANY
+    - We need to have recurring slots so that people can plan for them:         REGULAR
+  - As long as the CFP is open, we might not need to meet 2h on a weekly basis, so we could use one of them for office hours
+  - Playing it by the ear:
+    - If people are not showing up or too many of them are, we might as well adapt the schedule; right now, it’s safe to use one of the 2h we have for our Saturday meetings for office hours
+  - Figuring out good time slots
+    - bandali & zaeph can invest time in their evenings to cover a lot of timezones
+    - However, it would be easier for someone in PDT to cover the whole of Asia
+
+- Important next actions for next operational meeting on [2021-07-29 Thu 20:30] (UTC):
+  - CFP
+    - Update files on the wiki:
+      - 2021/cfp.md
+      - 2021/submit.md
+      - Anything that has to do with announcing EmacsConf 2021
+        - Update sidebars
+    - Prepare announcement:
+      - Elements to mention
+        - Asking for volunteers
+        - CFP
+        - EmacsConf 2021
+        - Office hours schedule & link to the room (to be created)
+  - Office hours
+    - Find other timeslots where we’d be available for office hours (tentative for now; no commitment, just feeling the water)
+
+- Long running next actions:
+  - Project-based:
+    - bbb:
+      - BBB experimentations:
+        - See if increasing the RAM results in less CPU usage
+        - Gauge how much the number of present users affect the resources
+        - Working with the swap
+          - Decreasing the swapiness of the kernel might help
+          - Test RW speed (elsewhere than ~/tmp/~)
+        - Check if we can change the ffmpeg prioritisation for BBB (so as to get recordings out sooner, or to manage them ourselves)
+          - Does bbb spawn a ffmpeg process that we can investigate?
+    - Misc:
+      - Look into GLT21 to see if they have specifications/doc for their streaming
+      - We might want to discuss the podcast during the next session
+  - People-based:
+    - zaeph:
+      - Email Emacs NYC (and Cc sachac and bandali) to ask them if they’d be interested in hosting their sessions on our BBB instance (on FH)
+        - Organisers to content:
+          - admin@emacsnyc.org (goes to both Eric & Zach)
+      - Do the same with Emacs ATX?
+      - Do the same with M-x Research
+    - bandali:
+      - Prepare the announcement email for the Improvement Meeting™
+      - Wiki updates for references to freenode
+      - Check if there is anything important on live0 that would need archiving (besides the raw EmacsConf2020 ಠ_ಠ)
+      - Listing the specs for the non-FH servers (very quick)
+      - Wipe the private-repo
+
+* June 26, 2021 meeting
 
 - Check-in:
   - bandali:
@@ -221,7 +356,7 @@
       - Listing the specs for the non-FH servers (very quick)
       - Wipe the private-repo
 
-* Sat 5, 2021 meeting
+* June 5, 2021 meeting
 
 - Next actions from last time
   - Project-based: