'Re: How to deal with a 2nd OpenPGP Summit?'

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List:       gnupg-users
Subject:    Re: How to deal with a 2nd OpenPGP Summit?
From:       Hans-Christoph Steiner <hans () guardianproject ! info>
Date:       2015-09-21 9:30:49
Message-ID: 55FFCE49.6010105 () guardianproject ! info
[Download RAW message or body]

I've attended all manner of conferences/meetings from big to small,
invite-only to open doors, expensive to free, heavily organized to improvised.
 I think far and away the most productive conferences for groups of 20+ people
are Unconference/Barcamp/"Gunner-style" conferences, which are totally open,
have no fixed agenda, and have 1-4 moderators to run the intro sections of the
day where the day's agenda is created.  These kinds of events have also been
the most fun conferences/meetings that I've attended.

What such an event does require is that people as a group have enough social
skills to know when it is appropriate to talk, and also to know when it is
appropriate to ask someone to stop talking until another time/place.  Good
moderators help a lot with that task.  Then we can have focused, productive
meetings without having to manage who can attend.  It also takes much less
pre-planning to run such an event, since the organizers do not need to work
out topics, schedules, etc.  Just space and overall timing (i.e. 5 rooms from
9am-6pm).

I am willing to serve as a moderator, though I can't say I'm the best at it.
I've helped organized and run DrupalCamp, MySQLCamp, iPhoneDevCamp, PdCon, and
more.

If there is a budget for this event, then Allen Gunn/Aspiration Tech could be
hired to run the event.  He's an excellent moderator, especially for groups of
people that are unfamiliar with this format.

.hc

Bob (Robert) Cavanaugh:
> Hi,
> Just a thought: Have a "Star chamber" meeting for the technical group, invitation \
> only. After that have a 1/2 to 1 hour session open to all where the technical \
> people can present their progress and invite comment. This way you have a focused \
> working session with the key people, but maintain community trust by allowing \
> general input. 
> Thanks,
> 
> Bob Cavanaugh
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Gnupg-users [mailto:gnupg-users-bounces@gnupg.org] On Behalf Of
> > fmv1992@gmail.com
> > Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 2015 5:24 AM
> > To: gnupg-users@gnupg.org; nico@enigmail.net
> > Subject: Re: How to deal with a 2nd OpenPGP Summit?
> > 
> > 
> > > ------------------------------
> > > 
> > > Message: 3
> > > Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2015 07:44:24 +0200
> > > From: "nico@enigmail.net" <nico@enigmail.net>
> > > To: GnuPG-Users <Gnupg-users@gnupg.org>
> > > Subject: How to deal with a 2nd OpenPGP Summit?
> > > Message-ID: <55CADD38.5030603@enigmail.net>
> > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
> > > 
> > > Hi all,
> > > 
> > > in April 2015 we had a first OpenPGP summit.
> > > It was a meeting where the technical experts of projects and tools
> > > dealing with OpenPGP with a focus on email encryption met to getting
> > > to know each other personally and discuss several issues.
> > > For details, see e.g.
> > > - https://www.gnupg.org/blog/20150426-openpgp-summit.html
> > > - https://www.mailpile.is/blog/2015-04-20_OpenPGP_Email_Summit.html
> > > 
> > > The meting initially was organized by me to bring together a few
> > > guys/projects working in that area, but it became pretty big (about 30
> > > people). This caused some problems, because we had a host with limited
> > > space (so I finally even had to reject some people wanting to attend).
> > > 
> > > We also discussed there how to continue.
> > > On one hand we wanted to have the meeting open so that anybody
> > wanting
> > > to attend could do that and to give trust by transparency.
> > > On the other hand we want to be able to continue to focus on technical
> > > issues (having a well signal to noise ratio) in a not-too-large group
> > > of "experts".
> > > We didn't find an appropriate way yet to deal with both interests.
> > > 
> > > Now, I am about to organize a second meeting at the end of this year.
> > > And I want to take the "wisdom" of this crowd to discuss this issue.
> > > 
> > > What I currently have in mind is a meeting open to the public but with
> > > some limitations (one reason is to focus the work, another is simply
> > > limited space although I don't know where we can meet this time).
> > > For example:
> > > - Some priority for those who did attend the first meeting
> > > - Some priority for "other experts", which didn't join
> > > the first meeting
> > > (but how do we handle that?)
> > > - Some limitations that a person plays a "significant role"
> > > in the community
> > > - Some limitation so that a tool/project should normally
> > > send only 1 or 2 guys
> > > 
> > > The obvious other option is to open the meeting to everybody willing
> > > to come, which raises a couple of risks (simply too many people, too
> > > many non-experts or people  who want to change the focus, ...).
> > > 
> > > So, my questions are:
> > > =====================
> > > 
> > > Is it OK for the public/community, if we meet in a way that is limited
> > > as describe above (just for practical reasons)?
> > > 
> > > Is it OK even if we can't promise full transparency (e.g. by video
> > > taping sessions)?
> > > 
> > > Would it even be OK, if we meet and constraint what is spoken there to
> > > the Chatham House Rule (see
> > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatham_House_Rule).
> > > Some people requested that because
> > > if anything they say might become public, they might or even have to
> > > be careful what they say.
> > > 
> > > Any general thoughts or proposals about how to deal with this?
> > > 
> > > Note that I don't want to have it too complicated.
> > > I organize this meeting in my free time to bring the issues of this
> > > community forward.
> > > And just having too many people is already a problem.
> > > I need an approach I can handle.
> > > Or is it better to have no meeting at all instead of a meeting with
> > > some limitations?
> > > 
> > > Best
> > > Nico
> > > 
> > 
> > Dear Nico,
> > 
> > I think you are trying to achieve a compromise that is not possible. If I
> > understood correctly you are trying to reconcile developers interest with
> > layman's enthusiasm. I myself belong to the second group.
> > A good idea would be to organize one event for the developers and another
> > open event so everyone can join. Then I think everybody would be happy.
> > Note that some overlap between groups is expected and healthy for the
> > community.
> > 
> > Kind regards,
> > 
> > --
> > Felipe Martins Vieira
> > Public PGP key: http://pgp.surfnet.nl
> > Key Fingerprint: 9640 F192 63DA D637 6750 AC08 7BCA 19BB 0E69 E45D
> 
> 
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> Gnupg-users@gnupg.org
> http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
> 

-- 
PGP fingerprint: 5E61 C878 0F86 295C E17D  8677 9F0F E587 374B BE81
https://pgp.mit.edu/pks/lookup?op=vindex&search=0x9F0FE587374BBE81

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