Feedback

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General Aggregation on how-is/was-35C3

Personal feedback & wishlists below

Published coverage

Please list language / country in the standard LL_CC format before the link.

News Portals / Press Coverage

TV / YouTube Segments

Blogposts & Microblogging

Audio (FM/AM-Radio & Podcasts)

  • please add URLs and ideally title & some additional info here! Thanks!
  • A podcast episode (German) about the Haecksen - Memorials will be published at https://www.damals-tm-podcast.de in due course. I'll add more information as soon as I have it at hand. Expect it to be published by mid-January ajuvo2

Images / Photos

There is usually a shared Flickr-Group pls add URL.

Personal Opinions

This is a place for literally ALL THE things you want to share and discuss with the other participants about your experience during 35C3. Add things you liked or disliked, the latter ideally with some constructive ideas on how to make things better. You can also leave contacts if you want to take active part of the future-change-to-the-better!

Usually this page becomes a discussion - try to write in english if possible, but stay in german if you feel more comfortable. Please add sections/topics once its getting more and more, and keep some readable structure when replying or adding to others.

Please add — ~~~ at the end of your comment to sign it.

35C3 not friendly to reduced eyesight visitors

  • I enjoyed the show, but was very unhappy at the fact that the lighting was turned way down and much of the furniture was the same color as the floor/carpets. I have reduced eyesight and bumped my shins really hard into the furniture, twice. I was lucky I didn't break a leg. Let's use some common sense, people. Differentiate things with some sort of marking that will make the exhibitions halls a fun place to visit instead of a hazardous obstacle course. — Juan

Specific to a talk/workshop

General on all talks/workshops

  • Is there a reason we now have heralds introducing the talks? This started in Hamburg and so far everyone I've asked dislikes this trend. A lot of the heralds seem to have no idea what they are talking about (I've seen heralds get corrected by the speakers they were introducing) and some of them are downright inappropriate (this year's "are machines feminine" herald comes to mind). I know I would much prefer for them to do crowd control and then just name the talk and speaker, without the unnecessary comments. — Ammoth
  • I quite liked it that the self-organised sessions where in the program, but with so many tracks, spaces, talks, a search function in the mobile-app would have made it a lot easier for me. Webmind (talk)
    +1 — Kono (talk)
Just as a quick answer: already during the congress we (teams of several servers/services) start talking about improvements, harmonisation of services and a central search function. By the way: during the congress I used the search function of this wiki and got quickly helpful results. --Wikinaut (talk) 17:25, 3 January 2019 (CET)
  • i didn't attend a lot of talks this year, but going through all of them, i noticed how diverse they were. So much really interesting stuff, for all kinds of people. So yea, congrats on great content curation. - sirenensang
  • Watched a few talk recordings after the event, I noticed that the audio mixing was often times quite slow to switch between (or turn up the volume of the) microphones when several were involved. Especially in the Q&A parts of the videos. Would be nice if this can be improved next time :) --Essbesteck (talk) 23:21, 3 January 2019 (CET)
    Agreed, and there was really bad audio feedback too at times, like in the Meltdown/Spectre talk to the point of screeching. You could hear it ringing for minutes and it was only a matter of time before it lead to really loud screeching audio feedback. This really shouldn't be happening, I had the feeling that the audio team was sleeping at the wheel (if there even was any).
  • Watching a few talks, i'm really noticing how brief the questions are. People are actually using the space to ask short, concise questions instead of presenting themselves. This is imo a fantastic development. - sirenensang
  • Please allow traveling from CCL to hall 3 by passing the first bridge during an ongoing talk. Also, please allow leaving Hall A through the smoker's exit (like you did with hall C), so people do not have to get stuck for eternity when a talk finishes. Also, especially in hall C it was very noisy all the time due to bottle sorting. This should be overthought! modal

Theft and property damage

  • There were multiple instances of theft, sometimes things of high triple digit value, and some of property damage for political reasons. So, an appeal to all: Keep your damn hands off other people's shit. If you want somebody's stuff, Ebay and Amazon exist. If you hate somebody's stuff, maybe consider trying to convince them to take it down, and don't just steal/break it. — DuckMan
  • Theft and looting ought to be no-goes at congress and deserve rigid measures. My feeling was that this time, from my personal observation, sometimes groups of 'unusual' visitors roamed the halls; loud, unfriendly, un-congress-like. I am tempted to suspect the perpetrators being from within these groups. Maybe security, crewcrew, other participants can provide more observations and information to improve my views towards a valid investigation - ajuvo2
  • I brought some very expensive stuff and started taking important parts with me when i went to sleep after seeing some 'unusual' visitors that where interested in the device. Obri (talk)

Be (again) excellent to each other

  • Recent developments are in stark contrast of the well known "be excellent to each other". I noticed different groups attacking other people / groups / opinions. In some cases directly, sometimes hidden behind "humour" or trough actions (fefe vote, graffiti, theft of flags, ..). Right now, there are only a few people behaving like this, but I already noticed, that I'm constraining myself in regards of whom I'm speaking to and choice of topics. Eventually it is time to remind the community, what being excellent is all about and how one should listen and accept other opinions. Besides that, most folks at 35c3 were the most loveable people! - Gom (talk)

Sticker Tables

Looks some people like order and distinct waiting cues with end.time.signs... Everytime i walked by at the sticker table i got a heavy and strong impulse to jump on and destroy the order. Make the sticker table an appropiate sticker table. Also this cueing system feels fucked up and so germanish. Better to have no table; have to walk around @nd find the ones which belong to you by visitibg some spaces... better have no table than this sterile wtf*

Even the excuse of not having another space sounds soooo wrong and a lie by the maybe innocent angels watchover the table. They also control the order and the amount of "cool" stickers available .. which makes me even more crazy having some $angel* to decide which sticker is presented as artificially out of stock/nearby gone.**added:we had a own sticker tiny and quality controlled sticker place. fuzzle

i actually loved not having to crawl through billions of stickers i already had to find some half-teared and glued together stickers that look cool. if you don't want a sticker queue, make your own shitty sticker table without order and with Hackspace Nieder-Lauenfranken filling it with three thousand of their badly designed black-and-white stickers. i thought the sticker table was an *excellent* idea, everyone in the queue was excited about it, and it was very friendly to children and other people who don't want to fight more competetive members of hacker society. - sirenensang

As a complementary opinion: I'd usually enjoyed crawling through the sticker tables to get surprised by an interesting find. Would be great to not loose this aspect of the congress. Rey

While I approve of the idea of a central sticker table, this year's placement was suboptimal. The place at the infodesk restricted sticker-seeking to only one side of the table, as the other side was inside the infodesk. If the sticker table was placed more free-standing, as I remember it from the last two congresses, much more creatures could search for stickers simultaneously. — s3lph

Second this. Moreover, I think, we are good at decentralization, thus we could easily just spread the interesting stickers across several sticker tables in all halls. Rey

I'd love to see the sticker tables in a more distributed fashion, with the long lines there, I didn't even try to go through them and it was even hard to drop some off, I've enjoyed going around and finding the different places of sticker piles and I missed that here. Webmind (talk) 15:35, 2 January 2019 (CET)

We always had some kind of centralized sticker table near the infodesk. (At least the past 9 years I angeled there). This year the design and location of the table was improvable and we should look for an alternative next year. Still: no one stops you from dezentralize the distribution a little bit. Why not open a sticker exchange area at your assembly table? — Kuro (talk)

Accessibility

Floor Contrast in Assemblies

  • many people had problems in seeing the difference of the normal floor and the places where to sit on. So they ran on the banks with their knee or shinbone. Here would be a color difference or better contrast really helpful. Especially for people with disabilities in seeing.
    FWIW, the part you mention (re floor vs chairs) is one of the cases where accessibility needs are different for blind vs partial visual impairment. For me, totally black floor & chairs is no big deal at all; I find the chairs with my cane. For someone relying on partial vision (and no cane), it'd be a major problem. I don't feel very qualified to comment on the needs of someone who has vision impairment but is not a cane user. — Sai
    I second this. I have normal vision when i wear my glasses, and i still ran into one of the benches because i was looking ahead instead of down. Thanks very much to the CERT for patching my bleeding wound.
    thirding, a friend of mine who has bad night vision also busted both her shins open. I personally liked the benches and found them very comfy chillout spaces but higher contrast for next year might be a good idea. Maybe some bright yellow cyber barricade tape ;)


Blind accessibility

  • The Messe / CCL was pretty much all quite bad for blind accessibility. It happened to be constructed in such a way that someone with relatively good navigational skills could get around fine (at the high level at least; within assemblies is another matter), but that's more a happenstance of layout, acoustics, flooring, wind, temperature, etc. There were almost no actual accessibility features — tactile paving / warning strips, high-contrast/tactile edge indications, tactile labels, etc.

    Some places were actively hostile for accessibility, like both of the assembly halls. Loud music + huge room + very hard floor + bright unpredictable flashing lights means that I get swamped by noise and pain, and simultaneously have to rely on some of the more difficult / subtle cues + memory. Let alone trying to navigate the insides of them, or to be able to browse what's available. — Sai

Atmosphere

Congress is always a very stimulating experience for me, this is a big part of why I like congress. From the first one I've been to which was some hundreds of people and perhaps even more so with the congresses going way over ten thousand. The chaos, The diversity of projects and topics, Art projects, parties, all inspire me. Sometimes perhaps a bit much, hence I've also been very happy with the quiet times, in Berlin often around dinner time, In Hamburg it was harder to leave the venue and in Leipzig even more. The 'soulcharge' area was in those times a good development I think and I was quite happy with it this congress. Next year I'd love to see more chaos, I kinda miss the maze that CCH was and wonder if that experience could somehow be incorporated in next events. But I also think we might not want all the impulses everywhere. Not every space a party space. One hall with more quiet assemblies and less impulses is therefore something I'd quite like to see as well, where perhaps the soulcharge can be next to, to make it even more quiet. Something like a 'quiet lounge' might also be a nice addition, low sound impulses but enough cozy and/or interesting bits. If we like to play with our experiences, I think it would be a good plan to also play with different levels of intensity, 35c3 felt a bit like everything always on 11.

Kids Space

Location

Kids space location was suboptimal to some extent:

  • Being in front of Eliza meant that talk goers and kids were "fighting" for very limited space.
  • The lack of depth of the location meant that the "lego" area was very small. Kids weren't able to build long walls or topple towers like they did last year.
  • Next to the escalators: Two parents told me that they were uneasy about this. They felt they had to watch their small children more closely because of this.
  • Cars and trains driving down the ramp were moving towards the Eliza entrance. The wheels of the vehicles also scratched the stone floor. I hope this doesn't cost to much to polish. AFAIK this isn't an issue we had in the big hall last year.
  • I think the bigger ballpit on 34c3 prevented some kid-on-kid accidents, I could observe kids unintendendly jumping into others kids backs - probably due to high load - quite some times.
  • Kids found it hard to concentrate for a programming workshop on the table just beside the very noisy bobby car ramp (kidspace with an associated workshop room next year would be great).
  • There must be a kid safe place with kid safe doors again. So that people with kids who tend to explore and run away can have a minute of rest. (On 34c3 there was for example the nursing room that kind of fulfilled those criteria. But the nursing rooms on 35c3 were a) completely open or b) the doors could be opened easily by toddlers.)

Bad Air Quality and odor at Glass Hall due to food stand exhausts

  • This time it was actually more annoying than last congress. Especially during the evenings, entering Glass Hall through the tunnels led into an unfriendly, foggy, smelly environment one wants to escape from, instead of enjoying such beautiful things like the Späti or the laser installation. Either Messe can improve their air cleaning measures, or food stands with high exhaust emissions of fatty fumes and smoke have to be relocated, e.g. to tents on the outside spaces. Even my cab driver asked if I had come from a smokers' convention or something. ajuvo2
The food choice was nice, but unfortunately we made the same observations regarding the fat fumes. We all smelled like working for fries stand after congress. Would be good if the Messe or we can get the snack bars connected to the air conditioning system. Rey

Merch

  • Due to health reasons with my spine I can't stand long (neither can I sit on the floor), therefore it's not possible to buy merch for me which is really sad. Why not just use a (additional) voucher system for a post-congress online shop? Would also eliminate a risk of over production plus everybody could actually get something
    • A pre-reserve system would be great as well. So that you can fetch the merge on day 1 and day 2, after that the reservation expires and the merch is up for grabs. Payment would happen at the Congress.
cited from Wanted page:
Q: I would like to pre-order and pre-pay Congress T-shirt/Hoodies together with my ticket. Why isn't that possible?
A: This question is asked many times and every year. We already thought about a solution, but it's too much work for us (distribution, and what to do with orders which have not been picked up during congress? We simply cannot afford it.)
--Wikinaut (talk) 18:17, 30 December 2018 (CET)
Sure it's more work to keep track of reservations, but the "what to do with items that haven't been picked up" part is solved by it just being reservations that expire at the end of day 2.
Suggestion: Pre-pay should not be much more work, you can use the ticket QR-Code also as merch voucher. On site re-use the cashdesk system AFTER the big run on day 0/1 for the merch by angels. As previous comment said, expire the reservation after day 2. Additional you can order a bit more to have some amount for those who want to pay cash on site and not by pre-ordering the merch also at day 3. Am I miss sth.? Maybe we can help together to optimize that? — Patrick (talk)
Pre-pay is not the problem - but post-pay-back for non-picked-up stuff (or even worse: postal distribution) IS a huge hassel
What happens with tickets which are pre-payed and not redeemed? I think if someone don't pick up his shirt, there is no need to post-pay-back... If someone can not attend, there is in most cases an option to ask someone from the local community to pick up the shirt. But I don't know the legal situation for that case.
I do strongly second this opinion. The Merch situation is a nuisance and an embarrassement. If the team needs more resources to improve the situation, it must be deployed, and eventually paid up for by merch buyers. ajuvo2
  • This year, different designs were chosen for the straight and fitted variant of the shirt, as can be seen in this tweet from C3FOC. I personally disliked the design for the straight shirts, however fitted shirts don't fit me. I would appreciate if, in case multiple designs are chosen for future events as well, they were available for shirts of all sizes and forms. — s3lph
  • Like every year the most demanded sizes were sold out very quickly. It's understandable that it's not possible to have such an overproduction that all sizes are available until the very end. But it should be predictable that we need a few more in 2XLs. One solution might be to take notes of the demanded sizes even when there are sold out. That would help predicting the demand for the next year.
  • It might me a fine idea to find ways for angels to get a shirt later - after congress maybe only for fitted size.--NOTaCAMEL (talk) 04:37, 8 January 2019 (CET)
  • @c3foc would be ultra awesome to have the design in advance to the congress , so its easier to make some DIY Siebdruck equipment for that. So free printing on demand in small quantities is possible https://twitter.com/cccfr/status/1085641153310085125 -- 15.Jan 2019 fuzzle

Assembly Halls

Noisy events

  • This year the amount of space was great for the assemblies, thanks for that! However, it would be good to separate a the music-art-events a bit from the assemblies, e.g. to avoid that a drum jam session disrupts the discussions or ongoing streams in the assemblies. Maybe these installations/events would better fit into the empty space of hall 5?
    • I really liked those. And a bit of variety in the sound in the assemblies was nice.
    • Yes the drums and the impro were nice. But it definetly lead to irritations. In one talk there were suddenly really loud drums to be heard and even the speakers were visibly irritated for a short time. In addition there was glas bottle recycling in direct vicinity to Clarke iirc and that was a disturbance, too. Maybe there can be even more "hacking with music" that would fit in hall 5 or some other not-yet-played-in spaces. As for the bottle recycling maybe they could just pause during talks. Decusa (talk)
  • Please put out the music art events out of the assembly area. It was very hard to communicate with others without shouting at each other. Please be also aware of neurodivergent or autistic people who have issues with loud areas. --F2k1de (talk) 21:31, 1 January 2019 (CET)
    • Second this. Not auti, but loud sound takes away about 40% of my mobility input while simultaneously adding more pain. Would greatly appreciate more sound segregation. — Sai
      • Third this. In particular, elevator shafts as bass reflex resonators are cruel and unusual punishment. --Tatzelbrumm (talk) 04:57, 2 January 2019 (CET)
  • Warum denn in die Ferne schweifen, wenn das Gute liegt so nah?
    Given that Leipzig is the alleged hometown of the best music ever, some more of that instead of the incessant umpf-umpf-umpf would have been real nice. --Tatzelbrumm (talk) 04:54, 2 January 2019 (CET)
    • Second this, i actually had the *best* musical experience this year with Lena Stöhrfaktor playing in the Compeiler, but other than that, the incessant, minimal bass at all times is really tiring. Weirdly enough, the guitar boomboxes in the bathrooms provided much needed respite. i understand if we only listen to techno at a hack event, but can we mix it up *a little* and not only play slow bass umpf umpf? - sirenensang

It was way too loud. Sometimes I was just using ear plugs because it became too much. --Dc7ia (talk) 22:35, 3 January 2019 (CET)

Bright lights

  • Related to sound noise, bright lights that I can't avoid or anticipate are a large source of pain for me. These are mainly ones at ground level, or that move a lot over a wide area (e.g. rotating spotlights). I know you love the blinkenlights. I wish I could too, but that's not an option for me any more. I'd appreciate if lights were higher up (so I can avoid looking at them by just looking downwards a bit or wearing a wide-brim hat), more predictable (so I'm not looking eyes open in a direction that seems safe and suddenly have a spotlight flashbang me in the face), and more red-shifted (blue hurts more, and is worse for nightvision preservation). I don't want to take away others' enjoyment, and I miss being able to have it myself. Hoping that some sort of "light segregation" (similar to spatial sound segregation for loud music) might work better for all. — Sai
  • The rotating mirroŕs light installation at Halle 2 could easily have turned into an issue for epileptics. This is a security issue to be carefully addressed next time. - ajuvo2

Hall echoes: Delayed Auditory Feedback slowed down almost all questioners

I noticed that many questioners were massively affected by their own echoes and had severe difficulties to keep on talking on the microphones. Here at home at my desk I have no chance to fix this or to propose any fix, but wanted to feedback to congress-orga that perhaps a solution (or improvement) can be found next congress. See also https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/x172d/why_does_hearing_your_voice_echoed_back_to_you/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_Auditory_Feedback for technical/medical background. --Wikinaut (talk) 12:45, 4 January 2019 (CET)

Call for Proposals (CFPs)

  • For the CFPs it would be great to provide some feedback in case of rejections. Would help the authors to learn about the reasons that were raised in the decision process.

Sleeping, shower, cuddling, & sex facilities

  • Like a lot of other Angels, I used the quiet room in Heaven to sleep (due to excessive travel times / difficulties to my couchsurf, esp. after midnight). It was really great in several ways: super convenient; sense of trust with leaving my things there (and in the Angel cloakroom); comfy hammocks; quiet (but see below); and dark (enough for me to not be in pain taking my glasses off — only CERT had a room where I could also do that).
It was not so great in that there were a handful of people who snore really, really loud. This isn't their fault of course, but I think as a purely pragmatic response, it'd be helpful make anti-snoring breathing strips available, put up a bunch of the sound-dampening curtain fabric, and/or make a sound-segregated room for people who snore so that those of us who don't can have quiet. :P
Of course, that isn't the only place people slept. I know people slept in the assembly areas, lounges, etc. too. That's probably always going to be true; people stay too late for travel to be feasible (or a good idea).
So, in general, I think it'd be a good idea to build some sort of area with a bunch of bunk beds that lets more people sleep more comfortably in less space. Yes, I know that Officially™ this wasn't supposed to happen, but in reality, it did and will, so this should be approached as a harm reduction / public utilities issue.
Same for showers. Showers were available for people with camper vans, but that's it. I understand that they paid for it, but … would you rather that people take a shower or no? If yes (and I think yes), then they should be available.
Almost all the spaces where one could lie down were single-person sized. Cuddling is nice (especially among a group of people who often have social difficulties), and IMHO be better enabled. I'd suggest having some lying-down spaces — in the public dark/quiet rooms — that fit 2-3 people to a surface, so that people can cuddle without being precarious / uncomfortable on a couch or hammock or floor. (That's both for couples who attend together, and friends / … that one makes at Congress.)
  • Adding to this: It was hard for me to find a place to privately talk between two people. The open spaces are loud and have terrible echo, and the one quiet room i could find was meant for autistic people and i didn't want to intrude and talk in there. Just having a room with carpet and booths to quietly talk in without being *easily* overheard would have been very nice. The congress was very much hard surfaces and industrial design, which looked cool but wasn't particularly cozy. - sirenensang
    • I very strongly agree. Quiet, private, cozy spaces to talk (scattered throughout) are a must for an event where the benefits are so often about serendipitous personal conversations. — Sai
Lastly: with 16k+ adults in one place, a bunch are going to want to fuck. I don't think we want that to happen in e.g. the accessible toilets (because people need to use those), nor in the general quiet/sleeping rooms (because it'll disturb others), nor in random areas of Congress (because someone else might walk in). So I'd suggest some spaces that are designated as sex-okay; have condoms, lube, & cleaning supplies available, and — like quiet spaces — have norms established for being excellent to each other (e.g. consent, cleaning up after yourself, using appropriate protection, asking about testing status, etc). These could be basically bunk beds also, but with more sound insulation curtain etc.
I know that sex at Congress is likely a taboo topic, but again I think it should be treated as a simple fact of life — people are going to fuck — and treated like any other human need (like food, drink, sleep, medicine, and toilets). It can also be an opportunity to do some public health outreach, e.g. sexual health education, PrEP tablets for the week, fast STI testing / verification, condoms, etc. — Sai
  • Kinky Geeks' "darkroom" was explicitly intended for cuddling, chilling, *clothed* bondage, anything more was discouraged. Orga rightly trusted Kinky Geeks with keeping it that way. - sirenensang
    • I wasn't aware of it, though I'd made a specific effort to find out about all of the available dark/quiet rooms. That sounds like it would've been quite nice, had I known it was there. — Sai
  • The idea behind that space, at least how I saw it, was to have a place to calm down, relax, maybe even have a nap outside of the hectic congress. Besides, it was a kink-positive quiet space, where you could also practice Bondage as an art/meditation/skill, without disturbing others. The intention was not to provide a space for orgies, and it self-regulated pretty well in that direction. - MrCode
  • I know that people like sex. Hell, I'm sort of an aficionado myself. Thing is, if a venue officially permits it and/or provides designated spaces, they assume partial legal responsibility, and probably moral responsibility. I don't want to see the epic shitstorm that'd develop if even one person had a public complaint about something that happened to/with/around them in one of the "official CCC sex rooms". I'm frankly surprised that a thing like the Kinky Geek's bondage/darkroom was allowed to exist. — DuckMan
  • No to sex facilities. I mean, REALLY? Use your hotel room for that!
  • Mind yourself that a lot of attendees do not have the luxury of a dedicated hotel room for themselves, let alone one reachable within a short amount of time. Even if you have are lucky enough to have a dedicated hotel room directly next to the main train station in Leipzig, it will take you at least half an hour to get there from Congress (I know of cases where neither of the people involved did have a place/room where they could have gone). People are gonna fuck whether you like it or not, so better find ways to steer them to some place where they don't disturb other attendees and are not disturbed themselves. And even for people not intending to have sex, there was clearly a big shortage of spots where you could cuddle undisturbed without feeling like you were on display at a zoo. --Srslypascal (talk) 16:41, 13 January 2019 (CET)
  • Please put bondage areas / darkrooms out of the center of other asseblys. There is enough space to provide a place, where there are not interrupted by others and are not disturbung others. --F2k1de (talk) 21:35, 1 January 2019 (CET)
  • I second this, especially given the fire safety requirements in the big halls which effectively prevent providing a sufficiently big area with an opaque roof/ceiling. A room in the CCL or the "Messehaus" seems much better suited for this and could easily be fitted with some blinds in order to provide a few seperated cuddling areas for people. --Srslypascal (talk) 16:41, 13 January 2019 (CET)
  • Next time, we need more Camper stands and an early Camper ticket sale, as people need to arrange for rental of motorhomes.

Camping

  • Camping at 35c3 was fantastic! +1

I will definitely try to get a space at 36c3. +1 I have three small suggestions Obri (talk)

    • Running Water near the IBC container would help with cleaning the toilet cassete. +1
    • Add some OSB flooring in front of the showers to keep the dirt out of the shower cabines. +1
    • Not sure what to do about this, i had to disable my fire alarm/CO detector as it was beeping all the time, i guess it was triggered by smoke from diesel and wood heatings.
    • Datenklos (network cable connection points) would be great (and would reduce the trouble with wifi)


Heaven's Kitchen

  • The food was consistently excellent and filling (and all of it stuff I can eat, yay!). Especially the berry cream desserts, carrot salads, and soy meat dishes (omnomnom).

    Also excellent: the kitchen staff. I worked as an Angel in the kitchen (~8h total, approx. days -2 to 2). I went in with a guide cane etc. (i.e. obviously blind). Everyone treated me with respect, believed me about my capabilities (e.g. I'm pretty good with a chef's knife), gave me work suited to my skillset, followed my instructions about how to treat me about the blindness, and expected me to perform as well as anyone else. I realize that for most people reading this, that might sound merely normal, but for people with disabilities, it is very much not. The completely accepting attitude is something I really appreciated. — Sai
  • I agree mostly, but there should be a meat option. I'm not saying no more vegan or vegetarian, but at least on the level that most restaurants treat vegans, sort of like "Oh, and we have this one thing with animal in it". — DuckMan
    • Come on, You can go without for a week. Why create additional logistical challenges if the kitchen already meets the nutritional needs of everyone present? - sirenensang
    • Note that there totally was a meat option for angels and I am glad it existed - problem is, it was at the end of the world (far end of the LOC). I know there's practical constraints but @orga: please move it somewhere closer if you can. --vrs (talk) 01:40, 2 January 2019 (CET)
      • The Angelkitchen ist mostly there to provide Nightshifts with Bread & Soup. They're making some other things for fun, but thats not an official part of the angel catering (Your Food Vouchers pe won't be accepted there.) --Td00 (talk) 16:48, 13 January 2019 (CET)
    • I also often eat meat, but the provided food and the desserts were excellent (thx!) even without meal. Consider, that good meal is quite expensive. — Patrick (talk)
    • Cooking with meat not only introduces a whole new level of legal considerations regarding food safety and hygiene, but also creates religious headaches since many religions have their own "favourite" animal they don't want to eat or even touch. If you really "need" meat in your food, just bring your own. --Equinox (talk) 19:11, 2 January 2019 (CET)
    • I highly doubt, that the kitchen crew (Mecklenburgers) is willing to cook dead animals. Besides there is no need to. The Food is excellent as it is and it is an opportunity to learn something about vegetarian / vegan cooking! - Gom (talk)
  • Food Voucher Situation
    • On day 1 & 2, and during buildup, I noticed a constant shortage of Food Vouchers for buildup and maintenance staff. The kitchen staff did a very good job, but had to raise a red flag from time to time, warning for overload and food shortage. This sends a bad message to the hard-working buildup staff. Next time, we need more food and staff, and maybe an extra kitchen to address this situation. I am aware of the cost aspect. This needs to be calculated for. ajuvo2
  • Maybe the voucher system can be optimized to get the food vouchers online in the engelsystem, also in advance, and/or split the food distribution into two slots, and/or use c3queue also for the heavens kitchen queue. I had only the chance to get food in the last day because either I was too early in heaven and there were no vouchers, to late and there were no more left or the queue was too long before my next shift.— Patrick (talk)
  • The food was great as always, perhaps a bit too salty at the start. It would be nice if the ticket/voucher-system could be less complicated and clear to all even before build-up starts (during build-up, nobody has time) Webmind (talk)
  • I liked all the food, but on most days i can't get none of it. Opening hours may be extendet on day 0 and day 4, if possible.--NOTaCAMEL (talk)

Angels

I was approached by some angels voicing their resentment about some topics:

  • all the authorizations have to be requested respectively the tutorials visited again; angles doing bar-service for the Nth year (iirc 6+) feel mucked by this buerocracy; maybe a way to migrate/keep engelsystem-accounts could improve this situation
  • the good shifts are taken immediately (sic); I could imagine a system where more ppl than needed can apply to a shift and let a PRNG decide who gets to help N hours before the shift; angels would probably have a specified time to accept their duty or the system would pick the next random person on the list that applied
  • angels that 'just' help a few hours every year never get to apply for a shirt - keeping the account would enable accumulating hours and thus getting a shirt at least every few years.


  • I was told by a friend, second-time-congress-participant and first-time-angel, that he had great difficulty to understand the shift booking system, the angel-shirt-application process, disliked the Engelsystem UI, and finally went without a t-shirt as he was told heaven / merch had run out of Angel shirts. Ugh. It seems we need to take more and better care of first-time angels, in order to have them available even in the future. ajuvo2
  • It was somewhat hard to get free drinks while tear down happened. After working for hours in CCL and Hall 2 I needed to beg my friends for their vouchers. I only got two myself while I was munching a waffle at LOC but I got none while I was working before and afterwards outside of LOC. So please distribute vouchers more evenly to all the working volunteers. - Gom (talk)
  • I second the point on unnecessary and preventable bureaucracy involved when applying to getting assigned some of the more specialized angel types. Another annoying and recurring problem is the fact the many introductions are held during overlapping time windows, effectively preventing people of trying out different kinds of angel shifts because they cannot attend the required introduction meetings. Especially short introductions like the one for LOC angels should be offered on a much more flexible basis than just once or twice per day, and preferably not at the same time as other introductions. --Srslypascal (talk) 16:57, 13 January 2019 (CET)

CERT

  • I have several complex issues (blindness is not nearly my worst disability). These caused initial difficulties/concerns (pre day 0, when the main team hadn't yet arrived). However, CERT (especially MadDoc) was really good about the follow-up (and mitigating that situation), and we worked it out well in the end. I relied on their services ~3–4 times during Congress — to mediate situations, help me when I was in a bad state, or have a dark/quiet room with liquid nutrition while I crashed. I felt very safe & comfortable with them. Plus, they found a couple of my workshop participants who'd wandered waaaaay off course without me noticing, when I couldn't find them myself. <3. — Sai

misc website features/usability

  • Engelsystem and Fahrplan need favicons. They can become quite hard to find among your tabs especially you're doing shift coordination.
  • It'd be neat if Fahrplan abstracts linked to media.ccc.de once the recordings are up.
  • Static:Self-organized_Sessions#Calendar absolutely does not scale to the number of workshops at congress. Could it maybe be rendered in a Fahrplan-like format?

Wiki design

I really liked the wiki design this year, really well done! I just want to note a few minor things:

  • Navigation on top mixes internal and external links, would be nice if those were marked or separated in some way
  • Two non-descript menu entries on the right (cog wheel/settings & little person/login/register) could be improved with some actual text to make them more visible and accessible (see wiki "Mystery meat navigation")

--Essbesteck (talk) 23:26, 3 January 2019 (CET)

Wiki page urls: use short urls in next congress wiki

For the 36c3 wiki we should better use wiki short urls to avoid the /index.php/ fragment; see https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Manual:Short_URL . --Wikinaut (talk) 23:42, 5 January 2019 (CET)

public roller fleet

There were issues with people assuming rollers were public domain, and a general shortage of such vehicles. It'd be neat if there was a public roller fleet (and maybe an angel one as well) that people could use, provided they leave it on the premises and don't hog it for longer than they need to. This not only would alleviate the lack of rollers but also make it very clear that private rollers are not public. --vrs (talk) 01:57, 2 January 2019 (CET)

  • Perhaps this can be solved by someone organising a pre-buying site where you can get your roller/scooter ready at congress. Managing a fleet seems like a lot of overhead. Webmind (talk)

prepared shortest route navigation "from here to i" signs "Wegweiser"

  • I propose prepared ("precalculated") Wegweiser (path signs) for all major nodes of the conference area, which, on every sign indicate all shortest (one-way) routes from that standpoint here to Hall i. So, every sign is individual for the specific location here. (Vorbereitete Einbahn-Routen Karten für Weg von hier nach Saal i, jeweils alle Kombinationen.). A concrete example will be added here in the next days.

--Wikinaut (talk) 12:43, 2 January 2019 (CET)

  • I'd love to see route signs on site, perhaps with distances in meters and minutes, scenic route options, etc. Also perhaps the one-way lanes clearly indicated and also in the navigation(c3nav) tool. Webmind (talk)
Yes, this is my goal, thank you for your valuable addition. I am already in contact with @c3nav. As they have an API, we can semi-automate the generation and calculation of travelling times. --Wikinaut (talk) 16:31, 2 January 2019 (CET)

assembly/session pages should drop ads for other sessions

In order to make assembly pages and similar pages concise, I propose to drop the section of advertisments of other sesssions. 

Other sessions...

    Backspace Jeopardy
    GNU Radio Users & Devs Meetup
    Open-Science-AG/de-RSE MeetUp
    SUSIbian - Debian with Open Source Conversational Assistant SUSI.AI
    Emacs

... further results

(Sessions/Assembly-Seiten sollen nicht mehr diese Werbung für andere Sessions zeigen, Beispiel https://events.ccc.de/congress/2018/wiki/index.php/Session:Introduction_to_Qubes_OS )

--Wikinaut (talk) 12:43, 2 January 2019 (CET)

reducing bar waiting times: introduce speed lanes

I propose to introduce 1...3 "Schnellkasse"n (speed lanes) at the bars where one only can order bottled beverages ("1..5 bottles only"), and only up to a maximum of five (or three).

--Wikinaut (talk) 12:43, 2 January 2019 (CET)

Optimizing access to halls 2 and 4 during buildup and teardown

I propose putting a dedicated angel next to the emergency exit doors at level -1 of the restaurant between halls 2 and 4, so people walking by from the railway/tramway station can get *a lot* easier and faster to halls 2 and 4 (by just walking along the glass hall) without having to take the huuuge detour through gate 1 and walking all around the entire campus.

--Srslypascal (talk) 16:25, 13 January 2019 (CET)

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