Post #2862340

@johentsch@hostux.social Yes hybrid conferences totally suck. We need more imaginative alternatives. They exist! Conferences really suck for meeting people and forming collabs, you have to cram it in between all these inhumanely intense talk sessions, and if your talk is scheduled towards the end of a conference, you're at a major disadvantage - I at least can't introduce myself 50+ times without losing my mind. Actually, online fora can be really great for meeting people too, just not when they're attached to/trying to simulate a bunch of people in a conference facility somewhere. I've had many amazing collabs with people I haven't met in person. That said, in-person meetings are indeed undoubtedly important, so important they shouldn't be wasted on conferences. Dagstuhl-style seminars are _far_ more productive, where you do actual research together for a ~week. How many 1-3 month early career research residencies could you run for the cost of a in-person conference? Much deeper cultural and interdisciplinary connections can be made through those. The important thing is that running in-person only international conferences is astonishingly damaging, amounting to soft climate change denial while excluding most potential participants. I really think they should be banned.