Motivating Questions:
What is the difference between an "Online Conference" and
watching something on youtube?
If the answer is nothing, don't bother with a conference, just
create a youtube channel.
If the answer is a conference is nothing like watching stuff on
youtube... you better consciously and actively organise it to be
different.
What is the difference between "Online" and "Meat space"?
If the answer is "Nothing", you will have a guy, selected by a
papers committee, standing in front of an empty hall talking at
the camera.
Otherwise you can think much much wider...
* screencasts
* massively multiprogrammer online sessions
* remove the paper selection committee and replace it with
redditlike upvotes
* or write a paper like you write a library, collaboratively, on
github, with PR's.
* Have game sessions, virtual choirs, ... whatever can turn
online handles into humans.
Disclaimer: I was involved in arranging linuxconfau 2019 and
observed first hand that meatspace conferences impose huge and
tight constraints on what is possible...
Some things are about meatspace are very nice (eat! drink! be
merry!). Some things cost a huge amount and decrease the value of
the conference. (Very tight limits on number of tracks / papers,
attendees, health and safety, transport, accommodation, flights,
.....)