Montreal was my first ever DebConf, so maybe I should chime in here. On the whole, I found everyone to be pretty welcoming and friendly. But as a socially-awkward, shy, introvert (as I'm sure at least a few others are, too), it didn't stop me from feeling like an outsider sometimes. But I also know that's just how I am, and so I place no blame on DebConf or its attendees.
That said, I agree that extra steps to make newcomers feel welcome could be helpful for any conference or community. On Mon, Dec 11, 2017 at 12:23:31PM -0700, Bdale Garbee wrote: > Daniel Kahn Gillmor <[email protected]> writes: > > > At the IETF (another technical conference, quite different from debconf > > but with some similarities), there are "newcomer meet-and-greet" events > > at the start of the conference. > > Linux Conf Australia also has a long tradition of a session for > newcomers the evening before the conference starts that is usually well > attended, with multiple long-timers providing advice on how to not be > overwhelmed and how to feel good about joining and/or starting > conversations. At some point I was watching old videos from past DebConfs. Didn't there used to be a DebConf 101 (or something like that) for newcomers? I didn't see it on the schedule for Montreal, otherwise I likely would have attended. Perhaps that could be resurrected/morphed into something like DKG and Bdale mention above. Bill
