[TYPES] [EXT] Re: online conferences should be free

[Reuben Rowe]

Dear Colleagues,

I think this comment gets to the heart of one of the major issues with
virtual conferences.

I did think the LICS model of having talks pre-recorded and reserving
synchronous sessions for questions and live chat worked extremely well
to mitigate the very real fatigue of having to sit in front of one's
screen watching hour upon hour of talks.

However, as Kristina has pointed out (and this is my experience as
well), it is often difficult to fully commit to being present, and also
to "do the homework". In particular, I am at home, I have not booked
time off specifically for the conference, I have on-going other
responsibilities, my colleagues contact me about this and that, etc.

The temptation is to assume that one can log on to the scheduled
sessions, and get on with other stuff in the meantime. However, I think
it is much harder to justify (perhaps both to one's employer and also to
oneself) ignoring the non-conference commitments when there exists, at
least ostensibly, the opportunity to fulfill them.

One clear advantage of having to travel to a conference and attend in
person is that one is automatically, a priori, "available" to engage.

I'm not sure what can be done to mitigate this. Perhaps it is just the
latent cost of the virtual model, and if we want to attend a virtual
conference we must just take responsibility to ensure that we engage.

Reuben

On 25/08/2020 13:47, Kristina Sojakova wrote:
> [ The Types Forum,
> https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flists.seas.upenn.edu%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Ftypes-list&data=02%7C01%7Creuben.rowe%40rhul.ac.uk%7C82c5414d38a845c4736f08d8492f927a%7C2efd699a19224e69b601108008d28a2e%7C0%7C0%7C637339815963836441&sdata=x30U4UNN1cRwRhsSo9XU42QlHvq1INlK8K%2F%2BhGb48Yo%3D&reserved=0
> ]
>
> Dear all,
>
> Since Nicolai's post brought up pre-recorded talks:I found it
> extremely difficult to allocate enough time *prior* to the actual
> conference to watch almost any of the talks I was interested in - and
> there were about 10 I really wanted to see. Attending live talks
> (whether in person or online) during the conference days when the
> participation is the sole focus is very different from having to watch
> the talks beforehand; the latter essentially amounts to having a bunch
> of homework assigned.
>
> In the weeks prior to LICS I was relocating between continents and did
> not have time to watch any talks except one. This meant I was playing
> catch-up the entire time and was not able to get anything meaningful
> out of the conference itself. Hence I would most likely choose not to
> participate in this format again, regardless of how much it cost (or
> didn't). It is entirely possible however that I am in the minority and
> most participants were much better prepared.
>
> Best,
>
> Kristina
>
>
>
> On 8/24/2020 6:18 PM, Nicolai Kraus wrote:
>> [ The Types Forum,
>> https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flists.seas.upenn.edu%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Ftypes-list&data=02%7C01%7Creuben.rowe%40rhul.ac.uk%7C82c5414d38a845c4736f08d8492f927a%7C2efd699a19224e69b601108008d28a2e%7C0%7C0%7C637339815963836441&sdata=x30U4UNN1cRwRhsSo9XU42QlHvq1INlK8K%2F%2BhGb48Yo%3D&reserved=0
>> ]
>>
>> On Mon, Aug 24, 2020 at 2:25 PM Henning Basold
>> <h.basold at liacs.leidenuniv.nl>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> All I objected to is that this investment has to come
>>> in form of monetary contributions and that this was presented as
>>> unavoidable reality. Instead, an investment can come, as you rightly
>>> say, in the form of time or community ties.
>>>
>> If one watches all pre-recorded talks (assuming something like at LICS -
>> pre-recorded talks instead of live talks), one is more likely to
>> participate actively. But this just shifts the problem, so I'm not
>> sure if
>> it helps in any way. At the same time, one can maybe from anonymous
>> questionnaires or even simple view counts predict how well-prepared
>> participants are and how seriously they will take the conference. I
>> don't
>> know whether that information could be used to improve the conference.
>> Nicolai
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