Re: Virtual conferences and hackfests to replace physical events?

[Andre Klapper <ak-47 gmx net>]

On Fri, 2014-05-02 at 10:35 -0400, Alex G.S. wrote:
> Is it just me or has attendance at these events fallen in recent years?
>  After reviewing recordings of talks from both KDE and GNOME I've noticed
> that most auditoriums and event spaces are nearly vacant

You may want to gather and compare statistics on event registrations
(minus folks that didn't show up) instead of looking at potentially
oversized rooms of university venues that were provided to organizers.
There's many factors to consider - for example, have you checked how
many tracks were running at the same time?

> Let me know what the team thinks...

I am not "the team", but having a chat on the stairs with a new
contributor, a drink in the evening with other developers, or a
football/volleyball match is less fun in front of my computer.

Apart from cutting costs, none of the provided arguments are arguments
for not having physical meetings.
Instead they are arguments to also provide streaming and feedback
channels for people not physically present, plus anybody can go ahead
organize more online meetings if there's some advantage in having more
online meetings.
IMHO, things don't exclude each other.

andre
-- 
Andre Klapper  |  ak-47 gmx net
http://blogs.gnome.org/aklapper/