2019/Online/Planning

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IndieWebCamp Online 2019 Planning is for keeping track of all things for organizers and volunteers to make IndieWebCamp Online 2019 an awesome time for all!

We haven't had an Indiewebcamp Online since 2014/Online. Let's start talking about bringing back the medium.

Venue: Internet!

Can help co-organize:

Eddie Hinkle (Only been to one IWC, so would need a co-organizer that has gone to many IWCs)
David Shanske Co-Organized the original
Greg McVerry

Dates

Saturday, March 9, 2019 to Sunday, March 10, 2019.

Post-Camp Reflections

Summary

Camp worked well huge shout out to Eddie Hinkle for the hard work. We had a total of eleven sessions and over twenty active participants throughout the camp.
Had 25 people register, 16 people attended throughout the weekend, three never registered
There were a total of eleven sessions with WordPress session and Profiles session repeated twice.
8 People posted goals for hack day
- These numbers either meet or exceed on the ground the events.
Improvements to discovery and scheduling suggested

Discovery and Onboarding

https://twitter.com/khurtwilliams/status/1104124423433605120?s=21 (or for some additional context: https://boffosocko.com/2019/03/09/55745623/)
- It was difficult for people to find links to sessions. For people that aren’t used to the Wiki, getting to the Wiki Event Page to the Schedule page is probably not the most intuitive. For in person events, the 2019.indieweb.org page is just used for Registration, but that’s probably the first place someone looks to figure out what’s going on for an IWC Online.
- There should probably be a link directly from 2019.indieweb.org/online to the indieweb.org/2019/Online/Schedule page so people can see what is currently going on. Potentially even put a #now to the end of the page so that we can move an anchor link with that id throughout the day so someone could arrive at the exact scroll position on the page to what should be going on.
- The Tito page at https://ti.to/indiewebcamp/indiewebcamp-online-2019, which some kept as a reference, also didn't have any useful information and the "location" link not only didn't have a correct URL, but clicking on it resolved to a Google Maps page instead of the wiki page.
- The main camp page /2019/Online is helpful BEFORE the camp, but is so busy it’s not very helpful DURING an online camp for new people who don’t know what to expect.
  - One thing is to write a nice “what to expect at IWC Online” letter (see this page for ideas and iteration: IndieWebCamps/Attendance) that can be on the page when RSVPing as well as emailed to participants the week before the event. This should outline: visiting chat.indieweb.org on the day of the event for real-time updates, a link to the sessions page, and other important info/links.
  - The schedule (or a page that replaces it) should become a clean and clear “operational day of page” with a place at the top for status updates, a schedule grid, link to the chat room and other important day of information. The standard “schedule grid” from in person camps is a good start but a completely online camp needs that page to have more critical information and such since there is no easy way to communicate if you can’t find the chat room or the video channel.

Time Zones

Lack of multiple sessions to choose from came from two things: missing a critical mass of people for multiple sessions at once, plus having 23 hours when sessions could occur caused sessions to just spread out, which was the intention
- I feel we met the demand and there was no need for overlapping sessions, while spirit of an unconference allows you to choose sessions I feel like we still did as we negotiated unplanned schedules,
- This was also a tech issue with the switch back to Hangouts.
  - As a parent I enjoyed the flexibility of the long window as I could plan IWC Online around other obligations
- While the intention was to have 23 hours of potential sessions for cross-timezone synergy, it caused more issues than benefits. The first sessions were conflicted time-wise due to it being during the work day in the Americas, and fairly late in the evening in Europe.
  - Just start on Saturday?
  - Friday start time worked for Organizers (both Americas East)and in the end that is schedule that mattered most
- The first sessions didn’t feel as polished or as helpful to people due to those inherent time conflicts.
- Future IWC Online should definitely aim for a more traditional set timezone that people outside that timezone can adjust for it they want to attend.
  - Disagree. I think we should think of it as three traditional timeslots for sessions:
    - EU/Americas East
    - Americas West
    - Aussie/NZ- (tried to find a organizer, no volunteers, people who said they couldn't make it noted personal obligations)
- Future IWC Online should have a standard Saturday (possibly Sunday) approach, with Intros being in the morning of a specific timezone, with sessions going throughout the day.
  - One approach that worked was running the same session in multiple timezones. We did this profiles and it worked.

Tech Issues

Tech Issues:
- Jitsi as a platform works okay, although is not as quality dependable as Google Hangouts.
- Google Hangouts worked pretty good with YouTube Live, especially since you could schedule events in advance. The downfall of Google Hangouts is every facilitator needs access to the YouTube channel so they can set up the event and make it “Go Live” as the moderator.
- Jitsi is nice because it doesn’t require a special moderator control to record locally (when it works), and a YouTube admin is only needed to set up events and get the streaming codes for the facilitators.
- Every Jitsi Room that wants to stream needs a Jibri server set up. Eventually this wouldn’t be an issue once we have the workflow for having Jibri servers launched, but in time meantime this is challenging.
- Testing (not just of Jitsi, but also Jibri Recording) should always happen 3-4 days ahead of an IWC Online.
- Need to add directions on how to clone a tito event, UI not intuitive

Attendance Rate

High no-show rate similar to on the ground events
- Add the ten dollar minimum or INDIE RSVP for free to cut down on ~70% registration no shows. Adds a planning burden to organizers when trying to match format to audience

Brainstorming

IWC Components

Kick-off Presentations
Intros
Session Planning
- Frameadate.org, either the service or our own hosted install
Sessions
Hack Day Kick-off
Projects
Demos

Goals / Ideas for Online Medium

Eddie Hinkle posted a long winded speech about various ideas for IWC Online. Here are some points:

We were thinking about it being a melding of synchronous and asynchronous.
Intros and Demos should be synchronous with everyone together in a single chat room.
Instead of having a "time-block" of say 4 hours where all the sessions take place, propose sessions and then people who are interested in the session can suggest times during a 1 day window, then the time that works for the most people becomes when that session happens.

Eddie Hinkle suggested that we could have different "digital rooms" via Google Hangouts or whatever other streaming platform we use. This would allow for more collaboration among peers than you can get when everyone is in a single digital room. This could especially be useful during the projects time.

Greg McVerry proposed the idea of having the ability for there to be multiple versions of the same topic in different timezones.

Greg McVerry we should offer a "naptime" session where parents can suggest a time when they will be available based on nap schedules and that actual start times might be a bit squishy

Possible physical locations using HWCs

Greg McVerry pointed out that we could coordinate with Homebrew Website Clubs and IndieWeb Meetups that don't have a local IndieWebCamp to meet together during IWC Online.

One way and two-way sessions

We may want to include one-way sessions with a Q=A at the

Examples of other online conferences

Include Lightning Round Research Talks

Blogcon 2003-2006 used to have academics present on blogging research. Thinking of doing somethign similar at online where research is submitted for peer review and accepted sessions can do a remote lightning round to present their work.

Probably not ready for March, but leaving idea here for future Online..still like idea of lightning round talks.

Schedule Proposal

Day One: Pre-Camp Session-Focus on tutorials for people who want to join but may not be on chat, the wiki, have a website, need directions on etherpad or mediawiki markup
Day Two (March 9):
- Keynotes and Intros live, then asynchronous session proposals. If interest see if Australian/Pacific/Asian want a live session in their time slot.
- Offer session slots in two timezones, really a session is gran a friend and an etherpad.
- People propose their sessions. Instead of traditional grid just have a 24 hour calendar and session organizers block out their hour. Session organizer chooses either auido Template:mumble or video (use IndieWeb account and YouTube live, can have six simultaneous streams_
Day Three (March 10)
- Hack day, Participants sign up for 5 hours over a the 24 hour period. Each hour timeslot has an associated trackpad. Do checkins at 30 intervals
- Need an agreed upon time for live demos. Each YouTube Live event can have ten participants, may want to due a cue. Having multiple streams with multiple guests is a bandwidth hog.

Meeting Notes

IndieWebCamp [online] [2019] Session: [planning meeting 2019-01-21]

Participants

Agenda

Review Dates
Review current planning notes
Choose Time for common session
- Looking for common time for intro and demos times
- Discussed having different live sessions in different time zones
Revist session format
Encouraging "checkins" on hack day?
Choose technology for Welcome / Demos
Choose technology for sessions

Notes

Dates confirmed for March 9-10, 2019
Intro sessions will be live at 5 UTC
Austrailan organizer welcome to do intro session in that times zone
Demos will be live but scheduled 15:00 local in PSt, EST, and Berlin
Sessions
- A grid will be made available in advance
- We weill also allow for impromptu sessions
- We will use etherpad for the session grid
- Offer a presession for anyone who wants help
On hackday have "rooms" available
- Potentially with topics like: Getting Started, Wordpress, Micropub, IndieAuth, Water cooler
- Have organizers hang out in said rooms in case people stop by
- Encourage people to start their own Bird of a Feather rooms

Tasks

now that data is confirmed need a PR for a new /2019 event to be done by Eddie Hinkle

Set up IWC Online 2019 Etherpad Session Planning

Please note that all contributions to this pad and other IndieWebCamp documents are considered to be released under the public domain according to CC0.

Done

now that date is confirmed need a new page on wiki compelted by Greg McVerry
write up instructions for Etherpad Session Planning

Example Session Planning

Sat

Topic: Displaying webmentions
Facilitator Template:name
Proposed Timeslots
- Please put a +1 to times you can make
- 12-1
- 1-2
- 2-3
- 3-4
Final Time Slot
Recording URl
Etherpad

Previously

2014/Online