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Re: NVDACon 2020 post-mortem analysis: success, moving to a different platform, Twitter feed

Joseph Lee
 

Hi all,

Shaun brought up an important point: who is this event for? The answer to this will have stunning implications for next year’s organizers:

  • This is strictly an NVDA community event: there was a suggestion to create a regular meeting/workshop/gathering between NVDA users that goes beyond mailing lists. For that, we don’t need the scale of NVDACon (to be honest with you all).
  • This is a blindness specific event: well, there are other events like this where the NVDA community can come together to discuss the product.
  • NVDACon should target outsiders, including sighted individuals: this will necessitate moving TOWARD more prominent platforms.

 

I think some of the reasons for getting ourselves into a corner like this is due to old assumptions regarding the NVDACon, its character, and scale. Earlier iterations of this event were successful when considering that the event was limited to the NVDA community. This changed in 2016 and 2017 when the gathering became larger and more prominent, evidenced by more mentions in blindness presses and presentation line-up. When considering the pandemic, this year was a success, made more prominent as people tuned into events via a live stream.

The fact that we even had a live stream and willingness by people in places such as Spain to translate the keynote for their language communities means we have crossed a bridge of no return. Prior to this, it was word of mouth that influenced NVDACon’s reputation. Of course folks tuning in via TeamTalk had slightly better experiences as they had live access to presenters and the conference in general. But now the conference was streamed live and keynote was translated into Spanish a few hours after the main event, and you can see why we cannot go back to NvDACon of yesteryear. In short, folks will need to think carefully about the target audience and the communities they are serving and wish to reach out to.

I’m sure some of us do not want NVDACon to become another fan meeting. If NVDACon did become a fan meeting, held using a platform that the community thinks is acceptable and accessible only by the community and fans, then NVDACon will not be able to escape the corner it has found itself in: a niche event. If next year’s organizers decide that NVDACon should become more global and mainstream in terms of audience outreach and creative content, then folks need to make strategic decisions early and move the event in a direction that restores its reputation as a source of useful information and filled with timely analyses and critiques of NVDA and its community. Choosing a platform is just one of the things to be decided based on an overall vision and strategy; others include content that does contribute meaningful information, willingness to listen to critics, and professional event execution. NVDACon is not a fan meeting; it’s a professional gathering of the community that must now consider its impact on outside audiences.

Some important suggestions and recommendations forthcoming.

Cheers,

Joseph

 

 

 

From: intl@NVDACon.groups.io <intl@NVDACon.groups.io> On Behalf Of Shaun Everiss
Sent: Tuesday, December 8, 2020 2:57 PM
To: intl@NVDACon.groups.io
Subject: Re: [NVDACon] NVDACon 2020 post-mortem analysis: success, moving to a different platform, Twitter feed

 

I agree, also who are we pandering to.

I know people stream in obs but to be honest, unless a sightling hosts it, who will be able to do that sort of thing.

I guess we could stream the conference on youtube and have pictures of those speaking or something, but really this aint for a sighted audiance.

Now, saying that, we are backed by google and others so if someone wants to contribute that would be fine.

Personally, while I can use zoom and yes its good for a job, as a platform I woouldn't probably bother with it, I mean it works but teamtalk is widely used by the blind and its still being developed.

The other way we could do this is skype.

Another thing we could try is microsoft teams but I have no idea if we can use teams as personal users or if we need a business adress to handle this.

I don't think teams is for personal users but I could be wrong.

We could use skype as another alternit but I don't think moderation is a thing that can happen in skype.

I guess we could use hangouts or its equivilant on the new google platform since just about everyone has edge or chrome or something like it.

Thing is, is this for the blind or the sighted here.

The blind will not want or need videos.

If we are going to have pictures on a stream, that would work for the talks, the keynote maybe and a few other things.

However the forums, probably not so much.

I guess we could have a zoom room for the lightning talks/webinars and keynote and the teamtalk for general but its a bit bitsy.

I have no idea what services would work on miranda, with the death of aim, yahoo im, msn im, and the like as well as twitter pritty much, the only mainstream stuff we have are zoom or teams.

For the blind, we have ventrilo, teamtalk and teamspeak.

Of course we could always have a chat app developed with the teamtalk apis and that could work.

We could always have a stereo room with the right codecs but who knows.

We will always have issues.

 

 

On 9/12/2020 9:57 am, Adriani Botez wrote:

I understand all complaints and arguments for and also against Team Talk. However, I am still struggling with users who think that moderating in Zoom is easier than in Team Talk. For an user it is easy to join, that’s true. But don’t forget that we are doing all this stuff voluntarily and I hope the community does not expect from us to become as professional as paid webinars or something else. If the expectation goes in that direction, I am sorry but at least speaking for myself I will not be available to moderate a 3 days conference in classroom mode at a high professional level and including all time zones of the world. This is simply too much for a voluntar work like we do.

 

If we will decide to go to Zoom, open forum format will still be available and this means that people will still be able to talk without raising hands, especially in long breaks. We simply do not have enough moderators to run a three days conference completely in classroom mode. So if the community does not respect simple rules like waiting for silence, don’t fall in each other’s words, being respectful etc. then we need to push harder from a moderator’s perspective and kick people from the conference much faster than we did in the past. Maybe we were too negligent on this.

To be honnest, I prefer to have a conference with less participants but qualitative input and useful content rather than one with a lot of participants and messy audio and lots of people who don’t respect simple rules. But this risk exists both in Team Talk and Zoom or any other platform when we are in an open format where every one can speak.

 

I think fund raising is not a problem, we have to think strategically in which direction we want to go.

 

Best

Adriani

 

 

Von: intl@NVDACon.groups.io <intl@NVDACon.groups.io> Im Auftrag von Shaun Everiss
Gesendet: Dienstag, 8. Dezember 2020 21:38
An: intl@NVDACon.groups.io
Betreff: Re: [NVDACon] NVDACon 2020 post-mortem analysis: success, moving to a different platform, Twitter feed

 

Well joseph the only real alternitive is zoom.

Zoom will work but someone has to pay if you want to run with more than 3 people for 40 minutes.

So someone will have to pay to run zoom.

Teamtalk is fine for audio and its free.

Now I guess if we could get funding to hire a zoom room for the conference that would be different.

But someone would need to pay for and subscribe to zoom.

I could see nvaccess doing this, the problem,the only time a meeting is handled is for the conference.

The only other way would to join another group's zoom account, but that would mean someone else hosting it.

Looking on zoom, while I have not looked at the rooms prices, a meeting starts at 200 us and up and a webinar starts at 400 bucks a year for 100 people and up to 1000 for 500 people.

No one knows how many will attend a conference.

Teamtalk aparently can do video but yeah, who knows.

Unless there is a drive to donait for a subscription to zoom, then I don't know.

Bottem line, how many blind people will care to donate cash for a yearly event 1 time.

Sure if I had the 1000 bucks for 500 people, I'd pay that per year, but I don't have that.

There are other options for developers and educators and not sure about the rest, I guess zoom could be approached by those handling conferences and asked for the event its only really 1 or so weekends sometimes a couple weeks a year.

 

 

 

On 9/12/2020 8:13 am, Joseph Lee wrote:

Hi,

Personally, I beg to differ: as much as TeamTalk was a useful platform, it is time to move away from a corner that we have dug ourselves into. NVDACon held during a pandemic has demonstrated a need to reach out to more audiences, and personally, I think TeamTalk is no longer a suitable platform for that. Accessibility and usability are major factors, but if the community wants to broaden the appeal of NVDACon, it should use a platform that allows more audience participation.

The era of “audio only” conference is coming to a close. Because the mainstream language is visual appeal, NVDACon should strive to achieve a balance between mainstream appeal and accessibility. More people will consume news about NVDA through online media, and it is time for NVDACon to respond to it more effectively, especially now that the pandemic has changed how people consume information (online presence will be more pervasive, and so will efforts to create content that appeals not only to a specific community, but also to wider audiences). Put in another way: if NVDA is a global movement, an event that serves as a gathering of this movement should strive to reach global audiences, and one way is learning from mainstream strategies.

Cheers,

Joseph

 

From: intl@NVDACon.groups.io <intl@NVDACon.groups.io> On Behalf Of lauracornwell
Sent: Tuesday, December 8, 2020 11:00 AM
To: intl@NVDACon.groups.io
Subject: Re: [NVDACon] NVDACon 2020 post-mortem analysis: success, moving to a different platform, Twitter feed

 

Thanks to all for all help this year. Now as for moving to zoomed I think that cost would be a big part of things we could reach more people maybe but  not having a plan for weekend use is not helpful this is why I think that staying with team talk would be better .

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