Virtual participation channels

[loleg]

As we discussed in #25 for virtual participation there will be access to the livestream and workshops. For interaction with the moderators and other participants, we are looking at multiple options:

Broadcast / teleconference

• Workshops: chat + voice enabled for all in BigBlueButton (BBB)
• Plenum: chat only Q&A (in BBB, social media, forum..) to keep the focus on the livestream

Interactivity / voting / etc

• Live polling: built into BBB, or open source alternatives like Particify and Pingo
• HACKnight: use Mozilla Hubs or Workadventu.re for extra atmosphere

Social media / forums

• The official hashtag and @-mentions will be monitored
• We had spam issues last year on YouTube and will disable Comments on the livestreams
• We are considering setting up a GitHub Discussion (see example here), assuming the barrier of setting up a GitHub account is not too high for our community to participate

Questions

• Is BBB-chat and social media sufficient, or do we need additional forum? If so, is GitHub Discussions a good choice, or should we instead set up a Discourse forum (e.g. https://forum.opendata.ch / https://ask.fedoraproject.org/ ....) or another solution?
• Should we look at setting up a dedicated conference app, or some other way to tie the platforms together? E.g. https://github.com/loomchild/sojourner-web via FOSSDEM
• What are the important hallmarks of virtual participation, how do we want to leave a memorable experience for virtual ticket holders without distracting too much away from the core purpose and within our tight budget?

[loleg]

We decided today to focus on BBB (e.g. using virtual lounges) and our social media hashtags for virtual participation. I have still started a basic set up of the Discussions forum so we can at least test it out this year, and @mariafanger will include questions about Community Platforms in the survey. As I mentioned in the call, I would like to make sure we collect the learnings from our partner communities, and try to use a platform which is as inclusive and open as possible going forward.

[MarkusTiede]

Resolving for 2021 - please feel free to re-open / adjust for 2022.