So @crocket how do you feel about Clojure Remote (coming up soon) which is all online?

Clojure Remote seems to be a good balance of sync and async...

Clojure remote? It still has the problem of timezone.

But, it's an improvement.

You can watch the presentations on your own time.

That's better.

Admission is $199. That's quite expensive.

Well, there's a lot of logistics behind putting together a conference, even online...

Anyway, that's a nice try. I hope the price goes down in the future.

The online version has an advantage of lack of privacy which makes it harder to harass people.

In a physical conference, people can't always prepare voice-recorders or defend themselves against drinking too much or being made drunk too much.

Harassers could take advantage of alcohols or dating drugs to sexually harass drunk people in physical conferences.

Privacy in public places makes it possible for bullies and harassers to abuse people and walk away without much risk of retaliation.

Whole classes of problems go away in properly logged online venues like slack just as haskell and clojure prevent many classes of bugs with immutable data structures and pure functions.

Perhaps you might follow that by using a full real name instead of a nickname?

I think strong online identities backed by years-long usage of blogs, github, etc can substitute government identities.

I use pseudonym to protect myself. And, the reputation of my pseudonym is important.

It's better to provide people with protection than to make it easier to attack people.

When it's easier to attack people, bullies usually outrun good people.

For example, security backdoors can be used by terrorists and governments and any bully.

Well, you certainly have a strong online identity...

Protection better be universal than selective. If it's selective, bad actors find ways to abuse selective rules. It means even potential bullies should be protected as long as they behave properly.

An online blogger who reveals dirty secrets of corporations do not want to use real name. Otherwise, employers would not hire him.

For now, I mainly use pseudonyms to prevent my opinions from damaging my career perspectives.

I can understand that.

So, in summary, the online conferences provide better protection against harassments and have some advantages of asynchronous communication.

I like the hallway track at IRL conferences. Different strokes and all that...

Different people perceive different sets of pros and cons from physical conferences.

Indeed. I've "attended" a couple of online conferences and some have been great, some not so much. Some IRL conferences have been great, some not so much.

I hope Clojure Remote will be really good.

I think physical conferences better have watchers who stop people from drinking or being made drunk too much so that furtive harassments do not happen.

But, I suspect IT conferences rarely have to worry about drunk people.

Watchers may be needed at college parties where drinking is encouraged.

A lot of conferences are adopting a Code of Conduct now (thankfully). And we have a Code of Conduct here too: https://github.com/clojurians/clojurians-chat/wiki/Code-Of-Conduct

Having code of conduct by itself is not helpful. The content of CoC is important.

CoC has influences on norms.

For example, CoCs that consider men as potential female molesters wouldn't help a community grow well.

There are feminist CoCs that say men are much more likely to be harassers than women.

Did you read it?

I did

It is decent for a monocentric system although I'd like the community to be more polycentric.

The rules of slack combined with clojurians CoC proved to be a good one although its monocentric nature casts a long-term threat on the ethical integrity of administrators.

Will administrators retain as much ethical integrity in a few decades as they do now? If they become corrupt in the future, I'd just switch to better communication media, though.

I guess when I'm 74 if I'm still involved with this Slack as an admin, I'll be able to answer that...

I'll see

Seriously, if we're all still here in 20 years, I'd like a report card to see how we did.

I hope we'll all have learned to treat each other better by then...

There are a few tickets left for @clojuredconf in Berlin this month. If you are interested, get yours now if you haven't already! http://www.clojured.de/registration/

You can also apply for a diversity ticket over here: https://airtable.com/shrnZGWSnzZdrUyGE

Reminder: Clojure/west tickets go on sale Wed Feb 3 at noon US Pacific time http://clojurewest.org

@crocket: re: what EuroClojure is good for... the food is in the price of admission! Was really surprised about that when I took part in EC'04. But in all seriousness I can see your point. I hardly socialise with people at all - didn't talk to anyone new or took part in any parties (I did a bit at the last RuPy though; it was interesting to learn from Katie Miller how she turned into a Haskell programmer... from a journalist) - so I guess there's really little incentive to me to attend a conference in that case. It costs money, you have to travel (still bitter about that Barcelona thing) - and you can probably stream all that later anyway. But... I don't know. I like how it lets me pretend for a little while I have some semblance of life and not just sit 24/7 ensconced at home.

So I quite like that there are conferences in the real world.

@jaen: That's kind of surprising to hear as you are very social here.

It's basically a case of this: https://i.imgur.com/NVI817R.jpg

If I get to go to Clojure/west I'm pretty sure there will be some partying going on in my hotel room.

Ugh, why can't I make that image smaller : |

Yeah, well, then you're a pretty damn smart dog then. 😼

That's how you make 'em small. moarji FTW 👽

My point being it's easy to appear differently than IRL over the Intarwebs ; d

my extreme sarcasm isn't obvious to you by now? 😀

But I know what you mean. I'm more extroverted around fellow geeks than elsewhere and even then in real life it takes me a while.

If you're talking about the "smart dog" thing then, nah I've understood that was a joke P ;

And being bi-polar it depends on whether I'm depressed, normal, or manic.

Bi-polar? Ah, that would explain quite a bit ; d

Well the dog thing was actually a compliment - you are clearly quite smart and would therefore be a damn smart dog. I don't know. I'm tired. My humor really goes to pieces when I'm this tired.

Yeah, can you guess what phase I've been in recently. 😉

Hah, yeah : V

Gotta roll with it. I don't like being medicated.

Anyway, IRL events are cool. They keep you from shrivelling to death in your basement because you haven't seen sunlight in ages ; d

It was fortuitous timing to get involved in chat apps.

Hyperbole of course, but there's something to them a on-line conference won't have.

I spend most of my time at a conference in the hallways or out smoking cigarettes. I want to meet people and make friends. Easier to do that IRL.

And if you are a speaker more people come up and approach you instead of having to do it yourself.

I don't like to go unless I'm a speaker.

Yeah, that's a nice... inversion of control, so to speak : D

Yes, well put.

Almost makes me consider trying to make a talk out of my thesis : V

You should. You know we have #C0K2Z0LDB now. Helped me a lot with my proposals.

Yeah, I know, lurking there, but have to wait till something is close enough. Hopefully this year's EuroClojure won't be in Spain again : D

I'd love to go to some of the conferences abroad (since I'm in Trump-land).

Might move permanently if Trump or Hillary become President.

I loved how EC 2014 was in Kraków, an hour by bus from me.

I didn't even do Clojure back then.

But hey, a conference!

Exactly

Why not

One of the reasons that I don't want to attend events is that I don't want to be found in human form.

That's fair. Hopefully at some point you will be able upload yourself and that problem will disappear.

(and no, not being sarcastic at all)

That would be fantastic

Digitised brains sound pretty cool and if possible could be another viable mode of interstellar travel apart from hibernation and seed ships.

(considering no FTL of course)

The singularity awaits.

I'd rather be lost in digital form as well.

:sarcasm:

If the singularity existed, and we could upload our minds, would be become the singularity?

No, the singularity would become us.

Totally OT, but I'm the bull in the china shop.

Clojure/west 2016 registration is now open https://ti.to/cognitect/clojure-west-2016

early bird going fast...

woohhooo, got my ticket

barely

And all early birds are gone