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FAQ

How long should my talk be?

Talks should be 20 or 45 minutes in total, including time for questions. Lightning talks should be 5 minutes in total, including time for questions.

How will I present my talk? Will it be live or recorded?

You can choose whether you want your talk to be live or recorded. For recorded talks, you can still do a live Q&A at the end.

What software do I need to live stream my talk?

We use Jitsi, a free web-based video-conferencing tool to capture speakers and their slides. You can try out Jitsi at the upstream instance or the Debian instance (the Debian instance will be used for the conference).

Both Firefox and Chromium works with Jitsi, although if you’re using Firefox, make sure that you’re using a recent version for best performance (version 76 or newer).

How will my question session work, what if I have pre-recorded my talk?

Whether your talk is live or pre-recorded, every talk will have a talkmeister assigned to the talk by the video team. This person will gather questions from the audience via IRC (and possibly do some deduplication and filtering) and read you the question inside the Jitsi call.

What if I need support or have a question that’s not covered here!?

We use the IRC channel #minidebconf-online-speakers on irc.debian.org (oftc) for coordination and testing with speakers. This is probably the quickest way to get an answer (although please be patient since we’re not always awake). If you can’t hang around on IRC, email will be better, you can reach the content team at online-cfp@debconf.org

What aspect ratio should I use for my slides?

Videos will be streamed with an aspect ratio of 16:9. Even if you have a fancy 16:10 or 3:2 display, it will look better to participants if you stick to 16:9.

If I want to pre-record my talk, which software should I use?

You’re welcome to use any tools you like, here’s a list of software that we find useful:

Can people who attend the talk take notes?

If you’d like the audience to collaboratively work on notes during your talk, please tell the content team. We’ll set up a pad and announce the location at the beginning of your talk.