Software
For talks: Probably the best would be youtube stream, since it doesn't requires log in, nor has a limit on attendees.
For meetings and smaller sessions that need interaction: any that several people can join or that allows live-chat (please, not zoom).

For any app used that is not youtube, please, consider that it would be recommended that it allows instant recordings, for those who couldn't attend due session conflicts, work or simply couldn't join due free spaces available.

Session types or Lenght
Anything that's longer than 1 hour could be done by chat.

Schedule
Please consider timing this time.
At least in my case, when I travel to a conference, my primary employer knows in advance that I won't be close to my computer or focused during 2 or 3 days to perform any work request, however, with quarantine going on, most of us will have to attend talks during working hours. I would recommend to start sessions either after lunch time, or a bit later than that, so we can at least work half day and then have enough energy and focus for sessions/meetings/etc.

I recommend to read blog post from FSF about LibrePlanet 2020 and what software they used when the conference was done online.

@tatica:
…when I travel to a conference, my primary employer knows in advance that I won't be close to my computer or focused during 2 or 3 days…

I would recommend to start sessions either after lunch time, or a bit later than that, so we can at least work half day and then have enough energy and focus for sessions/meetings/etc.

+1!

It has been proposed that we use Matrix, as we can host our own server.. Thoughts on this as a platform for video/chat?

I propose we focus this years Nest with Fedora on storytelling. Usually we are spending our time socializing and talking about a lot of cool ideas and telling stories. Since we are virtual this year, we will have a chance to capture all the everything that we do for and at Nest with Fedora.

What stories do we want to tell is an important question.
Fedora cooks (gather recipes from people)
“We are Fedora” displaying diversity of contributors and cultures
Illustration/story of how we collaborate world wide
Maybe we want to tell a story about Nest to Fedora, like we set out to accomplish X number of edits to the wiki or docs? Or we closed this many tickets?
How we work with other communities/organizations/corporations
How do you Fedora?

The final format that these would be presented in is not specified, though I have ideas of how we could do each of these.. I would like to hear some feedback and to collect more stories we want to tell!

I think it wouldn't be bad to include some hackfests, e.g. "Improving pagure hackfest" where people fix pagure tickets. These can be done quite easily online. Not sure if it can be made into story :).

@riecatnor:
It has been proposed that we use Matrix, as we can host our own server.. Thoughts on this as a platform for video/chat?

I love Matrix but the default matrix.org instance is likely too overloaded to work reliably for Flock/Nest.

If Fedora ran its own Matrix server, this could work. It is Free Software, which means it has a lower social cost of engaging the wider Fedora community, since some people very passionately identify by the Freedom Foundation. If self-hosting, please consider clear communication on whether a Fedora Matrix will be stood up only for Flock, or if it will continue to be a resource for the community after Flock.

@riecatnor:
I propose we focus this years Nest with Fedora on storytelling. Usually we are spending our time socializing and talking about a lot of cool ideas and telling stories. Since we are virtual this year, we will have a chance to capture all the everything that we do for and at Nest with Fedora.

+1.

I think with gentle guidance and encouragement from Council, this is a great task to engage the Fedora D&I Team with. A new Pagure issue on pagure.io/fedora-diversity is a good place to start for brainstorming ideas for sessions not specific to Fedora but about and for the Fedora Community.

@clime:
I think it wouldn't be bad to include some hackfests, e.g. "Improving pagure hackfest" where people fix pagure tickets. These can be done quite easily online. Not sure if it can be made into story :).

Maybe an "Office Hours" approach works well for hackfests, so you can better promise finding a maintainer online at specific time/place to ask questions. :smile:

About a week ago we had a very successful virtual "Intro to InfoSec Convention". Many hundreds (to thousands? Never did see a final number) of participants from all over the world. It was done using multiple platforms to accommodate the sheer numbers of attendees as well as various networking and access issues around the world - some quite dynamic. Redundancy is very good. The presentations were also recorded on Zoom and then the vids - after editing and clean up - posted to Youtube for all.

Zoom was used for the primary interactive for each presentation - tightly controlled (all but presenters muted). All questions through a moderator/staff person and then answered live.

Youtube Stream - as a backup and feed for those those who didn't want to offer input or participate. the same video feed that Zoom distributed was also fed to Youtube Live, had about a 20 second delay - but provided a good non-interactive alternative.

Discord - Live chat monitored by staff and others where feedback, lurkers, questions, how-tos and all the rest was shared openly with any and all.

Twitter - low volume, where planners and staff coordinated in their own groups. also a 'last ditch' fall back notification for if/when things went all pear shaped and everyone needed to regroup.

It took a bit or coordination, a number of staff for each track and presentation to have all not only working, but working in synchronicity and responsive for all participants, no matter their role.

The only real issue I noticed was a short period of time where new participants could get logged into one of the tracks on Zoom - even with a valid invite. Chatting on Discord, it was brought to staff attention, fixed and everyone kept informed. In the mean time, it was trivial to stay current with the presentations via Youtube stream. It worked very well over all!

So I tried to address format and focus.. here are a couple ideas I have thought up for sessions, a lot of them are social events. I would ask people if it inspires or interests them to grab the idea as something they would be willing to head up.

Cake with the FCAIC session - I will head this one up :D
Earn Fedora Badges sprint for newbies
Bring your pets social hour
Digital badges in replace off physical badges to share on social media or use for profile pictures- can we automate? We could gather profile pics/hackergotchis and info for this with registration
Twitter chat - this would need topics & moderators
Virtual events in 2020 - experiences/likes/dislikes/best practices
Minetest game session - We would need to run our own server
Animal Crossing social hour - share screenshots and swap ID's
Skribbl.io session - this is like fast pictionary!
Trivia session - badges for prizes?

@riecatnor:
Minetest game session - We would need to run our own server

I have a few connections with folks in open source Minecraft stuff. I'm poking around and might open a new ticket for this one.

@riecatnor:
Animal Crossing social hour - share screenshots and swap ID's

This would be fun (to me). :smile: Perhaps we could invite Parents Who Fedora to participate with their kids in this way, if it might make the conference easier to attend in other ways. And also gets some family participation in for folks who are working in those situations!

I could co-conspire on this with someone else if there is an interest.

It has been proposed that we use Matrix, as we can host our own server.. Thoughts on this as a platform for video/chat?

I have been using jitsi - which is also open source and can be self hosted. I haven't tried matrix, so I can't compare them.

Software & type of format

What kind of software have you used/seen being used for virtual events?

I have very little experience on software so I'm leaving this without a specific remark, but it should be easily accessible from anywhere, and preferably not requiring to much previous setup. Youtube stream as @tatica suggested is a good idea.

What kind of sessions should we include? (lightning talks, short talks, demos, social hours, etc)

Demos, short talks & workshops.

Topics

Growing our community

I like the story telling and Fedora Cooks suggestions, I would definitely sign up for them.

Trends in technology that we need to pay attention to

It could be interesting to look at the technologies that are picking up pace, like IOT, surveillance drones, cars software, etc., and see how open source could make them safer. Also, exploring privacy and safety concerns about them.

Cake with the FCAIC session - I will head this one up :D

+1 for this one, Who wouldn't like to have a Cake with the FCAIC herself. :D

Earn Fedora Badges sprint for newbies
Bring your pets social hour
Digital badges in replace off physical badges to share on social media or use for profile pictures- can we automate? We could gather profile pics/hackergotchis and info for this with registration
Twitter chat - this would need topics & moderators
Virtual events in 2020 - experiences/likes/dislikes/best practices
Minetest game session - We would need to run our own server
Animal Crossing social hour - share screenshots and swap ID's
Skribbl.io session - this is like fast pictionary!
Trivia session - badges for prizes?

All of these ideas sound really Awesome, For the chats we can have moderators for all that chats that would be happening i.e on Youtube, Twitter and the platform used for Presenting and have office hours.

For Matrix, Hosting a Matrix Home Server instance for fedora sounds like a good idea, for video calling on matrix 1, if it went well, we can use it further on, like for social hours too. For talks we can have different active SiGs and Teams present what they've achieved in the past year.

For D&I, How about Online recording of people saying, We are Fedora ?

Here's a interesting read on What Platforms FSF used : https://opensource.com/article/20/5/free-software-communication

TL;DR

• For Audio Calls : Mumble, Asterik/SIP
• For Video Calls: Jitsi, Jami and OBS to Stream.
• For Text: XMPP & IRC
• For Long Form Discusisons : Email & Discourse
• For file Sharing : Nextclous & UP1

Now we have the basic idea for what platforms to use, It would be awesome if we can plan some Sessions & Activities here like @riecatnor shared. Once we have that, We can select the Appropriate Platforms and moderators for that :)

For Text: XMPP & IRC

What about Telegram? Could it be an option?

For Text: XMPP & IRC

What about Telegram? Could it be an option?

@lailah I would like to add TG's services are not available in some Countries like Pakistan or if we think that TG will be much more convenient & would like to have it on TG, we can ask the TELEIRC SiG to bridge it with IRC. :)

A couple more ideas that I am leaving here for further discussion and so I don't lose them :P

• Ask the experts sessions - this went really well at Red Hat's virtual summit. One expert live streaming, one person to moderate questions from the chat. This could be on a variety of relevant topics.
• Bingo - design boards for people to use/print out at home
• Something I always enjoy is seeing how people decorate their laptops with stickers. What if we asked folks to take pictures of the back of their laptop somewhere in their homes, or in their local areas(backyards, local parks, hackerspaces, cafes), and we made an album of those. Would be a really cool way to show off our diversity.. I know we have folks with photo tips to make it a a really cool collection! Obviously we will need to keep it at home for those who might be under shelter in place orders at that time.
• Women's social hour

@riecatnor:
Ask the experts sessions - this went really well at Red Hat's virtual summit. One expert live streaming, one person to moderate questions from the chat. This could be on a variety of relevant topics.

Based on feedback from Telegram and social media, definitely Silverblue and probably CoreOS would be great topics for this.

@riecatnor:
Something I always enjoy is seeing how people decorate their laptops with stickers. What if we asked folks to take pictures of the back of their laptop somewhere in their homes, or in their local areas(backyards, local parks, hackerspaces, cafes), and we made an album of those. Would be a really cool way to show off our diversity.. I know we have folks with photo tips to make it a a really cool collection! Obviously we will need to keep it at home for those who might be under shelter in place orders at that time.

DevConf CZ 2020 did a sticker badge competition on social media. Could do something similar to get more social media activity and buzz for Flock by asking people to upload photos to preferred social media platform with a specific hashtag for later sharing.

A couple more ideas that I am leaving here for further discussion and so I don't lose them :P

Ask the experts sessions - this went really well at Red Hat's virtual summit. One expert live streaming, one person to moderate questions from the chat. This could be on a variety of relevant topics.
Bingo - design boards for people to use/print out at home
Something I always enjoy is seeing how people decorate their laptops with stickers. What if we asked folks to take pictures of the back of their laptop somewhere in their homes, or in their local areas(backyards, local parks, hackerspaces, cafes), and we made an album of those. Would be a really cool way to show off our diversity.. I know we have folks with photo tips to make it a a really cool collection! Obviously we will need to keep it at home for those who might be under shelter in place orders at that time.
Women's social hour

+1 for all of the session. The pictures one sound awesome :)

For this year's ournetworks.ca Conference we have been looking into Mozilla Hubs as a fun and engaging way of hosting a virtual conference. And fun and engaging it is.
I specifically like how everything is happening in one virtual space and you can faintly hear all the conversations going on, just like you would at a real conference. This very well removes the awkwardness of sitting at home alone attending a conference with many people but only having limited interaction.
One concern I had is whether this mode of delivery is accessible to folks who have different needs in terms of audiovisual presentation and navigation.

For Video Calls: Jitsi, Jami and OBS to Stream.

Though OBS has more features, Jitsi also supports streaming directly to Youtube, tldr it opens a new tab as a no-mic no-video participant, the tab's contents are streamed.

For this year's ournetworks.ca Conference we have been looking into Mozilla Hubs as a fun and engaging way of hosting a virtual conference. And fun and engaging it is.
I specifically like how everything is happening in one virtual space and you can faintly hear all the conversations going on, just like you would at a real conference. This very well removes the awkwardness of sitting at home alone attending a conference with many people but only having limited interaction.
One concern I had is whether this mode of delivery is accessible to folks who have different needs in terms of audiovisual presentation and navigation.

@heffer thank you for your suggestions, We had one of our Fedora Social Hours at Mozilla Hubs. It was pretty good and had features like a Geospatial Audiovisual Perception. Maybe we can have a Fun session on it in Flock.

Leaving this here, session ideas, - live and well moderate sessions for the following entities:
- Council
- FESCo
- Mindshare

Podcast sessions alive on our YouTube channel!

I can run some interviews and live streaming them to YouTube with OBS

@riecatnor proposed a Switch Smash Tournament.

I am a rare breed of Wii U. Would be up for Smash or Splatoon. Anyone interested? I would agree to organize this.

But Wiis are everywhere, if not, you can pick them up for 5$. Doing something with Wiis might be nice.

Hi - let me know if it would be useful/interesting to have a session with Lenovo.

I propose an open forum Q&A to cover any questions on what is happening ("when will those systems finally hit the web" I suspect will be the first question....) - but I can present some updates and I think I'll have some news to share (fingers/legs/eyes crossed).

I'm happy to cover anything related to what work Lenovo is doing in the open source community, how we can collaborate better with Fedora, what platforms would be good to do in the future, what functionality/applications would be good to port to Linux - basically open house on beating up (gently) some of the folk at Lenovo that would make for a better Lenovo+Fedora offering.

And as a note - yes, getting those systems online is our priority....I think I can share some of what is happening behind the scenes if that is of interest - the good, bad and ugly. Doing something for the first time is....interesting.

If the above isn't a good format for Flock let me know - I'm a first time attendee so I'm happy to get guidance on what makes sense (or to just shut up and attend if that's the best thing).

@mpearson You should totally propose that session! It's more than acceptable for Flock! :D

@mpearson Yeah, this would be a super interesting topic to me too. I have less questions than I do curiosity for what some of the behind-the-scenes work looks like. But if you can share some details, this is an excellent upstream community contribution :smile:

@jtagcat:
I am a rare breed of Wii U. Would be up for Smash or Splatoon. Anyone interested? I would agree to organize this.

@jtagcat Worst case, propose it and see what happens. :) Since it is a previous generation console, there might not a huge number of folks for a tournament. But it is hard to say since nobody has ever tried something like this before COVID-19!

Hi @mpearson all of these ideas sounds great! What about a short 25 minute talk, and then also an ask the expert session? Is that manageable? Thanks!

Hi - let me know if it would be useful/interesting to have a session with Lenovo.
I propose an open forum Q&A to cover any questions on what is happening ("when will those systems finally hit the web" I suspect will be the first question....) - but I can present some updates and I think I'll have some news to share (fingers/legs/eyes crossed).
I'm happy to cover anything related to what work Lenovo is doing in the open source community, how we can collaborate better with Fedora, what platforms would be good to do in the future, what functionality/applications would be good to port to Linux - basically open house on beating up (gently) some of the folk at Lenovo that would make for a better Lenovo+Fedora offering.
And as a note - yes, getting those systems online is our priority....I think I can share some of what is happening behind the scenes if that is of interest - the good, bad and ugly. Doing something for the first time is....interesting.
If the above isn't a good format for Flock let me know - I'm a first time attendee so I'm happy to get guidance on what makes sense (or to just shut up and attend if that's the best thing).

Hi @mpearson all of these ideas sounds great! What about a short 25 minute talk, and then also an ask the expert session? Is that manageable? Thanks!
No problem!
Mark