sanjayankur31
commented
2 years ago I think the best way forward here is to collect the links in a document somewhere, and send a link to this document in the registration confirmation e-mail. We could send the links in the confirmation e-mail too, but that will mean we need all the links set up before the registration e-mail goes out, which is unlikely to happen.
I've set up a hackmd doc now that can only be viewed using the link we send out, and I'll collect the links there. This means people can still share the links with each other, but then they could also forward the e-mail to each other, so it provides us with similar levels of security.
@OCNS/software-wg
We now have the schedule pretty much ready, so it's time to start setting up zoom etc. meeting links for all sessions.
Here we've got an implementation detail to figure out. Do we:
Note that while we will have a registration form, anyone can register, and it is free (see #101).
I'm quite happy with using option 1, but as we do, we limit zoom meetings to people with zoom logins only. These are free, so everyone can do them, and it acts as a simple way to limit zoom crashers---we've not seen them recently. Tutors using non zoom platforms will similarly need to set up some way to require people to login to the platform etc.
If people are concerned about zoom crashing and/or the platforms tutors intend to use don't require users to login, we need to go with option 2 where the zoom links are only sent out to registrants, somehow. However, this adds quite a bit of extra work---someone needs to periodically send out the e-mail to new registrants, and this cannot be automated on Google forms (at least I'm not aware of a way of doing this). As we get closer to the sessions, and during the sessions, people may still need to register so someone will need to check the registration list quite frequently to ensure that last minute registrants are able to attend their sessions---otherwise we'll get lots of e- mails saying "I've just registered, and the session starts in 5 minutes, but I don't have the links yet".
I don't know a way of setting up some sort of password protected document with the infrastructure at our disposal (GitHub pages/GitHub). I guess one way of doing this could be to have a public but not advertised document somewhere (hackmd would work well for this) and send the link to this "hidden" document in the Google forms response confirmation---but this still means that the links are public and can technically be found/shared. It also means that people can submit nonsensical e-mail addresses to the forms and receive the link---only if the link is sent to the registered e-mail address do we have some check that the e-mail is valid.
What do folks think?
PS: we may use something other than Google forms, as is being discussed in #101, but the issues remain the same irrespective of the form infrastructure