@posts
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Hmm. I think this doesn't put enough weight on the social interactions _at_ talks. Or, for that matter, many people's attention (when their laptop is away) at an in person talk vs a recording.
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Duck Alignment Academyreplied to Matthew Miller last edited by
Do the social interactions at talks expanding access to a much broader community? That’s a matter of opinion, of course, but I don’t think they do.
And while I’m as guilty as anyone when it comes to distractions, some of that is on the speaker. If your talk isn’t interesting in presentation form, maybe it should be a blog post instead.
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Matthew Millerreplied to Duck Alignment Academy last edited by
It's not a matter of interest
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It doesn't expand access, but it also shouldn't be the only thing. There's something irreplaceable about being present in a room with people who are with shared interest. Especially when the topic is contentious, or otherwise difficult.
Being in a shared audience is also a key driver of the hallway tracks and networking. You mention that separately but I think it's linked. Maybe could be done by following each talk and q&a with breakouts, but that feels like a commitment.
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Matthew Millerreplied to Matthew Miller last edited by
And, it isn't really a matter of "interesting". I learn from talks, but if it's a video it needs to be... something different from a talk. Like, I can watch Mark Rober or Simone Giertz or Tom Scott videos and learn something, but I probably wouldn't as much from a video of them at a lectern with slides, or a conference call slideshow and recording.
This is probably a neurotype thing, but I bet it is common enough in our communities.
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Matthew Millerreplied to Matthew Miller last edited by
Maybe it could be a blog post, but few people are good at making those both substantive and succinct. (This is why so many companies end up using never-presented slide decks as a primary communication mechanism. I'm not _recommending_ that, but I understand it.)
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Matthew Millerreplied to Matthew Miller last edited by
I don't have a good answer on expanding access. Travel is hard, the world is big, national borders are barriers, and, yeah, covid is still a thing. But regionalizing _core_ events isn't the answer — especially if US or EU (or wherever) becomes the defacto _main event_. This is what happened in Fedora before Flock, and it was actively harmful.
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Ben Cotton (he/him)replied to Matthew Miller last edited by
@mattdm I'm going to suggest you write your own blog post to rebut mine instead of doing it in the comments.
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Matthew Millerreplied to Matthew Miller last edited by
We should do more regional events — the day-trip idea. But those should be explicitly something else and should not disqualify people from the core gathering.
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Matthew Millerreplied to Ben Cotton (he/him) last edited by
*sigh*
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Matthew Millerreplied to Ben Cotton (he/him) last edited by
Can I make you a PowerPoint?
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Ben Cotton (he/him)replied to Matthew Miller last edited by
@mattdm with apologies to Taylor Swift:
We can't make
Any blog posts now, can we, babe?
But you can make me a PowerPoint