Tags: notes

Permacomputing schedule/structure notes

Thank you for everyone who took part in the discussion in the new permacomputing schedule/structure! I think it was a really valuable session and we plan to trial it from 16th November, starting with small breakout sessions, and then have another discussion after one rota to see how we feel about it.

Notes from the discussion

• Should we run a wildcard session? E.g. for discussions like this, or anything else we want to run. When should it be?
• What we can do is dependent on how many people show up, this is why we initially had the breakout sessions.
• How much knowledge do people need for a workshop? Previous workshops have sometimes required some knowledge to fully appreciate the content which doesn't get communicated. Is there some way to show that ahead of time, e.g. a classification system? Or perhaps every one who runs a workshop must supply 3 links (e.g. from Wikipedia) for enough reading to get you started.
• Workshops are a useful structure to demonstrate tech in a practical fashion.
• Should we schedule in a governance meeting like this one? If so, how often? (I think every 3 months was suggested)
• What about onboarding onto e.g. the CryptPad? The Signal group chat sort of ended up eclipsing this. Maybe this should be the job of one of the facilitators
• Permacomputing is not a computer club or tech meetup.
• What about the work required for presenting at a tech crit? Will we always have enough people to show things off?
  • In response: most of the time tech crit presentations have always filled a session. We can also have cultural methods to show people you don't need to prepare too much.
• To facilitate actual criticism/feedback at the tech crit/show-and-tell, have presenters think about their own questions, e.g. what kind of criticism are they looking for? Where should they take their project next?
• Calendar: having the sessions be opaque and unstructured until the day can be daunting to newcomers: e.g. they think they might be walking in on a private event.
• Is there anything we should stop doing?
  • The SET room we are using can be noisy, and will likely be until the weather warms up, which makes workshops particularly difficult.
  • Should we have hard lines, e.g. no AI in workshops/show-and-tell? It is usually a landmine for good discussion in these contexts.