FluConf 2025

Frequently Asked Questions

Will recordings and slides be made available after the event?

Yes! We'll probably take a bit of a break to recover from the event once it ends, but we have been recording live sessions and plan to find a permanent home for them, ideally with captions and transcripts available.

When is the deadline for applications?

A previous version of our home page indicated that we would "continue accepting submissions until midnight of January 19th, 2025, anywhere in the world", which was ambiguous due to different interpretations of "midnight".

The intended meaning was:

Update: Apparently American Samoa is even further west than Hawai'i, so we will accept submissions until end-of-day Samoan Standard Time, plus one more hour in case there are any as-yet-undiscovered time zones.

To clarify, hopefully for the last time:

Where is the event?

FluConf is 100% online.

This website (FluConf.online) serves as a central directory which aggregates links to content hosted on its contributors' websites.

Participants can follow along with the event's program on the fediverse by subscribing to the official Mastodon account, which will introduce each contribution as it goes live, and facilitate subsequent discussions about their topics.

How much do tickets cost?

There are no tickets, nor do you need to register to participate. Just subscribe and follow along.

Are speakers paid?

The short answer is no.

The longer answer is that FluConf is being organized entirely on a volunteer basis, with no budget aside from the marginal cost of hosting its website, and zero expected monetary benefit due to our decision to neither sell tickets or advertise on the platform.

We recognize that asking people to contribute for free acts as a filter for who can participate, but it also means we can avoid the need for corporate sponsors that might affect editorial/governance decisions, such as our choice to exclude those with ties to law enforcement and military contracts.

That said, one of the event's themes is "open licensing and business models", so we acknowledge that those contributing to free culture and maintaining information commons need some way to sustain their efforts. As such, contributors are welcome to request donations or mention other ways to support their ongoing work.

Regarding the use of "speaker" terminology

As a side-note: we welcome recorded videos or live sessions from people who prefer those formats, however, submissions do not need to be in the format of a typical conference "talk". We are promoting blog articles as the default, as they tend to be easier and cheaper to host than video or streaming media, and generally more accessible (in a variety of interpretations of the word).

Why should I contribute?

Our (completely unproven) hypothesis is that contributors will be able to expose whatever they publish to a wider audience by tying into a larger thematic event. In short, the idea is that everyone will benefit from some "cross-pollination", similar to the concept of a web-ring.

We figure that if you already have a blog and ideas that you want to promote, then there will be relatively little additional work involved with participating in FluConf.

Why are you organizing the event for free?

In short, because there seemed to be a need for it.

Many people attend conventional conferences in order to promote their projects, and while they often achieve that goal, they also face considerable risk of infection of a serious illness. These conferences have always been a vector for the spread of illnesses, but that risk has only grown since the COVID-19 pandemic (which is not over), and there are now a variety of other concerning public health issues (avian flu and mpox, among others).

Aside from any direct benefits for those who participate, we hope that it will also pressure such conferences to implement better health policies in their future events.

What is your plan for sustainability?

We are deliberately designing FluConf so as to be much easier to organize compared to conventional in-person or even hybrid events.

There is no physical venue to worry about, and by asking contributors to host whatever content they produce we are further reducing the amount of infrastructure we need to manage.

As the 2025 edition of the event is the first, we have had to invest time and effort into developing this website and the event's policies, however, we envision that the majority of that effort will be reusable in subsequent years. Even so, it does take time to promote the event, review submissions, and to communicate with contributors. Assuming this first year is successful (by some definition of success), we hope that more people will volunteer to help organize future editions.

In terms of monetary costs beyond the time needed to organize the event, the "fluconf.online" domain costs only a few dollars per year, and hosting for a static website is similarly inexpensive (compared to a lot of other tech). Given that the event is being co-organized by people familiar with web development and deployment, we consider this cost to be only marginal.

Where can I publish?

While we do consider the platform on which contributors intend to host their publications when evaluating proposals, our aim is mostly to ensure a few basic assumptions:

  1. The content should be broadly accessible.

    • Video hosting platforms should support subtitles, and you should find some way to provide them
    • Audio platforms should be accompanied by transcriptions
    • Web publishing platforms should have alt-text for their media

  2. Platforms should not be at odds with the event's broader themes.

    • Platforms that are well-known for promoting hate-speech and misinformation should be avoided
    • Participants should not be exposed to invasive tracking
    • Content should not be restricted behind paywalls

In general, you probably want to avoid platforms owned by "Big Tech" or otherwise funded by venture capitalists. We recognize that such companies can be difficult to avoid, however, and that not everyone realizes who owns such publishing platforms.

Our intent is not to impose an arbitrary self-hosting purity test, and we're willing to be somewhat flexible on some of these matters, especially for contributors with a less technical expertise. If you are able to host your own website, then we encourage you to do so. If you are not, then please consider applying anyway, and we may be able to help direct you to a suitable platform to host your content.

When will proposals be accepted?

We have already reviewed and accepted some proposals for FluConf 2025. We will continue to review all proposals on an ongoing basis and inform their contributors as we make decisions.

Those who submit proposals earlier will be informed of their proposal's outcome sooner.

When will the final program be announced?

We will announce the complete list of accepted proposals shortly after the submission deadline (January 19th, 2025).

What is the selection process like?

We evaluate whether submissions match at least one of our themes and consider whether they are at odds with any other themes. For instance, a proposal which suggests solving accessibility issues using electricity-intensive LLMs might address inclusivity in one sense, but conflict with our theme of "scaling down technology's climate impact".

As noted above on where to publish, we consider the platform on which contributors intend to host their content.

We evaluate whether the contributor has a reputation suggesting that they are likely to violate our code of conduct. For instance, those with a Fediverse account on an instance that is well known as a source of harassment will be viewed in a negative light.

Assuming your proposal seems broadly interesting to at least some of our intended audience, and if there are no obvious red-flags surrounding its context, then we will let you know as quickly as possible that it has been accepted.

Can I submit a proposal in a language other than English?

While we would theoretically like to welcome multi-lingual content, our organizers are primarily English-speaking, and are therefore not well-equipped to assess proposals in other languages or topics which are potentially culturally sensitive.

For that reason, we intend to largely restrict this year's content to English unless one of our trusted advisors are able to vouch for a particular submission.

Going forward, we are interested in working with volunteers to coordinate associated events focusing on other languages and social contexts.

If you would like to volunteer to help organize such an event, you may contact our organizers:

Why do you have such a problem with FOSDEM?

Our organizers have caught the FOSDEM Flu on numerous occasions predating the COVID-19 pandemic, and we are aware of numerous COVID-19 infections that occurred at FOSDEM since the beginning of the pandemic. As such, it is difficult not to take their lack of a meaningful health policy as anything other than an irresponsible act.

That said, FOSDEM is far from alone in their choice to operate in this fashion, and our criticisms apply to all such events which continue to ignore our ongoing health concerns.

Is there a Hallway Track?

In reference to track (ā€œa themed set of talks within a conferenceā€), and the fact that people may meet informally in hallways.

Wiktionary

Because FluConf is being organized on a volunteer basis and with a relatively short timeline, we have opted not to attempt to host any real-time communications platforms through which participants can engage in casual conversation.

Even so, we recognize the value of such virtual spaces, and we welcome efforts from contributors and participants alike to organize their own virtual hallways where people can congregate.

We will promote discussion on the fediverse via the official Mastodon account, and we have also registered an IRC channel that can be accessed through Libera.Chat's IRC web interface.

Our official channel will be moderated according to our code of conduct, however, we cannot guarantee that unofficial communication channels will be monitored. Nevertheless, we encourage unofficial spaces to list our code of conduct to set expectations, and we will respond to any reported violations to the best of our ability regardless of whether the space was officially sanctioned.

Why haven't I heard of FluConf before?

2025 will be the first FluConf event.

Will there be a FluConf 2026?

We certainly hope so!