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diff --git a/2021/meetings.org b/2021/meetings.org index c3d89222..0a29043f 100644 --- a/2021/meetings.org +++ b/2021/meetings.org @@ -18,7 +18,9 @@ - Tech - Figuring out a better streaming workflow (speakers & OBS) - CDN with Nate Sales: mplsCorwin, bandali - - Stand-by until late-April + - maybe also FTP upload for speakers + - Stand-by for now + - Separate from Fosshost - Documenting our infrastructure - bandali and gopar's podcast: bandali, gopar @@ -73,6 +75,7 @@ - EmacsConf 2022 and onwards This entry is mostly for points we cannot address for EmacsConf 2021 (for lack of time), but that we’d still like to track for the future. + - We have plenty of lessons learned in conf.org. :) - Improving the review process - Involving the public (i.e. doing it publicly) - Involving more communities @@ -93,15 +96,479 @@ - We should make it easier for other people to edit the conf.org for publishing the schedule; for 2021, sachac and zaeph were able to do it, but we should make it more our functions more robust. - Add edit-in-place functionality to ikiwiki - An alternative would be to enable push-via-https, but bandali isn’t enthused by it. + - Move the video-files to one of our FH server. + - We could have an alternate stream for captioned talks + - For 2021, we can just direct people to watching the talks from the talk-page. + - Working with BBB + - We could suggest some improvements to BBB based on our needs. Plenty of FLOSS projects rely on BBB, and I think it’d be fair to make some suggestions to them. + - Possible suggestions: + - Presentation layouts (based the CSS provided by bandali’s FSF colleague) + - Figuring out a better way to collate audio streams (normalisation, codecs) - EmacsVerse - Vet Mailman and exim instance for usergroups: bandali + - Figure out the interactions between (potential) emacsverse.org and emacs.org + - It’s about control domains and sources of truth - Misc - Writing about Emacs: zaeph - mplsCorwin's livestreaming project, working on trimming - Diversity outreach: gopar, sachac, zaeph, mplsCorwin +* EmacsConf 2021: Long-running TODOs + +* December 11, 2021 + +- Check-in: + - Time feels weird; it’s been both short and long since we last saw one another + - bandali + +- zaeph: We’ve talked about a lot of interesting stuff, but I couldn’t make significant points *and* take notes at the same time. The few haphazard notes I’ve written are in the next block. +#+begin_quote +- Async vs live meeting + - How do we keep all the organizers up to speed on what sachac and zaeph are working quasi-synchronously via IRC? + - bandali: Could we have a weekly email keeping everyone up to speed? + - corwin: It should be a 5-min read (not taking more than 15 min to write) allowing orgas who were busy elsewhere to be brought up to speed + +- Assessment of our organisation in the two weeks that followed EmacsConf + - Moving away from weekly minutes with TODOs to near-synchronous communication on IRC with a pad making it difficult to see the log resulted in a net loss of traceability of our projects + - corwin: Maybe it’s not an actual problem right now; yes, better communication would be better, but it can probably wait. + - Solutions: + - Splitting up #emacsconf-org into *thematic* topics like #emacsconf-infra, #emacsconf-post +#+end_quote + +- Summary of changes, written hastily so as to not forget + - As a project grows, it becomes harder and harder for organisers to one-person-army everything; specialisation is a good solution. + - Core-organisers are in charge of the project and are the guarantor of its philosophy; we should keep an initial distinction between volunteers and core-organisers so as to maintain governance. + - Core-organisers should move away from the “I need to keep up with everything”, FOMO-like mentality; instead, they should specialise on *themes* that they enjoy working on and were they can satisfactorily handle the work-load. + - Volunteers are piped to relevant themes/projects relative to their interest; they become the soft-responsibility of the core-organiser in charge of the theme. + - Core-organisers manage their theme with as much flexibility as they want; the only important part is about keeping other core-organisers in the loop (potential solutions: weekly blurb for each theme written by the responsible core-organisers) + - If a core-organiser wants to participate in another theme than the one they’re responsible for, it’s completely fine. + - Weekly core-organisers meetings are phased out in favour of a new regular format where the core-organisers can hang out, check-in and discuss weekly blurbs if need be (≈ 20 min), and then have flexible sessions which can either be casual discussions or longer-term planning that would require brain-storming (like creating a new theme/project, e.g. “how to have another in-person EmacsConf?”). + - IRC has been instrumental to good communication for EmacsConf 2020 & 2021, and it’s only recently proved to be a bit of a burden with the line-backlogs. Splitting the channels according to themes might leverage that issue. + - Only the core-organisers in charge of a particular theme would be expected to keep track of the backlog; other core-organisers or volunteers are not expected to do that. + - We need to adapt our culture of note-taking an documentation to this new model to ensure that all core-organisers can contribute to the effort and benefit from it. + +* November 20, 2021 + +- Check-in: + - sachac: + - Doing good! + - bandali: + - Doing better! + - zaeph: + - Doing good! + +- Dry run, see playbook.org + - DONE Working together via upcoming.org + - DONE Streaming [[https://live0.emacsconf.org/main.webm][main.webm]] + - DONE Streaming [[https://live0.emacsconf.org/main-480p.webm"][main-480p.webm]] + - CXLD Streaming [[https://live0.emacsconf.org/alt.webm"][alt.webm]] + - Doesn’t really work for corwin because of some weird setting problem + - STRT Streaming to YouTube +- Next actions: + - streaming to alternate servers (youtube, toobnix) + - add 2021 link to all the schedule and talk pages so that people know how to watch/participate + +- media.emacsconf.org files will be moved to a mirror eventually + +(A lot of the work in this session was done in another file, which is why we have very little note here. What we’ve done will eventually end up in the wiki.) + +* November 13, 2021 + +- TODOs/agenda: (two weeks to conference!) + - Status review of schedule, possibly follow up with day 2 (lots of missing talks) + - Lunch time is tight, want to end at 5:30 instead? (12:05-12:30 Sat, 12:06-12:40 Sat) + - Lunch time is tight, want to end at 5:30 instead? + - might be late for Leo, let's stick with the current schedule + - Sacha: Publish detailed schedule + - Get in touch with speakers regarding schedule, check-in 30 minutes before + - streaming process: Amin streams whatever room he's in, then switches to the next room? lots of sound checks for Amin, but it'll be fine + - OBS scenes for streaming prerec separately from whatever Amin is actually doing + - Hosting: zaeph to review the talks and think about the introductions + - Start working on list of speakers expected for live Q&A or live presentation? Actually, we'll want all the speakers to check in if available anyway, since we want to mention IRC/etherpad availability + - zaeph: Figured out MPV setup for open captions, yay! Will post the MPV profile so that we can all have fun with it. + + - sachac: Figure out day-of publishing + - Will try to post prerecs on media.emacsconf.org, wiki pages, and YouTube during talk; ToobNix? bandali will send sachac the account information and then sachac can queue things up for publishing + - redirect to proper host if node is too small afterwards + - audio normalized + - Dry run next weekend? + - Rooms + - Streaming + - Script for low-res, YouTube + - Check-in + - Alternate stream? + - Alternate stream + - bandali will test things around with dragestil + - test Etherpad template: https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/emacsconf-2021-test + - conference schedule updater + - are we going to use honorifics like Dr.? zaeph - no +- Tech-checks + - We’ve got two extra volunteers + - Considering that none of the speakers but one wanted to do tech-check so far +- Other notes + - Sacha: checked IRC scripts, everything still seems fine + - https://github.com/emacsconf/emacsconf-el - zaeph to try + - TODO bandali: figure out how to deal with the back behaviour! + - xdg-open actually works in opening an URL without a preceding one + - MOSTLY-DONE :) + - Profiles for captions + - Figure out day-of publishing + - We should articulate the process on the pre-rec with updating the talk-pages on the wiki. + - On captions + - We’ve captioned most of the org talks on Saturday, yay! + - Considering how many recordings + - On talks we’ve already received + - Frownies might get re-submitted. + - Lunch time is tight, want to end at 5:30 instead? (12:05-12:30 Sat, 12:06-12:40 Sat) + - We’ll keep it to 5:30pm latest, since it gets quite late for. + - Handling check-ins for speakers + - sachac and zaeph + - 30 min before is less stressful for us + - 4-5 rooms need to be created on BBB + +- Summary of actions + - sachac: + - Publish schedule to the public wiki + - zaeph can take this information afterwards to figure out what to email to the speakers + - Figure out workflow for publishing prerecs on the day of the presentation + - It’ll be nice to have one command and have everything happen in the background + - Doublecheck ffmpeg commands for low-res, YouTube restreams + - Scrape pronunciations and pronouns from wiki pages / email, put them into conf.org (:PRONOUNS: and :PRONUNCIATIONS:) + - zaeph will take care of updating :PRONUNCIATIONS: when he receives email + - Modify scripts to msg bandali and zaeph with check-in info, include pronouns and pronunciation + - zaeph: + - Draft e-mail to ask speakers to check schedule, check again day of the conference if live, check in 30 minutes before their session, collect emergency contact information + - Re: ICE; figure out a workflow for storing/accessing the data (GPG, etc.) + - Draft general announcement e-mail for schedule, ICS + - Include MPV profile in conf.org so that bandali and dragestil can try it out + - Next week: Keep answering emails, Update talk pages/conf.org with extra info, Review talks, think about introductions + - Create BBBB rooms A, B, C, D for check-ins, and share rights with bandali and sachac + - bandali: + - send sachac Toobnix credentials which is tied to the one with EmacsConf + - look into BBB layout options from FSF colleague, and test how robust it is + - As long as it doesn’t do anything crazy (like covering the video), it’s fine + - coordinate with alternate streamers + - Figure out if chat.emacsconf.org can support URL-append to connect to #emacsconf-org for speakers + - corwin: + - OBS chores + - update graphics for 2021 + - save out a "clean" set of scenes + - Create a 6 sec video + - Test Push to IceCast + - Dig logs from Bandali from bouncer + - If he had to do a talk for EmacsConf, a clever idea he had would be ‘Using org-mode to create an impromptu talk, and do a head-first recording approach’ + +* November 6, 2021 +- Check-ins + - zaeph is dealing with TZ change + +- TODOs: + - Everyone: + - [X] Get working on contribute.md by Tue-Wed + - Non-exhaustive list of tasks to mention (relevant for this year): + 1. Editing captions or writing new ones + 2. Helping with tech-checks + 3. Looking at the schedule, and if there’s something they particularly like, they could run get ready for a prolonged Q&A session + - bandali: + - [X] ASAP: Give SSH access to sachac on ftp-upload@emacsconf.org + - Ping corwin to get another distro installed on vm02 (possibly Trisquel or Alpine) + - [X] Look into making TLS/SSL optional + - sachac: Right now, the configuration for the ftp server forces it. + - bandali is looking into FTP for resume, no worries about being able to see filenames (not allowed to download files) + - probably no risk from other people maliciously "resuming" other people's files + - ideas for the future: + - can have speaker accounts for FTP (... maybe if Amin gets the hang of automating e-mails =) ) + - region servers to upload to, maybe as part of CDN project + - TODO enable continuation for FTP + - Fosshost: Drop an application for another storage-server for the prerecs + - zaeph: + - [X] ASAP: Email designated volunteers + - Create BBB accounts for new tech-checkers + - Publicise contribute.md on r/emacs when it’s published + - Make a pinned comment on the program announcement asking for volunteers, linking to contribute.md, and maybe keeping it up to date by editing it to reflect current needs + - corwin: + - Record a 6-second video ad + - Go through the script together +- sachac: Status update: 9 prerecs received + - 7 talks captioned + - Emacs News Highlights + - NonGNU ELPA Update + - telega.el and the Emacs community on Telegram + - Creating technical API documentation and presentations using org-babel, restclient, and org-treeslide (thanks bhavin!) + - The use of Org mode syntax outside of GNU/Emacs - checked with speaker + - How Emacs made me appreciate software freedom + - Moldable Emacs, a step towards sustainable software - checked with speaker + - 2 more talks waiting for captions from bhavin: + - Using Org-Mode For Recording Continuous Professional Development + - Emacs with Nyxt: extend your editor with the power of a Lisp browser + - Compressed with q=56 script from last year, uploaded to front:/var/www/media.emacsconf.org/2021/protected , see private wiki for password + - Things to consider: + - Broadcast with open captions or direct people who need closed + captions to the wiki page? Spam #emacsconf-accessible with + caption text? + - Sample: https://emacsconf.org/2021/talks/news/ + - Compression okay? Do we need to dial it back? + - Plan for handling compression for the talks coming in this weekend; can we run it on the VM? + - Audio normalization? + - Low-res version? + - More proof-reading welcome + - Start thinking about workflow for publishing talks, maybe even concurrently with the stream + - No reason not to make them public right away, so if we want them to be available on something else in addition to emacsconf.org and Youtube (Toobnix?), we can plan ahead +- TODO bandali also, icecast fallback override possibility so that bandali might be + able to use ffmpeg to broadcast directly to icecast while handling + continuity? Does anyone want to experiment with that? +- does anyone want to write an ICS to Org thing that can handle + schedule updates, maybe taking advantage of icalendar? +- pronouns/website/sponsor info can probably be an e-mail to speakers +- e-mail to send on the deadline (tomorrow) + - reminder to send it + - let's use a carrot approach, not stick (10 talks have already been submitted, yay, and most of them have been captioned!); we're actually okay with dealing with prerecs or live on the day of the event + - nudge script submission esp. close to the deadline to help with captions +- publishing the schedule with the times, ICS; maybe Nov 14? + - probably can do even with the uncertainty +- 10 minutes hard to do live (or record); 15 min next time? +- maybe postpone letting people plan for live presentation until a little bit later +- future: shorter CFP, longer prep period + +#+begin_example +Hello, ____! + +,* TODO [#A] Send pre-recording to EmacsConf + +Lots of speakers have already submitted their talks for EmacsConf +2021, and we've even be able to caption them. Yay! Here are some of +the presentations that have already come in: + + - Emacs News Highlights + - NonGNU ELPA Update + - telega.el and the Emacs community on Telegram + - Creating technical API documentation and presentations using org-babel, restclient, and org-treeslide + - The use of Org mode syntax outside of GNU/Emacs + - How Emacs made me appreciate software freedom + - Moldable Emacs, a step towards sustainable software + +We're looking forward to getting your presentation. If you send it in +as soon as you can, we can add it to the queue for captioning. We'd +like to stream as many talks with captions to make things more +accessible, and the text makes it easier to search too. Also, sending +the prerecorded video will make the conference day less stressful for +everyone. =) If you need extra time to get your prerecorded video, no +worries, we'll figure it out somehow. Please try to do it as soon as +you can! + +,* TODO Send page information (name pronunciation, pronouns, homepage, contact, sponsor links) + +We'd also like to add some standard information to the talk +information page to make it easier for people to talk about your talk, +find more information, contact you, or support you. + +Name pronunciation: +Pronouns: +Homepage: +Preferred contact info: +Links for sponsoring/supporting (if any): + +For example, Sacha's is: + +Name pronunciation: SA-sha CHEW-ah +Pronouns: she/her +Homepage: https://sachachua.com +Preferred contact info: sacha@sachachua.com +Links for sponsoring/supporting (if any): + +,* TODO Plan tech check if you're doing live Q&A + +Also, if you are planning to do live Q&A and you've already done the +tech check at test.bigbluebutton.org, we can set up a tech check call +with an organizer or volunteer. Sometimes there are technical issues +with sharing desktops or hearing audio, so it's good to get it sorted +out as soon as possible. Please check _____ for some options for a +live tech check and reach out to someone who's available when you are. +We hope to get more volunteers for tech checks, so if you can't find +someone whose availability matches yours, please e-mail us at _____ +and we'll try to find something that works. + +,* Also, sneak preview of talks =) + +As a thank-you for working on a talk for EmacsConf, here's a sneak +preview of the talks that have been submitted so far. Please don't +share it widely. If you want to refer to other people's talks in +yours, it's a good time to check out related talks! + +(TODO - info not in here) + +Thank you so much! + +Amin +#+end_example + +--- +TODO Sneak preview e-mail for people who have already submitted + + +--- +- Also do we want to give speakers early access to each other's talks? + - OK, ask them not to share yet +- ffmpeg installed on FTP upload +- TODO bandali to check compressed video and see if we want to change the settings +- TODO: Sacha - Make Etherpad template for speakers? Actually, e-mail might be easier to copy and paste from + - Name pronunciation + - Pronouns + - Links + - Homepage, socials + - Sponsor +- TODO: Sacha - send bandali Bcc list for nudge e-mails +- How many people did we do live tech checks last year? +- zaeph will not be very available. +- TODO maybe seabass? zaeph will e-mail. +- publicize contribute page to the mailing list? and stress the need for tech checkers +- TODO sachac: add current captioning results +- Future: bake it into the submission process (when will be a good time over the next 1-2 months) +- If we don't have enough people to do the tech checks, Leo will step up and maybe do some kind of office hours thing +- Process: + 1. E-mail the volunteers + 2. Update the table on the page + 3. If anyone wants to get started now, you can e-mail us +- BBB slide presentation feature broken, may be related to LetsEncrypt, can't leave messages on the screen; probably won't need it for EmacsConf +- DECISION Yes, broadcast open captions; published videos can be CC +- TODO zaeph will come up with the MPV settings for displaying open captions +- EmacsConf: friendly and relaxed =) + +- Summary + - #A zaeph: Set up tech check information, e-mail volunteers + - #A zaeph: Finish draft of e-mail for tomorrow or the day after + - zaeph: Figure out mpv settings + - bandali: Check video settings, see if we need to tweak compression/audio + - sachac: Keep captioning + +* October 30, 2021 meeting + +- Check-ins + - sachac: + - Using Emacs itself to record her talk, and has even managed to get a spectrum analyser right into it! + - [[https://github.com/sachac/subed-waveform][sachac/subed-waveform: Minor mode for displaying the waveform for the current subtitle in an Emacs subed-mode buffer]] + - bandali: + - Busy with the emails and around GNU in general + - Almost finished with a paper building on parts of his MA dissertation + - Last week’s presentation went well despite some minor hiccups + - It was a *long* session, so a 5-min break can be glossed over + - zaeph: + - All is well! A lot of swimming and fun experimentations! + - corwin: + - Pretty rested! + - Lots of stuff brewing with Fosshost + +- FTP: + - sachac: Where can I find the recordings? + - If we get talks early, we might get started on the subtitling + - bandali: Tried to setup the 2nd upload server + - Couldn’t get it to work; the same configuration on front0 for testing was working, but not onl + - The FSF sysadmins gave us access to a session/server which we might use as replacement + - sachac: Where can we keep the talks on front0? + - Reasoning: + - Last year, one of the issue that th epeople who had missed a talk wished they could have watched it + - Whilst the prerec is playing on the stream, we could put in a public directory to be able to watch it + - It’d be amazing if we could get the recordings ASAP this year, since most of them will be prerecs + - People need to be uploading files to the very server that we will be storing them on. + - Discussion: + - bandali: The main VMs that we have (live0 and front0) are fairly small, 20-25GB each. What we’ve been doing for the past couple EmacsConf has been to upload to a server provided Computer Science of the University of Waterloo + - Options: + - Fosshost + - corwin: Disk-space comes super-cheap to Fosshost, which means that it might be a good option. + - Could become our primary source (vs. CS Club which we use currently) + - CS Club (University of Waterloo); we might not have it eternally + - At the moment, it is our primary source + - We can still use it as a mirror + - audio-video.gnu.org (FSF) + - yang’s 2 mirrors in Europe + - Other options that we might consider for other editions: + - Justification: + - corwin: The footprint of EmacsConf will always grow as long as we maintain older publications for posterity, even if the grow is fairly linear. + - Linode block storage + - 1$/month for 10 GB + - corwin’s favourite provider + - Meta: + - Having 3 ISP is better than having 2 + - From a growth perspective, it’s good to have some cash outlay to help people understand that we have a need for money + - This also appeared with the android-app + - Other considerations + - Using emacsconf.org for redirections + - bandali: Someone set up two mirrors for us in Europe; it’d be nice to have mirror-resolve/-rotator that we could put in front to do the redirecting + - sachac: That would put more sysad work on bandali, though + - How do we handle the private→public publishing of the recording? + 1. Upload all the files to the public server + 2. chmod o-r on all the talks + 3. When a talk goes live: chmod o+r + - Handling redirections à la CDN + - bandali: + - We might want to add A records pointing to all the servers that we’re using as mirrors (in a round-robin fashion) + - GNU might have solutions + +- Asking new domains to the FSF sysadmins, especially on .emacs.org + - Have we considered having a .gnu.org domain linking to emacs.org? + - conf.emacs.org could be very nice for visibility. + - corwin: Could we do the same with orgmode.org? + - Imagine if the org-mode website had a featured talk from the EmacsConf! + - corwin: Once the relationship exists between emacs.org and orgmode.org, a lot of bridges can be built between the communities with mutual benefits + +- Alternate streams & Rebroadcasts + - APAC: + - sachac: As the prerecs come in, we can touch base with dragestil re: APAC event + - Other streamers: + - sachac: These next few weeks are also the best time to onboard alternate streamers + - corwin: Our must important work right now is bringing more talents/newcommers, and get them to the level where they feel technically-competent and empowered to help us further. + +- How to get new organisers involved as well they could be with the project? + - Doing tech-checks is a pretty good and easy to get started with volunteers. + - sachac: When we activate the other volunteers, what should we be asking them to consider? *Ordered by priority*, and which we should mention on the ~contribute.md~: + 1. Editing captions or writing new ones + 2. Helping with tech-checks + 3. Looking at the schedule, and if there’s something they particularly like, they could run get ready for a prolonged Q&A session + - sachac: We might have a ~contribute.md~ page similar to the prepare.md page + - We should link from /2021 to /2021/contribute.md. + - Also, other people who could come across it rather than just our current volunteers. + - corwin: ~contribute.md~ is the invitation, and the ~prepare.md~ is the directions to the party. + - How do we publicise this contribue.md? + - zaeph: Could we publicise contribute.md on r/emacs + - corwin: Yes! It’s a great piece of promotion to do. + - bandali: It might make sense to mention contribute.md to speakers + - Our next email to speakers should link to contribute.md + +- Tech-checks + - Getting organisers on board with tech-checks + - Which new volunteers could be bring along on this project? + - acdw (AM) + - dragestil (APAC) + - bhavin192 (APAC) + - seabass (EU) + - zleap (EU) + - ullbeking (?) + - zaeph (EU) + - corwin (AM) + - ??? + - bandali (AM) + - Putting the finishing touches on the checklist + #+begin_quote + - Would you please share your pronouns? + - Can you tell us how to pronounce your name? + - Can you speak and be heard? Is there echo? + - Can you hear the organizer (me)? + - Can you share your screen? Is the screen readable? + - If you plan to show your keystrokes, is that display visible? + - If you want to share your webcam (optional), can you enable it? Is it visible? Will there likely be distractions in the background? + - Can you view the collaborative pad? Will you be comfortable reviewing questions on your own (perhaps by keeping it open beside your shared window), or will you need a volunteer to relay questions to you? + - Can you share contact information (ex: phone number) so that we can get in touch with you in case of technical issues or scheduling changes? + - Do you need help finding your way around IRC so that you can check into `#emacsconf-org`? What is your IRC nickname? + #+end_quote + +- What to mention in our closing remarks + - Acknowledging volunteers + - Inviting other volunteers + - Alternate streams / Multiple tracks + + * October 23, 2021 meeting - TODO @@ -1710,7 +2177,8 @@ Which again could be somewhere to promote emacs / emacs conf - mplsCorwin: Talk with Nate Sales - We want to talk with Nate Sales about CDN stuff - mplsCorwin will be asking Nate Sales to come again on [2021-05-01 Sat] - + - Also to be used for FTP uploads + - mplsCorwin update on FH - mplsCorwin is mentioning that we might get another server to handle - Depending on the location @@ -2887,3 +3355,415 @@ rganising the names on that page in a more relevant fashion? pad, for e-mailing out? - Braindumps welcome =) - Week after: public meeting/recording +* Some notes from the debrief after last year's conference +Proceedings: + +** On tech +*** Observations +- BBB worked better than last year's Jitsi. It was nice to be able to set up several moderators and have consistent URLs. This year's Jitsi + seemed more polished than last year's Jitsi, so maybe they've resolved their technical issues, but it was still nice to have a reliable host. +- amin generally happy. Leo ran into technical difficulties with BBB, also some speakers may have had Internet connectivity issues or BBB issues +- gstreamer seemed to hold up fine; might want to figure out how to switch scenes or send only the BBB audio + - amin: Very nice, happy about that, gstreamer not as harsh on laptop. +- low-res stream was handy, and running the ffmpeg command on live0 was fine + - amin: Super happy about that +- Audio check with a decibel meter was great (sachac) +- ffmpeg splitting had an i-frame issue when using -c:v copy: + https://superuser.com/a/704118 and + https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Seeking#Seekingwhiledoingacodeccopy + - https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/7XrMLmwLBQ0mp2RQ8S6l - technical + notes, looks like we can adjust -ss to the keyframes that happen + every 4 seconds in the captured stream +- karl: BBB doesn't audio-level as well as other platforms. bandali + was loud, zaeph is not as loud, need to manually adjust. Other web + conference platforms handle it better. + - zaeph: BBB seems to aggressively add gain. Video fairly + low-quality when viewing both webcam and screensharing, probably + lost a lot of pixels. Recording quality is not that great, big + quality difference compared to prerecs. + - Might need to be more active shifting between webcam+screenshare and just screenshare. + - OBS can stream with picture-in-picture, maybe, but a burden for live presenters if there are too many technical hoops + - Cheese etc. can display their webcam while they're sharing their desktop + - BBB didn't handle multi-monitor sharing desktops well - one of the presenters couldn't share just one monitor's desktop + - Bit wasteful use of screen real estate. Jitsi might do it better. + - Focusing on speaker webcam during Q&A might help. +*** Improving +- Can test improvements throughout the year instead of waiting for next conference +- System audio out isn't captured by BBB. Maybe presenters can set up a virtual audio loopback device and test during the tech check? +- Play intermission audio from Emacs, naturally ;) +- Normalize audio for prerecs? + - We could also use a compressor on all the ones which are 'voice-only' (i.e. not those with music/video in them) +- Re: decibel meter, it might have been even better to use PulseEffects which would have allowed bandali to apply auto-gain and a limiter to the sound output of selected apps on his sytems (mpv & FF for BBB). ( https://github.com/wwmm/pulseeffects ) + - In my experience, it very rarely misbehave. + - It could also save us the trouble of applying gain to the talks which happened live. +- Make sure I've copied the right low res command line into my notes, and test it again +- Start streaming even earlier if possible, so that there's plenty of room to stress out about mirroring, update the status page, etc.=) +- Write a script to curl the total live viewers across streams. + - I prototyped something during the breaks, but gave up halfway because making it with scrapy would have been much faster than what I'd been doing. + - live0.emacsconf.org tracked peak viewers, so it was fine to not worry too much about it +- Find a better solution for streamers to toggle mute/unmute for BBB and the stream + - As a temporary backup, I visualised the stream's audio spectrum to make sure that, when bandali was speaking, I could see speech waveforms on the stream. + - mpv --config=no --quiet --vo=tct --lavfi-complex='[aid1]asplit[ao][a1];[a1]showwaves=mode=cline:colors=white:rate=25[vo]' "https://live0.emacsconf.org/main.webm" --mute +- Have an easy command to show local time. + - On GNU/Linux: + - watch TZ=America/New_York date + - http://www.tmzns.com/ looks nice but it doesn't understand "UTC" as a time-zone and you need to find a matching city +- If we find a way to publicly serve the icecast dump, I wonder if we can make it quickly viewable with offsets on the day of, like with videojs-offset, so that people can access quick replays of talks they've missed +- It might be interesting to have an overlay of time - talk title - speaker name - info page etc., maybe on the bottom of the stream. That way, people tuning in mid-stream can see what's playing. People would need to plan for that in their recording. +** On emails +*** Observations +- bandali struggled a bit getting all the speakers in the Bcc, always seeming to forget some of them. +*** Improving +- Create lists. +- Have one source of truth (in the private wiki), and use that to prepopulate the emails. + - TODO sacha: export uniquified list for copying, also do mail merge (maybe based on https://github.com/jkitchin/jmax/blob/master/mail-merge.el ) + - index.org doesn't contain all the e-mail addresses at the moment. Maybe an org-capture for grabbing the initial submission from the e-mail might be nice in the future. +** On time-keeping +*** Observations +- We managed to stay on schedule throughout the entire conference with minor adjustments. + - This was totally surprising because I expected the schedule to be + penciled in, given our experience last year with dropped talks and + technical issues. + - Come to think of it, automatically scheduling all the sessions + with some nifty Org code worked great for both planning (do we + have enough time for the talks?) and timing on the day of the + talk. In 2019, we relied on playing pre-recorded talks with no + live Q&A in order to manage our time, playing them ahead when we + needed to cover technical issues and sticking all the rest at the + end of the conference when we reached the end of the time. In + 2020, we actually followed a plan instead of adjusting on the fly, + and it was great! +- Check-ins were done sufficiently in advance (we said 15 minutes, but + ~30 min before was nice). +- Problems with check-in were minimal due to prior tech-checks with + the speakers. Thanks to all the people who helped with tech checks, + and to Amin's repeated nudges to do tech checks! +- Small adjustments were pushed when needed. +- The pre-recorded talks had set durations, which removed variables. +- zaeph watched time like a hawk. +- zaeph even called people thanks to the emergency contact information + we collected during the tech-checks. + - Karl is curious: how often did you call people via phone? + - 5 phonecalls total. +- We allowed for 3 minutes of buffer between talks, which let us juuuuust squeeze in the talks with a little bit of overtime. +*** Remarks +- Time-keeping on D1 was good, but on D2, it was great. +*** Improving +- More buffer might have been nice for questions, but then we would + have had to say no to talks. Switching between talks was smoother + last year because bandali used OBS to stream prerecorded videos, so + he could join the other conference room while the prerecorded video + was playing. But OBS killed his laptop, so that's why he used + gstreamer. Maybe we can look into a way for gstreamer or another + tool to stream a file while bandali joins the next room? Then we + don't have the echo test showing up in the stream, and bandali can + more smoothly give the go-ahead off-camera. +- People had strong fear-of-missing-out despite the heads-up about + prerecorded presentations. If we have the opportunity to do so, it + might be good to build in more breaks. +- We can make a list of pre-recs and their durations to avoid bugging + Amin all the time. It was challenging for Amin to deal with late + pre-rec submissions, but maybe he can stash the submissions on the + shared server, or have a shell script that can list all the + filenames and times and copy them to a file on the server. He made + me a list of prerecs that I could use to quickly check which talks + were actually available, so it just needed duration to be perfect. +- I wonder what an Org command for quickly adjusting timestamps could look like... What would that interface be? + - Don't we have a way to shift <...>--<...> timestamps by min ? + - Oh, we recalculate the timestamps for all talks based on + MIN_TIME properties, actually, so I'm thinking more along the + lines of an interactive command that lets me say that [talk] + actually started at [time] and then it adjusts all the talks and + republishes the schedule files and pushes them. I already have + something that goes off the FIXED_TIME property, so I think it's + more like a matter of kicking it off with fewer keystrokes and + making it part of the talk transition process. And maybe + something that sets a QA_START property for the timestamp of the + Q&A. +** On starting early + Observations Starting early caused frustration for some people + who had written down the times. We had disclaimers, but of + course people skipped right over them. =) Explanation Our + opening remarks were designed to buffer technical problems, but + we didn't have any. Well, I was stressing over the 480p thing, + but that wasn't worth holding up the talks. Remarks It's better + to be early than late during those events. (Well, maybe... + People regret missing out on talks they were looking forward + to, but we also don't want to run way past our time.) Improving + The problem was addressed live by prepending all the times with + ~; we could do the same next year. Since we were great at + keeping time this year, we might do away with with the + buffering time at the onset. *knocks on wood* +** On accessibility +*** Observations +- jcorneli and dto did an amazing job of describing the talks. +- jcorneli and dto had to sign off at times, and despite calls for volunteers in #emacsconf, nobody took over. +*** Improving +- Get more volunteers on-board beforehand. +- (possibly) ask volunteers to commit to various morning/afternoon + shifts ahead of time so that there is always at least one planned + volunteer, but preferably two "on duty". I.e. a simple schedule for + volunteers. + - I said I was probably mostly available for day 1, but day 2 might + be a bit tougher. I can make sure people are more comfortable with + checking in people in case kid stuff comes up +- I recommend breaking things into two-hour shifts, the transcribing + is a bit brain-heavy and kind of burned me out. +- Choosing particular time blocks would make it a bit easier to + coordinate "interruption free" times with family/housemates. (This + was a big factor for me on Sunday afternoon, multiple kids and dog + plus other people. Next time I'll probably commit to transcribing + more on Saturday and then Sunday morning, and see if we can find + someone besides me for Sunday afternoon) + - Hah, there are no real interruption-free times with a 4-year-old +- Get OK from jcorneli, dto, and other volunteers to add the + timestamped logs as possible descriptive text for the videos as + temporary subtitles while there are no proper transcripts. + - (ok from dto) +- have opportunities for different levels of time sensitivity of + commitments (e.g. stuff people who can just drop in sometimes can + usually learn to do pretty easily and that helps). +- A green-room could be fun, inviting speakers a "quiet" place to + talk about things before they "happen", answering questions, even + FAQs for speakers on a priority then becomes both a thanks and an + easy starter voluntering opportunity with obvious perks built in. + - I thought about having speakers check into a green room so that + the audio alert from it could be always available, but I thought + that having them check in directly to their room would be less of + a hassle than two successive echo checks. It was nice to have + zaeph join me as I checked in some people. +- Cuttings streams as point-in-time markers collectievly assembled + could provide a path to CI/CD flows toward speach-to-text during the + event, or at least faster and eventually less manually after. + - The pad had timestamps with some formatting differences, so I was + able to pull them out and set them as properties. I ended up + manually reviewing the stream to see where to set the timestamps + anyway, since that felt like it might be easier. It mostly worked + except for the part where I accidentally included the prerec that + followed one of zaeph's talks. =) Maybe if we displayed a clear + timestamp at the start of the stream and then had some code that + would take that timestamp and calculate the correct offset for any + timestamps from the file... Yeah, that could work. + - So, like, a step in the check-in process that tells Emacs "All + right, this talk has started" (or "Oops, this talk started at X + time and I was distracted"), and it announces it to IRC and + stores the timestamp, and maaaaabye even spits out the ffmpeg + command to extract the previous talk out of the Icecast dump +** On the pad + Observations The pad was opened by many people. I believe we + peaked at 145. On top of being opened, many people used the + pad. People appreciated being able to immediately access links + and notes from previous talks publicvoit kept the pad up to + date and super clean. It probably was quite exhausting to do + all this by himself, even though he had some help from ??? (b- + something, I've closed the query in IRC. :( ) Karl was the only + person who contributed to the time-stamp logging. As long as + Karl is at the event, that's perfectly fine but I had to leave + earlier because of time-zone shift and exhaustion. Clearing pad + colours periodically helped speakers focus The Q4: Q3: Q2: Q1: + template that evolved by the end of the conference was really + handy, since experienced volunteers could keep adding slots and + people could add in the convenient blank spots. Might be handy + to keep a copy of the boilerplate ready for pasting in. The pad + got zapped once, and the Wikimedia Etherpad didn't have an easy + way to restore to a certain point aside from copying and + pasting. If there's another pad with good revision history + management, that might be worth checking. Winding back a few + minutes and cutting/pasting the contents back to the current + pad, worked okay in a pinch but probably isn't ideal. Karl + agrees: restoring content once for the whole event with ~140 + people reading/contributing is actually much better than + anticipated. However, when there is a better alternative: let's + switch. Reverse-chronological order worked better than + chronological order for typing things in. I don't know if + chronological order might be manageable if we have a Q1: Q2: + Q3: Q4: template so that people aren't accidentally pressing + enter in the middle of someone else's question. Also, + chronological might require more scrolling on the presenter's + part, and the questions move when people type things above + them. Karl: I don't see any advantage with + reverse-chronological order but several disadvantages: People + had hard time to add a new itemize-item at the top: I had to + fix many questions that were normal paragraphs. This cancels + out the main reason we had for starting the reverse order IMHO. + Everybody had to learn not to use the "normal" order of things + people are doing all the time: from top to bottom. Most + speakers on day one started with the topmost question for + answering as well. Karl: If the majority thinks, this is worth + the effort, let's continue with that. Otherwise, my guess would + be that having a few Q1, Q2, Q3 (in order), people will be fine + adding questions. I think some IRC questions fell through the + cracks. For people only posting questions on IRC, we would need + to teach them to prepend them with something like "Q:" or + similar. Otherwise, IRC is hard to skim for questions among the + chitchat. +** On the topic of the talks +*** Observations +- Plenty of topics. +- Varied topics. +- People enjoyed the more personal talks. + - shoshin's talks. + - Pierce Wang's talk. + - My user/developer story. + - People liked the face-to-face. + - I'm so happy about that! I think people's stories are an important part of humanizing Emacs, and I'm glad we made space for those talks. +- People liked the sequence of talks, too, which meant the time that we spent fiddling around with the flow of the talks worked out. +- Even though it was tough for speakers to squeeze their talks into even smaller timeframes than they asked for, I think it worked out well that people got a taste of lots of different topics + Q&A time afterwards. I'm glad we were able to accept all the talks. As Karl pointed out before, most conference committees have to make tough decisions about which talks to accept and which talks to reject. If we can figure out a way to make it happen time-wise, I'd like to make our role more of accepting as much as we can, and then sorting and shaping talks so that they flow well together. +*** Questions +- Should we develop the idea of tracks? + - This year, we had an org-mode track which allowed people interested in org-mode to tune in at a precise time, and have many topics that could interest them in quick succession. + - Parallel tracks split organizer attention and result in high fear-of-missing-out; not sure we could have pulled it off this year, but maybe with more practice? I think it would be super-cool to have workshops if volunteers wanted to do them, like an Emacs Lisp workshop or an Org workshop where people can just drop in and ask questions or show stuff. Gotta have people, though. + - dto: I like the workshop idea + - Karl would love to see a switcher-track since approx. 97% of all people I work with are using vim and still do think that it's just about editing. Furthermore, a switcher-track overlaps with the newbie-track - so it's probably a matter of track-name marketing ;-) +*** Improving +- Finding more use for the alt-stream. + - ~30 people, 10% of the stream, like I thought! =) Didn't have the brainspace to pull it off on the first day, and narrowly had enough brainspace to do it on the second day. Might be able to do it more easily next time, now that I've remembered my laptop has a mute shortcut. That was only an issue because wasamasa couldn't play a game full-screen while looking at the Etherpad. Other speakers would have been able to look at the Etherpad on their own, so I wouldn't need to read things out to them and can stay muted for the whole time. It also tied me up attention-wise, so it was great that zaeph could handle checkins too (and I appreciated how he could drop in and say stuff). If I get bbb-recorder or some other virtual framebuffer-based streamer working next time, I might be able to run the alternate stream with less attention. + - Wouldn't it be amazing if next year we nailed the implementation of alternate streams and were able to pack in tons of talks, maybe with 10 minute summaries on the main stream and then extended demo/Q&A on the alternate streams... +** On coordination +*** Observations +Stellar coordination on #emacsconf-org. +*** Improving +- We lost contact with mplsCorwin during his talk because the rtmp stream was one-way. + - We should have told him to keep an IRC window opened. + - Phoning him did the trick, but it was definitely more stressful for the speaker than just casually looking at the IRC window. + - I had the wrong channel open and wasn't watching the right screen. Thanks so much for the call Leo! The personal touch, like a call from an organizer when things aren't going right, can be huge. +** On tech-checks +*** Observations +- We had a check-list to make sure that we weren't forgetting anything. +- Asking for emergency contact info was a great idea. + - It saved our butts many times this year. =) =) +*** Improving +- Filling a table with all the info we gather (pre-rec or live: Q&A: live or pad/IRC, contact information, IRCnick) + - Our private repo was a good start, but we didn't prepare enough for the format. + - I like formalized processes, even when their steps might seem a little pedantic. Often there are complexities that we have the opportunity to prepare better for "between the lines" given such orginization. Maybe tech check is an easy place to start? IDK. I'm going to be trying to take this approach to everthing now, having hit upon it over the course of the conference at. al. Can we have too much org? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ +- It was nice being able to add things to the tech checklist, such as making sure speakers knew how to check in via IRC. +- Karl would like to be able to use a BBB room for tech-check so that we could share the load on those checks. +** On asking for pre-recs +*** Observations +- We pushed speakers to send us more pre-recs this year. +- As a result, we received more pre-recs (% ? I'd eyeball it at 60%) +- Speakers mentioned struggling with recording. Maybe we can provide more explicit help: here are the settings for recording with OBS, here's a tutorial for video editing, here's an ffmpeg example for stitching images/videos+audio together and converting them to the right encoding +*** Questions +- Pre-recs are nice for us, but aren't we losing a bit of interaction with the public? + - Especially if we're having more tracks in the future like org-mode, it's nice to have the ability to react to what was said before you (cf. the talks on org-roam) + - We encouraged interactions between talk topics by asking speakers to coordinate beforehand, and I think everyone took us up on our suggestions. Tech demonstrations are always a little nerve-wracking, so it's nice to have everything smoothly running. (And it's hard to properly focus on someone else's presentation when you're worrying about yours and whether it'll still work... =) ) +- If pre-recs have a negative impact on interaction with the public, do we feel capable of handling more live presentations? + - Some moments during the conference were particularly stressful: on the one hand, I couldn't take a pause for 3h straight on D2 because of the late check-ins. On the other hand, some other moments were particularly calm. I believe we've gained some valuable experience on this, and we might be better at this the next time. + - We can stress a little less about checkins knowing that we can either check people in during the playing of their prerec or say that the Q&A for them will be deferred, or by asking people to check in even earlier if they can. It would be nice to get their IRC nick during the tech check, so we can check if they're around. +- Short prerecs worked better than expected. Short prerec + live Q&A. 40-minute prerec talks are a little harder to stay engaged with +** On animation/hosting +*** Observations +- My style of animation seems to have gone well with the public + - Self-deprecating humour. + - Making fun of tech-problems. +** On check-ins +*** Observations +- Check-ins were done efficiently. +- Protocols helped us streamline the process so that 1) we didn't forget anything, and 2) we could get things done quickly. Final protocol: + - Say hello, thank them + - Check if people's mics/screensharing work + - Check screen readability + - Check live talk vs prerec preference, live Q&A vs IRC/pad, and whether they want to read the pad themselves or have Amin read questions to them + - Let them know that they can answer questions in any order and skip questions if they want + - Tell them Amin will join and then give them the go-ahead + - Remind people about personal information (especially Org) + - Coach people to start their segment by saying their name and a quick intro to their talk (so that Amin doesn't have to stress out about remembering pronunciations) + - Give them a brief heads-up shortly before Amin joins + - Start recording when Amin joins + - Track timestamp of start + - Announce topic in IRC + - Leave + - TODO: automate scheduling, announcement, publishing previous talk, etc. +- I like the ERC commands I made for sending people URLs and telling Amin who's ready where. =) They're in emacsconf-2020-private/index.org. +** On live Q&A +*** Observations + Check-in involved asking speakers if they wanted to do a live Q&A. +*** Improving +- Our tech-check should include if speakers want to do a live Q&A +- Letting speakers know that they're almost out of time + - bandali suggested warning them via BBB whilst keeping his mic muted to the stream + - Problem: Speaker are startled and look like they're hearing voices :o) + - A bell? A chime? Something instrumental? If BBB webcam video is visible, Amin can hold up a sign. + - fun video of time-boxing Ig Nobel talks you need to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAnVNXaa5oA +- sachac had a great idea of writing it in the pad, so that the speakers may know that they only have one minute/one question left. + - Yup, especially since most people were able to watch the pad for their own questions, and the ones who didn't were getting questions from Amin. +** On publishing the recordings +*** Observations +- Figuring out the timestamps and splitting up the bulk recording into individual talks/Q&A takes time +- We can satisfy the initial "Aaaaah! I want more!" by posting the + prerecs. If Amin keeps all of the day 1 prerecs in one folder, he + can just mv them into a public folder, and add any last-minute ones + as they come in. If we want to be super-fancy, maybe we can even + move them one at a time after each talk. although I think Amin likes + keeping them on that uwaterloo server, so it would be one more thing + he has to do. +- Slicing is actually pretty fast and can be done on a partial copy of + the stream, so we might be able to do it in the future. We can + quietly replace them with higher-quality versions if we want to. ** + Improving +** On publishing the Q&A logs (brought up by bhavin192) +*** Observations +- Some of the logs have lots of '+1' which are a tad useless now. +- We've mostly plopped whatever was in the pad in the relevant section on emacsconf.org. +*** Improving +- Process the logs to remove the extra stuff. + - It's definitely not a hgih-priority item, and I'd much rather have us on publishing the recordings as we have this year. (zaeph) +- Rethink the format. + - Go for a newspaper style. + - Questions in bold. + - Answer below with the name of the speaker prepended. +** On live viewership + ** Observations +- We peaked at ~400 viewers during RMS talks. + - dto: wow! + - Last year peak viewers = ~270 +- D1 averaged at ~340 viewers. (eyeballing) +- D2 averaged at ~250 viewers. (eyeballing) +** On asking feedback +*** Observations +- Viewers gave us quite a lot of feedback in the Other Pad™. +*** Questions +- How are we going to ask speakers for feedback? Etherpad/email + - Form to fill send via email? + - FOSS online form? + - (Off-topic: Do we have news from the Emacs Developer Survey?) + - I think the number-crunching from the Emacs Survey will take a while +** On having talks which could be construed as 'commercial product pitches' +*** Observations +- gmj`` on #emacsconf brought up the fact that Rainer König's talk + could have been associated to his Udemy course on org-mode (which + requires a fee). + - His Org talks are actually also available on Youtube for free. I + would have had no problem with Mickey Petersen plugging Mastering + Emacs update, too. +*** Remarks +- There's a general aversion to 'paying for stuff' in FOSS because it's often conflated with non-FOSS practices. + - This sentiment is problematic because it makes it hard for developers and community-figures to sustain themselves financially. + - FOSS has always allowed people to get paid for it; F doesn't mean $, but freedom. Also, it looks like the sentiment is shifting - more people are looking for ways to support the people who work on the stuff they like + - The systems of donations and patronage are the most widely accepted, but they're also the poorest in terms of results. + - Donations disproportionally favour prominent members of the community. + - The 'buy me a coffee' attitude downplays the amount of effort that goes into writing and maintaining software. + - A better solution for developers is project- or milestone-based financial goals: 'To develop feature X, it's going to take Y amount of money.' + - The idea is developed in https://sustainoss.org/ + - To quote François Élie, an influent FOSS advocate in France: + - Free/libre software is free once it has been paid for. + - Having a service industry around FOSS is what allows plenty of non-dev actors (educators, tech-writers, etc.) to sustain themselves. +*** Improving +- Develop arguments to use with people who conflate 'paid services' with 'non-FOSS practices'. +- Anticipate those problems by asking speakers how they sustain themselves in the FOSS world during the CFP. + - What would we do with the information? +** On the CFP +*** Observations +- People appreciated the nudge to talk to people who might be having imposter syndrome +*** Questions +- Do we want submissions to be anonymized next year? I think it adds quite a bit of load on the volunteer handling the incoming submissions. +- Do we want to experiment with the accept-as-much-as-possible approach next year as well? +** On BBB +*** Observations +- Audio quality was all over the place. + - BBB aggressively adds gain to participants, but it doesn't seem to be doing it in an intelligent way. +*** Remarks +*** Improving +- Prefer pre-recs? + - Has problems, cf. previous point on pre-recs. +- Find other tools? |