Re: Noise situation at the DebConf dinner

[Joost van Baal-Ilić <joostvb-debian@mdcc.cx>]

Hi Christoph,

Thank you for speaking out and raising this subject!

On Sat, Jul 12, 2025 at 06:16:51PM +0200, Christoph Biedl wrote:
> 
<snip>
> However, several hundred people in a single room already create some
> noise just by chatting. Adding music, artificial or live, makes things
> worse. In such a situation, I have difficulties talking even to the
> people sitting next to me, and a conversation around the table is plain
> impossible. I strongly doubt it's just me.
> 
<snip>
> What can we expect for this year? Is there a chance people like me can
> come out of this with their ears bleeding?

I don't know what this years' circumstance will be: I am not arranging the
venue.  So I can only talk in general terms.

If I want to have a conversation which requires focus and thinking, I can't do
that in the current Centre Vie: it's too crowded and noisy, generally.  So I
fully understand where you're coming from.  In this Centre Vie situation, I ask
the person(s) I'd like to talk to, to move with me to a more quiet place.  This
generally works fine for all of us.  But I'm afraid you're right and in a big
shared meal situation, there is little opportunity to move (temporarily)
elsewhere.  So I'm afraid you'd have to skip this meal.  Or do the talking
before and after the eating-part: at those moments I believe it's generally
easier to find a quiet place.

HTH! Bye,

Joost

-- 
»Ach«, sagte die Maus, »die Welt wird enger mit jedem Tag.    Zuerst war sie so
breit, daß ich Angst hatte, ich lief weiter und war glücklich,  daß ich endlich
rechts und links in der Ferne Mauern sah,     aber diese langen Mauern eilen so
schnell aufeinander zu, daß ich schon im letzten Zimmer bin, und dort im Winkel
steht die Falle, in die ich laufe.«   –  »Du mußt nur die Laufrichtung ändern«,
sagte die Katze und fraß sie.                  Kleine Fabel - Franz Kafka, 1920