
The cost of virtualizing CS conferences - bottle2
https://rachitnigam.com/post/virtual-cs-conferences/
======
bertr4nd
I wonder if the search for an alternative to the “hallway track” could
actually be fruitful.

Speaking for myself I never benefited much from the hallway track, because it
relies on the type of in-person socializing skills that I’ve always struggled
with. Conferences feel like a grown-up intellectual version of a junior high
dance to me! A virtual forum could be a boon to people with good technical
ideas but high introversion.

Of course, maybe one’s passion for research is supposed to override one’s
shyness. I’m unsure which bar I personally failed to clear :-)

~~~
ValentineC
> _A virtual forum could be a boon to people with good technical ideas but
> high introversion._

This sounds like IRC, or whatever the preference is these days.

As a conference organiser myself, I think it's perfectly fine for people to
not enjoy the hallway track.

These people might be the ones who benefit the most from sitting in the talk
room, and being exposed to the variety of ideas that a conference would
hopefully offer.

I also think that it's perfectly fine to just crowd around a speaker (at
least, in pre-COVID times), and just listen in on the technical conversations
that other attendees are having with them.

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peter303
Another aspect of conferences is their carbon budget. I attended a conference
last year in SF that had a large section on climate change. It was estimated
the 35,000 attendees traveled a cumulative 35,000,000 miles and emitted about
17,000 tonS of carbon. A virtual conference would eliminate this. But then you
lose the hallway effect.

------
__s
> 2\. Chatrooms for discussing papers

I think this has more potential than the OP considered, but you have to
optimize for asynchronous communication. Have conversations in chat, but if
there's someone you want to talk to in particular direct message or email
them. If the two of you seem mutually interested in each other's ideas, set up
a time to have a live conversation

~~~
jimktrains2
Isn't this a forum or bbs?

~~~
takanori
What if instead of text based chat you had to post voice responses. May make
it more real?

~~~
founderMuspic
you are right we have voice notes option for that which is digital version of
sticky notes. They remain active for 24 hours only in your inbox. You can use
it as voice chat also. You should download app for android and recommend to
your friends too:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=in.demo.muspic...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=in.demo.muspiclite)

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bane
One of the largest international demoscene competitions was just held over
twitch (Revision 2020 [1]). It normally has a few thousand attendees + a live
stream, but this year was just the stream and twitch chat. In lieu of having
people come to the venue, they released a game that was a model of the venue,
so you could walk around and have some of the same experience as going [2]. At
any given time the main stream had several thousand people watching and in
chat.

This all worked pretty well for what is decidedly a very social activity, I
presume breakouts could just happen in other streams with a moderator handling
chat q&a for the presenter.

1 - [https://2020.revision-party.net/start](https://2020.revision-
party.net/start)

2 - [https://www.sofaworld.net/](https://www.sofaworld.net/)

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larsberg
If you haven't seen, I'd highly recommend checking out what we did for IEEE
VR: [https://blairmacintyre.me/2020/04/02/completely-online-
ieee-...](https://blairmacintyre.me/2020/04/02/completely-online-ieee-
vr-2020-was-a-success/)

and in particular some of the notes on poster sessions:
[https://blairmacintyre.me/2020/04/10/doing-a-poster-
session-...](https://blairmacintyre.me/2020/04/10/doing-a-poster-session-in-
hubs/)

In practice, people consumed the keynote/talk content in a variety of formats
(streamed, recorded, and in-VR) and there was a fantastic networking and
meeting-new-people effect in the poster, hallway (post-talk), and demo
sessions. There's a bunch of formal research that was done there along with
post-conference surveys to track down specific data (e.g., how many new people
did you meet?) but it will take some time for those teams to rigorously
collect & report.

------
gumby
> Unlike most other research fields which primarily focus on publishing in
> journals, conferences ended up being the primary publication and
> presentation venue in CS.

The irony of this seems lost on the author. While I am glad that CS has truly
split into a scientific discipline separate both from mathematics and
engineering (this was not yet the case when I was in school), CS _of all
disciplines_ should be able to progress remotely.

Physics has been the innovator in this regard, with preprint journals (Physics
review letters grew from letters into a journal) to HTTP & HTML, and open
preprint servers. It's a pity that CS has gone the other way, which limits its
openness to scientists around the world!

~~~
rachitnigam
Author here.

CS _does_ progress remotely—the publishing model in CS allows authors to
easily and openly distribute our papers by putting them up on arvix and our
webpages which doesn’t seem to be true of physics journals.

The post is directed to solving the problems of networking. It doesn’t say
anything about the orthogonal problem of open access of research.

~~~
gumby
Thanks for writing back.

I mentioned physics pecifically because it is the progenitor of this approach.

> CS allows authors to easily and openly distribute our papers by putting them
> up on arvix and our webpages which doesn’t seem to be true of physics
> journals.

ArXiv started as a physics preprint server so I don’t understand how you could
claim that physicists don’t have such a system. And of course WWW and HTML
came from physics, not computer science.

More to the point, though physics also has conferences, modern physics
developed In the early 20th mostly without them travel was more complex in
those days. The modern conception of journals dates to this period (and cf my
comments about Physics Letters).

Conferences as experienced in CS are even less vital in mathematics than in
Physics.

None of which is to claim physicists are somehow superior in some way! I’m
just saying that it’s ironic that CS, of all disciplines, has a social model
more like the social science than the physical sciences. Perhaps that is what
should change, and there are good wxetant models to follow.

------
dopeboy
I don't know if there is an equivalent. The beauty of conferences are the
unscripted, chance encounters with other attendees. I gave a talk at last
year's PyBay (bay area python conference) and the magic of it was in the side
conversations leading up to the talk and then after it. Heck, I even nailed
$20k worth of consulting work from hanging out at a random table. This cannot
happen in a virtual setting.

I run the SF Django Meetup and we're hosting a nationwide virtual meetup this
upcoming Wednesday. We have over 350 people RSVP'd and though I'm excited
about bringing so many people together, it's not lost on me that those magical
serendipitous moments aren't going to happen.

------
sesuximo
The hallway chat will be so hard to replicate

~~~
Ericson2314
Covid-19 or not, it's time to formally divorce the hallway track from the
rest. We should have more event's whose explicit purpose is to discuss and
collaborate, rather than it be hiding other some measurable rat-race ritual.

~~~
egypturnash
I got news for you, the Hallway Track is an important part of _any_ industry
conference. Like, I make comics, I go to comic cons, and while sitting on the
show floor selling my stuff to whoever wanders by and looks interested is an
important part of the whole thing, so’s stepping away from the table to have a
meeting with a publisher, so’s dinner and events after the show floor closes.

SF cons are like this too, though “making various social connections with
other people who have this niche interest” is a big part of why you’re
explicitly there. Meet weirdos you don’t have to explain your weird interest
to, hang out, have some activities to share but feel free to make up your own
fun and games.

The organized portion of _any_ conference is there to provide a starting point
for _some_ of the Hallway Track, and an excuse for you to leave your normal
life behind for a few days to commit to being in the same place as a bunch of
other people who do whatever the con’s about.

~~~
Ericson2314
> I know it's not just an academic conference thing

Yes me too.

> an excuse for you to leave your normal life behind for a few days to commit
> to being in the same place as a bunch of other people who do whatever the
> con’s about

Exactly, I don't want an _excuses_. I think we should be honest with each
other about the value of the hallway track alone and not need an excuse. I
think that honesty will lead to better outcomes.

~~~
exolymph
Think about why people haven't already done what you suggest. What do you
think the reasons might be?

~~~
Ericson2314
I know why, and I don't like it.

1\. Pure "Collaboration" being a "soft" nice-sounding word institutions won't
buy your plane tickets for.

Planes are bad and those institutions are being bad for thinking that
collaboration. Do cheaper rail-accessible regional events, which also help
with communication graph ossification and density, to negotiate with them
better.

2\. Academic rat race becoming ever more pernicious as job market grows
tighter.

Academia is broken and research is yielding a lot less per cost than it used
to. Academia needs to fix its shit or some right-wing goverment is going to
succeed in turning off the money hose. I have zero interest in seeing status-
quo-preserving procrastination on this front.

3\. People that aren't qualified to partake in hallway chat are still eyeballs
for marketting at industry conferences.

Let's not hitch everything good in the world to the monster than is marketing
and advertising?

4\. Big conferences are more glamorous

Giant hotel are is tasteless and so are people that uncritically enjoy them.
But OK fine, Vegas conferences are exempt from my proposals.

