Re: "Breaking Cliques at Events"
Montreal was my first ever DebConf, so maybe I should chime in here.
On the whole, I found everyone to be pretty welcoming and friendly. But
as a socially-awkward, shy, introvert (as I'm sure at least a few others are,
too), it didn't stop me from feeling like an outsider sometimes. But I
also know that's just how I am, and so I place no blame on DebConf or
its attendees.
That said, I agree that extra steps to make newcomers feel welcome could
be helpful for any conference or community.
On Mon, Dec 11, 2017 at 12:23:31PM -0700, Bdale Garbee wrote:
> Daniel Kahn Gillmor <dkg@fifthhorseman.net> writes:
>
> > At the IETF (another technical conference, quite different from debconf
> > but with some similarities), there are "newcomer meet-and-greet" events
> > at the start of the conference.
>
> Linux Conf Australia also has a long tradition of a session for
> newcomers the evening before the conference starts that is usually well
> attended, with multiple long-timers providing advice on how to not be
> overwhelmed and how to feel good about joining and/or starting
> conversations.
At some point I was watching old videos from past DebConfs. Didn't there used
to be a DebConf 101 (or something like that) for newcomers? I didn't
see it on the schedule for Montreal, otherwise I likely would have
attended. Perhaps that could be resurrected/morphed into something like
DKG and Bdale mention above.
Bill
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