Hugh Lashbrooke 8:23 pm on March 4, 2020

Researching livestream infrastructure and support

In light of the COVID-19 epidemic, several WordCamps have decided to either cancel or postpone. As mentioned in Josepha’s recent post:

We should do our part, as members of a highly connected global community, to limit the spread of the virus while there are still so many unknowns.

For those organisers who are considering canceling or postponing their upcoming meetup or WordCamp, deputies are currently researching how to provide infrastructure and support for livestream alternatives, available for all WordPress community organising teams.

While a livestream can’t replace the way a meetup or WordCamp helps create in-person connections, online events will allow WordPress enthusiasts to continue sharing their knowledge and bringing people together in that way.

This research will be much more efficient if organisers can share some feedback on the following questions:

  1. What training or documentation do you think your organising team would need, to effectively plan and/or convert to an online conference?
  2. What ideas do you have about how we can help attendees of an online conference connect in a meaningful way?

Please share your thoughts, concerns, and ideas in a comment on this post!

Is your WordCamp already trying to make this difficult decision? Reach out to your mentor or a member of the global community team via support@wordcamp.org with any questions you have.

David Bisset 9:43 pm on March 4, 2020

WordCamp Miami is over, but I gave this some consideration as it drew closer. Some thoughts that were foremost in my mind… as I was thinking about in terms of converting an event originally meant to be physical into a live one:

👉 Audience (attendee) engagement is the most challenging aspect. Along this point, Crowdcast does the best job with live streams although effectively it’s just live chat next to the stream.
👉 Attempts by speakers and organizers to create an interactive experience may include including online surveys/polls during talks (speakers usually ask questions to direct talks in certain directions).
👉 A system where attendees can provide speakers quick feedback and questions (perhaps voteable so more popular questions rises to the top), etc. http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200319210157/https://www.sli.do/ is one example of this.
👉 The ability to share slides and materials right after (or before) in a central organization way would be appreciated since there would be no “waiting after I get back to my hotel/house” period.

One also assumes the time of the livestream would be of most benefit to the local city or area the WordCamp would be originally held.

Josepha 10:28 pm on March 4, 2020

As someone who attends a livestream event every week, I was surprised at how hard it is to manage the concurrent chat as the organizer.

David Bisset 1:25 pm on March 5, 2020

Exactly. There’s a “sweet spot” but it doesn’t take much for an active chat for an event to turn into just “noise”. I favor systems that allow questions and important items seperate from that chat but it’s challenging to moderate and shift through. An experience that needs work for a large scale event.

Laura Byrne-Cristiano 6:37 pm on March 10, 2020

I’ve been on several “live shows” with attendees in teh 1,000’s. We found it way easier to take Q&A via a Twitter hashtag than the native chat on the broadcast site.

Birgit Pauli-Haack 10:06 pm on March 4, 2020

From all the online live experiences, I love most to get everyone in a zoom call or hangout with video and audio and then do round robins discussions. Every one participates at some point. The group will definitely be smaller but the interaction will be much more meaningful. A combination between education and information to round table discussion can be in a one event. It think what made me feel connected was, that there wasn’t the hurdle to have to write english fast in a chat window to participate. For a non-native english speaker that is very freeing.

For an example of this format: Meetup Organizer Roundtables March 2018 (Report part I, part ii)

Andrea Middleton 10:32 pm on March 4, 2020

I think this kind of format would be really effective for a meetup group, or even an unconference-style WordCamp! Thanks for the suggestion!

JenniferSwisher 10:08 pm on March 4, 2020

I’ve been thinking about this particular topic a lot lately. Kudos to the global community team for starting these conversations! Some thoughts related to the questions asked:

What training or documentation do you think your organising team would need, to effectively plan and/or convert to an online conference?

  • If there’s any kind of chat-type interface used alongside the livestream, there would need to be some kind of moderator training.
  • How do we respond to CoC reports when the event is online?
  • How do we make online events accessible?
  • Are there any modifications that will need to be made to the WordCamp website to facilitate an online conference?

What ideas do you have about how we can help attendees of an online conference connect in a meaningful way?

  • Discussion via the WordCamp site? It looks like bbPress is still a plugin available on the WordCamp site plugin list. Camps could implement bbPress and facilitate discussion there.
  • Could an after party or meetups of some kind be facilitated via video conference?
David Bisset 10:17 pm on March 4, 2020

“Could an after party or meetups of some kind be facilitated via video conference?”

  • Perhaps a form of “table topics” just now they are virtual rooms with general topics.
Andy McIlwain 2:29 pm on March 6, 2020

Are there any modifications that will need to be made to the WordCamp website to facilitate an online conference?

Top of my head? I don’t think so. Let’s say you run the event through Zoom. You could have a separate invite URL for each room or each session. Keep the URLs private, send them out to people who register.

Raquel Landefeld 11:18 pm on March 4, 2020

As an extroverted human who would rather do cardio for 2 hours straight than to attend a virtual conference (also an event planner by profession) 😜, please support Local Viewing Gatherings in conjunction with these experimental online WCs.
I planned one for WordSesh a year ago. GoDaddy sponsored the venue & Wordfence sponsored lunch. It was wonderful. I offer up any help for the planning portion of online event local viewing gatherings. 👍🏼

Francesca Marano 5:02 pm on March 5, 2020

In Italy live gatherings are forbidden until April 3rd at least, so sadly this is not an option for us 🙁

Andy McIlwain 2:23 pm on March 6, 2020

I think the local, in-person option is great for places that allow it. 🙂

Birgit Pauli-Haack 8:50 pm on March 9, 2020

I love “viewing” gatherings, that can also be done online: All watch a 10 to 15 minute pre-recorded tutorial or so and for the next 30 minutes do Q & A with the speaker and then go into other topics… in the above mentioned format

Victor M Ramirez 7:20 pm on March 10, 2020

We are in talks about making our MeetUp and Help Desk MeetUp work online.

Having people in attendance state their location and if they want to physically follow up would be a way to get extroverts to coordinate.

i.e. “My name is Victor. I’m located in Brooklyn. If anyone wants to do a viewing part at the next one, message me.”

jillbinder 11:37 pm on March 4, 2020

I run workshops online regularly. Even with my experience of having just one talk from one person, I would like to add for consideration: Have someone else monitoring the chat. It’s too much to read it and deliver content at the same time.

Also, I think the connection would be more powerful if everyone could be on camera (like on Zoom). Rather than the webinars where you see the speaker and no one else.

Especially encouraging Q&A to be on camera rather than through the chat.

If there is time, it would be nice to start the day or start the talk with a very quick round of intros from everyone attending. That would help the connection as well.

And if you do have the opportunity for the audience to be participating by voice: Make sure everyone is wearing headphones and when people aren’t speaking, have them muted! #protips

Also, if any of the talks would normally have people speak with their neighbour or get into small groups, Zoom allows for breakout rooms. It works really well.

Laura Byrne-Cristiano 6:39 pm on March 10, 2020

100% behind you on someone other than the speaker has to do the chat. this is a dedicated role in of itself have done this several times.

BobWP 2:41 am on March 5, 2020

Since we are talking meetups, I had a question. I was going to be starting up our local WooCommerce meetup again soon. Of course now, the timing isn’t optimal. But I had thought about online via livestream or zoom. I know that in the past virtual meetups were not allowed via our meetup.com accounts, for obvious reasons. But considering the situation, will that change?

Andy McIlwain 2:22 pm on March 6, 2020

Was that from the ban on virtual events by Meetup.com itself? We ran into that a while ago and they quickly backpedaled. Our setup now is to have a physical space (local library) with an option for attendees to join remotely.

BobWP 8:11 pm on March 14, 2020

Hey Andy, sorry, didn’t get notified on this. it was two-pronged

Back then, no, WP was against it. But that was awhile ago and obviously the circumstances had changed.

But the problem is when meetup there is no way to list an event without a physical space. Yes, it’s easy to do as an option like you have. But to do it all virtual, which is what many of us will be doing, there was no work around as you still needed to list a physical address which could be misleading and for obvious reasons, not very smart. So I’m just wondering how we can take advantage of our meetup community who end up on the site looking for a meetup.

vbelolapotkov 7:48 am on March 5, 2020

IMO, it would be nice to replicate the offline experience with a set of online tools. Here are some thoughts:

  1. For larger events like WordCamp there could be a website with a map/list of communication zones, e.g. workshop rooms, speaker rooms, watercooler, etc.
  2. Each room should be easy to join/leave whenever you like.
  3. Events specific rooms should be moderated. E.g. participants have to be muted during the presentations, voice/chat communication should happen at the end, some kind of raise a hand to ask the question can be implemented in the chat.
  4. As already mentioned speaker/presenter should not be distracted by chat/questions during a talk, so assistance should handle participants muting, helping with tech issues, tackling the chat communications and managing Q&A discussions.
  5. ‘Info desk’ and ‘Tech support’ could be implemented in the chat.
  6. There should be an option to start ad-hoc calls for 1-on-1 or mini-group communications. Or speakers could have personal video rooms where people can chat after the presentation.

With all that said it looks like the following tools could be used:

  1. Zoom (or alternatives) for video calls (presentation rooms, personal rooms).
  2. Slack for personal, topic-based chats and notifications or to arrange an ad-hoc call.
  3. Some live tech support tool for Info desk and tech support.
  4. Web site to aggregate and advertise all the zones, tools and resources.
Francesca Marano 3:37 pm on March 5, 2020

Regarding the platform: do you think we might be able to convert some funding from the global sponsorship to get Zoom accounts that can be used by community organisers to host their online events, should they wish to do so?

Andy McIlwain 2:20 pm on March 6, 2020

We’ve hosted a handful of virtual meetups on Crowdcast in the past year. Our setup is pretty straightforward: A host, a moderator, and guests. The host focuses on the conversation with the guest while the moderator participates in the chat.

This setup could carry over to a typical streaming environment (think Twitch or Mixer or the like). We did that for WP Durham a few times, piping through OBS to Facebook and YouTube Live.

This works for a presentation format. For a more participatory roundtable session, I haven’t found anything better than Zoom. We’ve used it in Toronto and Durham Region for our local meetups, including getting remote speakers in to present to our group.

Three things I see as a challenge/area for supporting local groups:

  1. Documentation/guidance around setting up and managing the virtual sessions
  2. Having the right equipment, software, and a stable internet connection
  3. Covering these costs
Andy McIlwain 2:38 pm on March 6, 2020

Riffing on this further…

Documentation/Guidance

  • What equipment & software you’ll need to host a virtual event
  • Setting expectations with attendees
  • Setting up the stream (e.g. scheduling a Zoom meeting)
  • Running a tech rehearsal (making sure everything works)
  • Managing the stream day-of (e.g. using the tool, troubleshooting issues)
  • Moderating the chat (e.g. prompting conversation, asking questions)

Equipment/Software

  • Camera(s)
  • Headphones, microphone
  • Meeting/webinar/streaming software

Covering costs

  • WordPress.org support
  • Sponsorship
Judith Schroeer 12:02 pm on March 12, 2020

In Germany we have our monthly meetup (which is not an official WordPress Meetup) streamed with Zoom.
There´s not much software/ hardware needed because everyone has a smartphone or laptop where you can but must not install Zoom. Up to now we do not stream live but we record our sessions.

Following on from our last meetup a few persons were thinking about an online WordCamp here in Germany.
We could do this quite easily with Hey Summit or just stream with Belive.tv directly to Facebook, YouTube (and there plannin Twitch & LinkedIn soon). You could show comments on the screen and guests can join the discussion.

I think Belive.tv would be something for talks and Hey Summit or Zoom something for workshops.

Anyway, our meetup is intended to complement the existing local meetups. Also inclusion is an important topic and not everybody here in Germany has the chance to have a meetup around the corner.

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