Em Fri, 11 Jun 2021 04:59:42 +0200
Willy Tarreau [off-list ref] escreveu:

On Fri, Jun 11, 2021 at 12:43:05AM +0200, Toke Høiland-Jørgensen wrote:

quoted

Shuah Khan [off-list ref] writes:  

quoted

I have a
couple of ideas on how we might be able to improve remote experience
without restricting in-person experience.

- Have one or two moderators per session to watch chat and Q&A to enable
   remote participants to chime in and participate.
- Moderators can make sure remote participation doesn't go unnoticed and
   enable taking turns for remote vs. people participating in person.

It will be change in the way we interact in all in-person sessions for
sure, however it might enhance the experience for remote attendees.  

This is basically how IETF meetings function: At the beginning of every
session, a volunteer "jabber scribe" is selected to watch the chat and
relay any questions to a microphone in the room. And the video streaming
platform has a "virtual queue" that remove participants can enter and
the session chairs are then responsible for giving people a chance to
speak. Works reasonably well, I'd say :)  

I was about to say the same. In addition, local participants line up
at a microphone and do not interrupt the speaker, but the organiser
gives them the signal to ask a question. This allows to maintain a
good balance between local and remote participants. Also it's common
to see some locals go back to their seat because someone else just
asked the same question. And when remote questions are asked using
pure text, it's easy for the organiser to skip them if already
responded as well.

This method is rather efficient because it doesn't require to keep the
questions for the end of the session, yet questions do not interrupt
the speaker. It also solves the problem of people not speaking in the
microphone. The only thing is that it can be quite intimidating for
local participants who are too shy of standing up in front of a
microphone and everyone else.

If someone is shy, he/she could simply type the question as a
remote participant would do.

This should work fine for a normal speech, but for BoFs and the
usual "round table" discussions we have at Kernel Maintainers,
this may not work well for local participants.

I guess that, for such kind of discussions, I can see two
possible alternatives:

1. everyone would use their laptop cameras/mics;
2. every round table would have their on camera/mic set.

(1) is probably simpler to implement, but may provide a worse
experience for local participants. (2) is probably harder to
implement, as the usual conference logistics company may not
have cameras.

In either case, a moderator (or some moderating software) is needed
in order queue requests for speech. So, basically, when someone
(either in a table or remote) wants to speak, it adds its name to
a queue, which will then be parsed at the queue's order. This is not
as natural as a physical meeting, but I guess it won't bring too
much burden to local people.

Thanks,
Mauro