Please don't do a DConf 2018, consider alternatives

[bauss]

On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 06:26:30 UTC, Joakim wrote:
> I'm sure some thought and planning is now going into the next 
> DConf, so I'd like to make sure people are aware that the 
> conference format that DConf uses is dying off, as explained 
> here:
>
> https://marco.org/2018/01/17/end-of-conference-era
>
> There was a discussion about this in a previous forum thread:
>
> https://forum.dlang.org/post/bnbldtdfeppzjuthxdxa@forum.dlang.org
>
> Jonathan and Mike argue in that thread that DConf is great for 
> the core team to get together in person and hash things out for 
> D with very high-bandwidth interaction, but I pointed out that 
> doesn't justify 95%+ of the attendees being there. If there's a 
> real need for this, maybe get those 8-15 people together in an 
> online video conference or offline retreat, without a bunch of 
> hangers-on and talks.
>
> People are now experimenting with what replaces conferences, we 
> should be doing that too. I came up with some ideas in that 
> thread:
>
> "Have most talks prerecorded by the speaker on their webcam or 
> smartphone, which produce excellent video these days with not 
> much fiddling, and have a couple organizers work with them to 
> get those home-brewed videos up to a certain quality level, 
> both in content and presentation, before posting them online."
>
> I volunteer to help presenters do this.
>
> "Once the videos are all up, set up weekend meetups in several 
> cities [all over the world], where a few livestreamed talks may 
> talk place if some speakers don't want to spend more time 
> producing a pre-recorded talk, but most time is spent like the 
> hackathon, discussing various existing issues from bugzilla in 
> smaller groups or brainstorming ideas, designs, and libraries 
> for the future."
>
> I can setup an event like this in my city, where AFAIK nobody 
> uses D, so most of it would be geared towards introducing them 
> to the language.
>
> I estimate that you could do ten times better at raising 
> awareness and uptake with this approach than the current DConf 
> format, by casting a much wider net, and it would cost about 
> 10X less, ie you get two orders of magnitude better bang for 
> the buck.
>
> At the very least, DConf should just be a big hackathon of 
> self-organizing groups, rather than wasting any time passively 
> imbibing talks next to a hundred other people. I still don't 
> think the cost of getting a hundred people in the same room for 
> 3-4 days would be justified, but at least it would be a step in 
> the right direction.

I highly disagree with this.

I love conferences and meetups.

It's good socially and a conference is not 100% just about the 
topic it hosts.

Ex. for D conf there is much more than just D. There is also the 
minor escape from reality to new surroundings, like a mini 
vacation etc.

Please do not get rid of D Conf, because next year I can finally 
attend.