[[!sidebar content=""]]
This file is automatically exported from [/2024/organizers-notebook/index.org](/2024/organizers-notebook/index.org). You might prefer to navigate this as an Org file instead. To do so, [clone the wiki repository](https://emacsconf.org/edit/).
You might also like the [general organizers' notebook](/organizers-notebook) and [the organizers' notebook from 2023](/2023/organizers-notebook).
# Table of Contents
- [Timeline](#timeline)
- [About this document](#about-this-doc)
- [Communications plan](#comms)
- [Good/better/best](#good-better-best)
- [Phases](#phases)
- [Draft CFP](#cfp)
- [Draft schedule](#draft-schedule)
- [Check EmacsConf infrastructure](#org5b05724):project:
- [bbb.emacsverse.org replacement](#orgf90c350)
- [IRC web client](#org47f1067)
- [IRC announcements](#org8966827)
- [Media](#org75bdf93)
- [Publishing resources to the wiki](#orgb420d40)
- [Publishing videos to the media server](#org4e0acb2)
- [Playing videos, switching to windows](#org40b9e70)
- [Etherpad](#org1040525)
- [Do a dry run](#org215b633)
- [Processes and notes](#org73e9be9)
- [ERC](#orgedf8032)
- [Decisions](#decisions)
- [BigBlueButton replacement](#bbb)
- [Support code](#support-code)
# TODO Timeline
CFP
[2024-06-30 Sun]
CFP deadline
[2024-09-20 Fri]
82
Speaker notifications
[2024-09-27 Fri]
Publish schedule
[2024-10-25 Fri]
Video submission deadline
[2024-11-08 Fri]
49
EmacsConf
[2024-12-07 Sat]
29
We like to have at least a month to work on audio
normalization and transcription, and we want
speakers to have at least a month to work on their
videos (considering early submissions will already
have gotten started on processing).
# About this document
Tags:
- `conforg`: Requires access to private conf.org repository
# Communications plan
Objectives:
- keep everyone in the loop without them feeling like they’re overloaded
Everyone:
- [ ] Call for participation (speakers and volunteers)
- [ ] Reminder about CFP
- [ ] Last call
Speakers:
- [ ] Send all speakers backstage access and upload instructions
- [ ] Send all speakers check-in instructions
Volunteers:
- [ ] Send captioning volunteers the backstage info
- [ ] Send past captioning volunteers an invitation to participate - ask when there’s a lot of load
- [ ] Ask for help with audio processing
# Good/better/best
This table makes it easier to move the slider depending on who wants
to volunteer and how much we can get done. At some point, we’ll figure
out how to track our current status so we know what we need to
scramble to do in order to get the conference off the ground. **bold**
is our current goal. Feel free to volunteer for anything that
interests you!
Good
Better
Best
Streaming
Regular stream
+ alternate streams on PeerTube
+ alternate streams on YouTube
480p
Same on live
Separate node
Ansible setup
Audio normalization
Core org handling it
Other volunteer
Multiple volunteers
Video resolution
Usual reminders
Extra reminders
Everyone remembering to use a large font size
Intros
Standard, recorded
Reviewed by speakers
More details/context
Pad
v1.9.7
v2.x
# Phases
## DONE Draft CFP
#### Draft linked pages
- [X] cfp
- [X] submit page
- [X] year index
- [X] volunteer page
#### DONE Check with other organizers
#### DONE Post CFP in the usual places
emacsconf-discuss, reddit.com/r/emacs, Emacs News, emacs-tangents, Mastodon, X
## DONE Draft schedule
Legend:
- light blue: constraint is <= a time
- peach: constraint is >= a time
- solid line: Q&A will be through BigBlueButton web conference
- dashed line: Q&A will be IRC/Etherpad during the event or e-mail after the event
Notes:
- Updates:
- [2024-10-27 Sun] Removed [graph](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/graph "Graph mode: a major mode to create, edit and display discrete element graphs"), moved [p-search](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/p-search "p-search: a local search engine in Emacs") earlier; also [learning](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/learning "Survival of the skillest: Thriving in the learning jungle") needs to be in the morning, so I moved [pgmacs](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/pgmacs "PGmacs: browsing and editing PostgreSQL databases from Emacs") and [org-teach](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/org-teach "org-teach: a minor mode for writing course materials in Emacs") around.
- [2024-10-22 Tue] Swapped [org-teach](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/org-teach "org-teach: a minor mode for writing course materials in Emacs") and [blee](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/blee "About Blee: enveloping our own autonomy directed digital ecosystem with Emacs")
- [2024-10-21 Mon] Extended [blee](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/blee "About Blee: enveloping our own autonomy directed digital ecosystem with Emacs")
- [2024-10-17 Thu] Added [org-update](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/org-update "The Future of Org") to Saturday morning, moving [org-teach](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/org-teach "org-teach: a minor mode for writing course materials in Emacs") to Sunday afternoon
- [2024-10-15 Tue] Swapped [students](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/students "An example of a cohesive student workflow in Emacs") and [literate](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/literate "Literate programming for the 21st Century") for availability reasons
- [2024-10-13 Sun] Moved [hyperdrive](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/hyperdrive "New in hyperdrive.el: org-transclusion, easy installation, and more!") to the afternoon (swapping with [flp](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/flp "The Free Life Planner: Empowering lives with Emacs-based AI")) because of changed availability
- [2024-10-12 Sat] I fixed the time constraint for [students](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/students "An example of a cohesive student workflow in Emacs") (needs to be in the afternoon), so I moved [hyperbole](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/hyperbole "Fun things with GNU Hyperbole") to the morning.
- General approach:
- I’ve mostly tried to alternate IRC/pad Q&A with live Q&A.
- 1.5 tracks keeps things faster-paced than the 2-track option.
- Sat:
- Gen track:
- [papers](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/papers "Writing academic papers in Org-Roam"), [project](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/project "Managing writing project metadata with org-mode"), [org-teach](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/org-teach "org-teach: a minor mode for writing course materials in Emacs"), [flp](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/flp "The Free Life Planner: Empowering lives with Emacs-based AI"), [color](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/color "Colour your Emacs with ease") should be pretty general
- [color](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/color "Colour your Emacs with ease") and [theme](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/theme "My journey of finding and creating the “perfect” Emacs theme") are both theme-related. [color](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/color "Colour your Emacs with ease") needs to be in the morning and [theme](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/theme "My journey of finding and creating the “perfect” Emacs theme") needs to be in the afternoon, so I put them on either side of the lunch break.
- Other afternoon talks: [water](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/water "Watering my (digital) plant with Emacs timers") and [shell](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/shell "Emacs as a shell") are by the same speaker. [casual](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/casual "Re-imagining the Emacs user experience with Casual Suite"), [hyperdrive](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/hyperdrive "New in hyperdrive.el: org-transclusion, easy installation, and more!"), and [writing](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/writing "Emacs Writing Studio") will probably be good for a general audience. These speakers are only available in the afternoon, so this part of the schedule is a bit tight.
- I put [emacs30](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/emacs30 "Emacs 30 Highlights") at the end of Saturday to act sort of as a keynote. Closing remarks on Saturday are usually very light, so we could skip them.
- Dev track:
- [gypsum](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/gypsum "Gypsum: my clone of Emacs and ELisp written in Scheme"), [rust](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/rust "An experimental Emacs core in Rust"), [julia](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/julia "Exploring shared philosophies in Julia and Emacs"), [guile](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/guile "Beguiling Emacs: Guile-Emacs relaunched!"), and [mcclim](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/mcclim "Elisp and McCLIM") are about other projects
- [graph](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/graph "Graph mode: a major mode to create, edit and display discrete element graphs"), [p-search](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/p-search "p-search: a local search engine in Emacs"), [secrets](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/secrets "Committing secrets with git using sops-mode"), and [repro](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/repro "Reproducibly building Emacs: “Hey your checksum is the same as mine!”") will probably be more dev-focused
- Sun:
- Sunday morning last year had some packet loss issues at around 9:30, so we’ll start with some talks that don’t have BBB Q&A: [students](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/students "An example of a cohesive student workflow in Emacs"), [links](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/links "Unlocking linked data: replacing specialized apps with an Org-based semantic wiki"), [regex](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/regex "Emacs regex compilation and future directions for expressive pattern matching")
- [blee](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/blee "About Blee: enveloping our own autonomy directed digital ecosystem with Emacs") and [language](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/language "Immersive language learning with Emacs") are probably general-audience
- [pgmacs](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/pgmacs "PGmacs: browsing and editing PostgreSQL databases from Emacs"), [regex](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/regex "Emacs regex compilation and future directions for expressive pattern matching"), and [transducers](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/transducers "Transducers: finally, ergonomic data processing for Emacs!") are all development-oriented, but are on the general track for scheduling purposes. [transducers](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/transducers "Transducers: finally, ergonomic data processing for Emacs!") can only be on Sunday afternoon at 4pm because of availability.
- I’ve separated [hyperbole](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/hyperbole "Fun things with GNU Hyperbole") and [hywiki](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/hywiki "HyWiki: Fast, hyperlinked note-taking with no markup required") by lunch so that people who are interested in that can attend the live Q&A for both without worrying about missing things.
- [learning](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/learning "Survival of the skillest: Thriving in the learning jungle"), [sharing](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/sharing "So you want to be an Emacs-fluencer?"), [literate](https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/literate "Literate programming for the 21st Century") will probably be good for a general audience
# TODO Check EmacsConf infrastructure :project:
- [X] IRC
- [ ] Streaming assets
- [ ] Publishing to the wiki
- [ ] Web conference
- [ ] OBS
- [ ] Publishing to the media server
- [ ] Etherpad
- [ ] Streaming
- [ ] Toobnix
- [ ] YouTube
## WAITING bbb.emacsverse.org replacement
- Delegated to Corwin for now, will get back to stressing out about it in a couple of weeks
- May need to spin up a Linode and either pay for it for a few weeks or figure out how to spin it down and up again
- [BigBlueButton replacement](#bbb)
- Possibly relevant: dynamic DNS?
Can also update manually
### TODO Create meeting rooms for each speaker
## IRC web client
### WAITING Ask libera.chat to increase connections allowed from chat.emacsconf.org on Dec 7 and 8
## IRC announcements
### DONE Confirm manual IRC announcements
### TODO Confirm automated IRC announcements from res
## Media
### TODO Switch public media to unprotected root before the conference
1. Clear public media directory.
2. Set `media_protect_root` to false in Ansible `group_vars/all.yml`.
3. `ansible-playbook -i inventory.yml prod-playbook.yml --tags media`
You can generate the index with `emacsconf-publish-update-media`.
## TODO Publishing resources to the wiki
ansible-playbook -i inventory.yml prod-playbook.yml –tags publish
## TODO Publishing videos to the media server
## Playing videos, switching to windows
### TODO Generate test videos for everything
### TODO Document how to get that set up again
## Etherpad
### TODO Generate pads for all the talks
### TODO Generate the main index
## TODO Do a dry run
### DONE Generate all the test assets
### TODO Test connecting to VNC and streaming via OBS
# Processes and notes
## ERC
Some convenient commands are defined in emacsconf-erc.el.
/opall
Grant operator status in the Emacsconf channels
/deopall
Remove operator status in the Emacsconf channels
/conftopic
Set the first part of the topic
# Decisions
## BigBlueButton replacement
The server running bbb.emacsverse.org has been decommissioned, since the nonprofit that shared it with us is defunct.
- We’d like to figure out what our live Q&A setup is going to be for EmacsConf 2024 (Dec 7-8).
- Nice to have: Hosting for other Emacs meetups like Emacs APAC and OrgMeetup
- [Stats from last year](https://sachachua.com/blog/2023/12/emacsconf-backstage-figuring-out-our-maximum-number-of-simultaneous-bigbluebutton-users/): 31 meetings, 84 unique users, 62 max simultaneous users, 6 max simultaneous meetings, 27 max users in one meeting, 36 unique talking
- also includes some notes on hosting
- Nice thing about running our own server: we can make one room per speaker, pre-assign their URLs, and let people stay as long as they want in recorded Q&A sessions
Recommendation:
We spin up a shared CPU 4GB under bandali’s Linode
account (for bandwidth pooling and easier
reimbursement), do the setup/testing over the next
few weeks, scale up to dedicated CPU 16GB a day or
two before the conference, and keep it at that
level until the recordings are all done. I have
access to that Linode account, so I can set it up.
If bandali can configure emacsverse.org to be
handled by Linode, I can manage the DNS changes,
or he can change bbb.emacsverse.org to the IP
address of the new node.
Some options:
- Linode with 16GB RAM and 8 cores
- Advantages: can experiment with both Galene and BBB, manage things ourselves, have filesystem access
- Disadvantages: needs someone to do it
- Base pricing
- Shared CPU 4GB 80GB storage: hourly USD 0.04, monthly USD 24
- Dedicated CPU 16GB: hourly USD 0.22, monthly USD 144 - meets minimum requirements and can probably support 200 simultaneous ([FAQ](https://docs.bigbluebutton.org/support/faq/))
- Shared CPU 8GB 160GB storage: hourly USD 0.07
- Shared CPU 16GB 320GB storage: hourly USD 0.14
- Last year
- Block storage: $1/10GB/month
- 125M/hour - [FAQ](https://docs.bigbluebutton.org/support/faq/#what-is-the-disk-space-usage-for-storing-one-hour-of-recordings)
- In 2023, we had 31 hours of trimmed recordings (main + answers),
- (\* 31 0.125) 3.875, oh, maybe we can get away with 10GB storage and add another chunk of 10GB midway if we need it, or extend the dedicated
- Actually, block storage probably not needed if we’re going to keep the big instance up until the recordings are done
- Ideas
- **Option A: Run a small instance continuously, scale up for the conference, pull the recordings off, spin the instance down** - est total USD 60+tax
- There are three weeks between now and the conference (\* 0.04 24 7 3) USD 20
- Last year, recordings were available within three days after the conference
- Let’s plan for a week at high capacity. (\* 0.22 24 7) USD 36.96
- and a month of 10GB, possibly up to 30GB. USD 3
- That’s probably small enough that it doesn’t make as much sense to try to fully spin down for a week in between now and the conference (\* 0.04 24 7) - which would save USD 6.72 but require figuring out backing up, etc.
- **Option B: Run a slightly larger shared CPU instance from now until shortly before the conference, then scale up** in case BBB does not work for installation/testing with less memory; block storage probably not needed
- (\* 0.07 24 7 3) USD 35.28 for 8GB, total (+ 35.28 36.96) USD 72.24
- (\* 0.14 24 7 3) USD 70.56 for 16GB, total (+ 70.56 36.96) USD 107.52
- Ask FSF if we can borrow their BBB or Galene, maybe limit it to cycling among 6 or 7 rooms
- Waiting for feedback; Corwin has asked them
- Pay for BigBlueButton hosting; can we find one that’s compatible with our commitment to freedom?
- - Economy 120 (USD 130/month) or Economy 80 (USD 85/month), custom URL
- - 100 concurrent users: USD 125/month, custom URL
-
- 100 concurrent users: USD 79/month
- 200 concurrent users and custom URL: USD 15 setup fee + USD 149/month
- - 150 concurrent, USD 75/month
- - 250 concurrent, USD 49 setup + USD 108.80/month
-
- 150 concurrent users, 10 concurrent meetings, USD 40/month
- custom domain, 600 concurrent users, USD 149/month
- Compare with Linode pricing
- Try to squeeze it onto res.emacsconf.org
- Tricky to run on a shared server; it likes to use a lot of ports and strongly recommends running it on its own server
- Go back to using meet.jit.si?
- Free:
- Need to check speed, reliability
- Can send RTMP from the meeting itself
- [2024-11-13 Wed] I attended Ihor’s
OrgMeetup, which he hosted on meet.jit.si. I
think he had bandwidth issues at some point
and we lost his audio. I remember we ran
into that problem before, too, when we used
Jitsi for one of the Emacsconfs. Free Jitsi
hosting might not be the right fit for us.
- Paid: USD 99/month + $0.01/min for recordings + $0.01 min (optional) for RTMP streaming
- Galene?
- [2024-10-31 Thu] I checked out Galene in the last Emacs Berlin meeting. It’s promising, but I think the user interface might still need a bit of work. Simple deployment (run one Go binary, I think), but muting/unmuting doesn’t trigger enabling the microphone, and the chat was buggy to get to on my mobile device. Supposed to have support for raising hands.
# Support code
(defun my-ox-link-path (link _ info)
(let* ((raw-path (org-element-property :path link)))
(setq raw-path
(org-export-file-uri
(org-publish-file-relative-name raw-path info)))
;; Possibly append `:html-link-home' to relative file
;; name.
(let ((home (and (plist-get info :html-link-home)
(org-trim (plist-get info :html-link-home)))))
(when (and home
(plist-get info :html-link-use-abs-url)
(not (file-name-absolute-p raw-path)))
(setq raw-path (concat (file-name-as-directory home) raw-path))))
raw-path))
(defun my-org-md-link (link desc info)
(if (string= (org-element-property :type link) "file")
(let ((path (my-ox-link-path link desc info)))
(if (string= (file-name-extension path) "svg")
(with-temp-buffer
(insert-file-contents-literally path)
(buffer-string))
(org-md-link link desc info)))
(org-md-link link desc info)))
(with-eval-after-load 'ox-md
(setf
(alist-get 'link (org-export-backend-transcoders (org-export-get-backend 'md)))
'my-org-md-link))