[emacs-berlin] Feedback on the hybrid meetup

[julia.biro at gmail.com]

Hi Folks,

With the first hybrid meetup behind us, I would like to invite everyone to
share feedback with me. Either here, or just write to me in private. I am
interested in everything: what worked well, what didn't work well. eg: I
couldn't hear, I couldn't see, pizza was cold, beer was bitter, we should
do X or shouldn't do Y. This is a new format, any learning is valuable.



On a different note, I would like to open up a longer term question about
the meetups format and specifically the platform we use.
Almost 3 years ago when we were forced to move the meetup from Contentfuls
event space to online, we very soon settled on Jitsi as the platform of
choice. It was free, open source and accessible to all, and seems to be a
good fit for this community's strong preference for open source tools.
But now that we are trying to meet in person again, this causes a technical
issue. Contentfuls actual event spaces are only equipped to join zoom
meetings. Don't ask me why, but that is the reality, and I don't think I
will be able to get them to refactor that for our benefit. So yesterday's
meetup was actually hosted in 2 meeting rooms, and it worked for now, but
it doesn't scale: it required a technician from Contentful to basically
hack the rooms for us; we were sitting in a small space, and it has all
kinds of conundrums around having to enter the private spaces of the
office. And I am still not sure how to get the recording off the machine in
the meeting room. So in Contentful the rooms and the event spaces are
wonderfully equipped to participate with zoom, and everything else ranges
from tiresome to hard to impossible.

So there is a tension between our current options for an event space and
the preferred platform. And I think we should start talking about options,
and possible solutions and possible compromises. One option is to change
the venue; another is to change the platform. And I am sure there can be
other options as well. Can we move to zoom somehow? can we find another
venue? Can we live with a tight cap on live participant numbers and a
gowring distance from beers?

please let me know what you think.

Julia
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