Hello there!

Please see below for important details, instructions, and tips about your presentation for EmacsConf 2020 and the logistics of how the event will unfold on Saturday November 28th and Sunday November 29th.

Summary of action items if you will be doing live presentations or Q&A

• Send emergency contact info and complete a tech check by November 22
• Update your talk information page (optional)
• Review the schedule close to the time of your presentation
• Check into #emacsconf-org at least 15 minutes before your presentation

Send emergency contact info and complete a tech check by November 22

If you are delivering a live presentation or will be taking live questions via video, please email one of the people listed on the table on the https://emacsconf.org/2020/prepare/ page with a few possible times and dates for a short tech-check to make sure you are able to connect and use the BigBlueButton instance we will be using for video calls. Because you might not notice technical issues while presenting, please consider emailing bandali@gnu.org your emergency contact information (e.g. phone number) so that we can get in touch with you if there's a problem.

Please complete your tech check by November 22.

Update your talk information page (optional)

If you would like to update your talk description, add links, or indicate your preferred way of hearing from interested people, feel free to edit the individual page for your talk. You can find your talk ID by going to the schedule page, following the link to your talk, and noting the two-digit number at the end of the URL. To edit the talk information, follow the instructions at https://emacsconf.org/edit/ to check out a copy of the repository, edit 2020/info/YOURTALKID.md, commit, and push your changes. See 2020/info/01 or https://emacsconf.org/2020/schedule/01/ for an example.

Alternatively, you can email one of the organizers (e.g. sacha@sachachua.com or bandali@gnu.org) and we would be happy to make the change(s) for you.

Review the schedule close to your presentation time

The schedule for EmacsConf 2020 is available at https://emacsconf.org/2020/schedule/, with rough approximations for session times. We will update this as prerecorded talks are submitted and throughout the conference as things come up. In case of technical issues, we might play prerecorded lightning talks while sorting things out. If you check in early or send us your emergency contact information, we can let you know if there are significant changes to the time of your presentation.

Check into #emacsconf-org at least 15 minutes before your presentation

If you will be presenting or answering questions live via video, please check in with us at #emacsconf-org (a low-traffic channel for coordination between organizers and speakers) on freenode IRC maybe 15 minutes before the approximate time of your talk (or earlier if you're available then) and say hi. You can connect to freenode using your favourite IRC client and pointing at chat.freenode.net (e.g. see our quick ERC setup tip), or by using the EmacsConf web IRC client at https://chat.emacsconf.org. To help us recognize you, please include your name (or pseudonym you submitted the talk under) and talk title in your check-in message. One of the organizers will then tell you which BigBlueButton room to join and confirm your audio/video/screen-sharing setup. If something comes up and you cannot check in via IRC, please contact us using the emergency contact information in the email sent to you.

We will likely collect questions in a collaborative pad (URL to be announced on https://emacsconf.org/2020/ later). If you have space on your screen, you may want to have the pad open on the side so that you can keep an eye on the section for your talk, either throughout your presentation or during the portion of your talk that you dedicate questions and answers. That said, some of the audience members might still choose to post questions in the #emacsconf and/or #emacsconf-questions IRC channels. We will try to copy over those questions into the collaborative pad so you wouldn't have to monitor several places (but if you'd like to, you're more than welcome to!). For more information about IRC and the collaborative pad, check out https://emacsconf.org/2020/ closer to the conference date. If you do not have the collaborative pad open or find it difficult to monitor, you can also ask the organizer in the BigBlueButton room with you if there are any questions.

When it is time for your talk, Amin (bandali) will join your BigBlueButton room and give you the go-ahead to begin. If you have prerecorded your talk and choose to use the prerecording, he will stream it and then give you the go-ahead when you are live.

During the presentation:

• Use a headset or earphones to minimize echo. To help reduce echo, if possible, please use a headset or earphones instead of external speakers during live presentations including during Q&A. Headset microphones tend to have some form of noise-cancelling built into them, which might be helpful for decreasing the ambient noise captured by the microphone. If you have one, it might be worth trying using it instead of a laptop's built-in microphone.

• Describe what's going on. To help the visually impaired members of our audience, it would be great if you could try to verbally describe what you're showing on the screen. We are also asking volunteers to describe what's going on in each talk in the #emacsconf-accessible channel. Additionally, we would be very grateful if you could add transcription(s) or subtitle(s) for your talk(s) to your talk page(s) for EmacsConf 2020.

• Lastly, please consider our guidelines for conduct while presenting your talk(s) and in discussions in our communication channels. Thank you in advance!

Going over time

Please keep an eye on time and on your presentation's length. The organizer in the BigBlueButton room with you will try to signal you (e.g. politely clear their throat) or mention to you if you're going over time.

If you still have a lot of things to cover or there are lots of questions you want to explore, you have a few options:

• You can stay in the BigBlueButton room and keep presenting. You may continue even after the organizer leaves for another BigBlueButton room. The extension will not be streamed on the main conference track, but it will be included in the recording that will be posted on the individual talk page after the conference. You can continue to monitor the collaborative pad and/or the IRC channel for additional questions. When you are all done, please check back into #emacsconf-org on IRC and let us know so that we can stop the recording and prepare the room for the next speaker.

• You can switch to Jitsi for the "hallway track." That way, you can talk with anyone who's interested in learning more. (This is to avoid overwhelming the BigBlueButton server with lots of guests.) We'll give you the Jitsi URL to go to and make you the moderator there. We'll also announce it via the stream, and we'll post the URL in the collaborative pad and in IRC. If you want, you can wait in the Jitsi room for 5-10 minutes in case anyone joins in order to continue the conversation. Please consider recording the meeting and sharing the video with us.

• You can take a break, enjoy the next talk, and follow up whenever you like. At the end of your presentation, you can let people know how you want them to follow up with you and where to look for any updates. We will also put that information in the collaborative pad and on the individual talk page. For example, you may want to record a video following up on the questions. We can link to and include it in the updates sent to emacsconf-discuss.

As you wrap up the scheduled part of your presentation, please let us know what you want to do.

After the presentation

Hooray! Feel free to enjoy the rest of the conference sessions. Thanks for sharing your Emacs story with us!

Once the recordings have been processed, we will post the recording of your talk and any questions, answers, or additional resources to the individual talk page. If you would like to include additional information, please feel free to update the page, or email us and we'd be happy to update it for you.

If there are unanswered questions that you would like to respond to, you can answer via the collaborative pad, updating the wiki page, or emailing us after the conference.

In case of technical issues

We have set up a status page at https://status.emacsconf.org where you can monitor the status of various parts of our infrastructure for any disruptions. If you notice a problem or experience disruption that's not acknowledged on the above page, please check #emacsconf and/or #emacsconf-org and notify the organizers as they may not be aware of the issue. If you cannot connect to IRC, please use the emergency contact information in the e-mail that was sent to you.