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Hi Adam,
I don't think there is any easy way to avoid the complexity of online
presentations. Our conferences are usually in America or Europe, and it
can be very difficult to get visas in a timely way for people from
countries like Brazil or India. So if we want them to be able to both
present and answer audience questions, then we need some kind of live
connection.
Best,
Neel
On 14/12/2023 15:39, Adam Chlipala wrote:
[ The Types Forum,
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On 12/14/23 6:52 AM, Gabriel Scherer wrote:
1. Ensure that an online attendance option remains available in the
future
for cheap. ICFP'23 had free online attendance through Youtube, will this
option remain available in the future? Will it possible to follow the
POPL'24 talks remotely for free and ask questions? Will speakers be
allowed
to talk remotely if necessary, at no cost?
(This is important for our colleagues that cannot afford the plane
in the
first place, and for people who wish to reduce travel.)
I don't know if I'm the odd one out, but I just want to add a
dissenting voice here: I think it's far from clear that "online
attendance" is valuable enough to justify the cost of complex
technical flows. I'm used to telling my students that the point of
the conference is the hallway track, not watching talks. I'd suggest
to people who can't make the conference to read papers (or prefixes
thereof) instead of watching videos. Videos produced by authors on
their own time could also work a lot better than conflating the
physical conference with the opportunity to record videos.
In other words, suggesting that people watch more online videos, in a
world where online videos are already providing so much distraction
from "real work" or just going for a walk outside, may make a net
negative impact on the world, at the same as our conferences are
applying significant financial cost and volunteer effort to provide
what may actually be a net negative. The cost-benefit analysis could
work out if we really fine-tune the technical flow and don't spend
(almost?) hours per conference delaying sessions to fix AV issues, but
at least until we get there....
