We would like to thank PL-Orga and the rest of the Chaos Computer Club for taking a brave (brave only in "the German context") stance of officially recognizing Palestinian statehood by taking down Palestinian flags in accordance with the long-standing no national flags policy. We hope this is a sign that we can have more content on this controversial (also only in "the German context") subject on the official schedule next year.
It seemed to me that the amount of German content in the programme increased, compared to previous years. This includes both session that are only in German (often with English titles for some reason), or sessions that cover German topics only. While this makes sense given where the Congress takes place and the political situation in the country, I felt like it separated us non-Germans from the "core" German hackers communities, who maybe are the intended audience of Congress. This also led to lost opportunities for me to understand more about what happens in the country. Having said that, cheers to c3lingo heroes for providing interpretation.
At 39C3, 36% of the talks in the curated program were held in German, compared with 40% at 38C3
For me CCC is local communities and local grass roots outreach (Chaos macht Schule, students…) first. Which includes disadvantaged, younger and older people etc. who rather speak and read German as a local language. (Not against English content and I appreciate the accessibility of having so much translations but personally I think I don't want an 'English first' approach for this community event. Maybe put even more effort into providing translations, bring back live subtitles and such for attendees who have the means to travel to Germany for Congress but are discouraged that it has some amount of German-only content.)
There appears to be much higher demand for SoS rooms than what is made available +1 +1
The system for booking SoS rooms was worse than in other years. Being able to see room availability was very nice, but not knowing when the rooms would be released for booking caused a lot of work (constantly checking). The system was much more fair and transparent when it was announced via the blog that the rooms are available for booking now.
There appears to be much higher demand for workshop-style SoS rooms than what is available. Saal D is the only room with “Bankettbestuhlung” (chairs around tables). Saal E, Saal 6 etc. are not suitable for workshops with laptops. Workshop formats requiring tables often enough have no choice but to try and adapt to rooms without tables (“Reihenbestuhlung”). I would argue that there are already more than enough frontal talks at congress, but face to face interactive workshops could be strengthened.
Felt like considerably less SoSs than before, too.
It would be fantastic if workshop rooms could be prepared with multi power sockets at each table. +1
Starting tear down of assemblies before 16:00 was criticised by PL like the year before. On the other hand, C3Accessebilty occupied parts of our tables before 17:00 and also C3Power came by and started their work at the same time, also a repetition of last year. We know how much time we need for cleaning, sorting, packing our stuff and we know, that we need electrical power for 1½ hour after beginning our tear down. It would be nice to find a middle ground between PL rightfully criticising premature tear down and getting rushed by Möbelhaus, Stadtwerke, C3Whatever. Albeit, we know tear down has to be fast to utilise all the available hands.
Loved the Congress again: Evolving, courageous community felt like a small break from the general doom
Noticed some off-putting behaviour and irritating orga structures: Maybe revise the balance between overworking as voluntary organizers that hold power while also (maybe out of lack of resources and to prevent the real threat of 'maleficent takeovers') gatekeeping other volunteers from supporting organisation. Maybe see if there are better options to help people grow into more responsibilities. Specifically for example content and accessibility team. (It's a difficult and specific topic, I know and don't want to blame anyone. I hope our people and structures are resilient enough but don't need to be resilient either.)
Build-up
We traveled a long distance from another continent and incorporated this congress into a larger European trip. We arrived early, hoping to volunteer, but found there was little for us to do. This left us feeling isolated and confused; we genuinely wanted to be helpful. Over the course of seven days, we managed to complete just one two-hour dishwashing shift each. It seemed there were enough tasks planned for only about 30 angels, while many more had come. I don't understand why everyone was asked to arrive early when it might have been sufficient to invite only those living in Hamburg. The "Christmas Dinner" was disappointing compared to my memories of Leipzig. While I'm not religious, I believe that when people volunteer their time during the holidays, they deserve a better meal than a sad serving of vegan currywurst and sauerkraut. Yes, I already know "orga" aren't getting paid either, but this could have been handled better and with more empathy for people who showed up to donate their time to you. Just give people the stupid t-shirt for simply showing up at that point, jfc.
to be fair the lunch on the 25th was really good and festive. Depending on the cultural sphere in Germany it is quite common to have a sparse Dinner (like a salad) on the 24th and then eat festive on the 25th.
Hub
Newlines in table cells should be supported
The exchange feature feels kinda rushed and should be refined. Things like some sorting and autocomplete for the category during ad creation would definitely improve the experience quite a bit.
Responsive Design is also lacking (current dating exchange content makes the page non-scrollable on mobile when categories are displayed) +1
sorting sos by created date would be nice, to check updates
also: by modified date +1
c3nav support for sos locations
Fahrplan / Schedule view has A LOT of nice and useful filters, but I still mostly used fahrplan.cc if I wanted to know what's on next because that defaults to only showing stuff that's not over yet, sorted by start time. A button to jump to "now" in the view could be helpful, and just going there by default even more. (I created https://git.cccv.de/hub/hub/-/issues/1031 for this.)
Tags for assemblies, projects, sessions: Suggestion: When someone enters a tag, first either present a drop-down list with already existing categories (and "create new" only at the bottom), or do partial string autocompletion as soon as someone starts typing, and when a new category is about to be created put a dialogue in between asking for confirmation if the already existing tag(s) do not fit and one really wants to create a new tag.
Please make assembly-events and self-organized-sessions one thing. I always had my event twice in the hub. As SOS so that I can book a room for it and a second time as assembly event, so that I can link it to the assembly. Why not just allow a SOS to be associated with an assembly? +2
Furthermore, it would be fantastic if an assembly event could be linked either only to the assembly or additionally to a specific assembly project.
The assembly page should show all events, but assembly projects should also list the events which are directly related to the corresponding project.
SOS and projects should be optionally be linkable to assemblies. So an SOS that is linked to an assembly is an assembly event. SOS not linked to an assembly are just SOS. Similar for projects. I am not sure about the case that an assembly event is not also an SOS, maybe those can be flagged somehow.
In the events list (like the SoS list), make not only the title, but also the event time clickable. (Or the entire card.)
In the events list (like the SoS list), show not only the event start time, but also its end time.
Trying to find free SoS slots is very difficult. A calendar view with columns per SoS room would be highly appreciated.
Given there is a Schedule page, the separate SoS page seems redundant. Maybe “Self-organized Sessions“ in the sidebar should just be a link to a prefiltered schedule view?
I wish there was an account-bound, dynamically generated ICS URL, to view one’s own favorited events in the laptop’s or smartphone’s calendar app. +1
There is. Click on the profile icon in the upper right corner, select "Edit your profile" and there is a list of your favorite events with an export button. Just copy the iCal link from there.
Clickable links in DMs would be great, at least to internal services like like c3nav
the mix of indistinguishable hub-internal and external links in the sidebar is not optimal as a click on for example lightning talks takes me to a different page with no way (except for the back button in my browser) to return to the hub
the hub is kinda hard to browse to, putting a redirect at a subdomain like hub.events.ccc.de would make it easier to find than guessing keywords that make it turn up it in my browser history (or memorizing /congress/$year/hub/, which is a hassle to type) (+1)
No index for wiki pages, some (like Filesharing I think) are only discoverable via Global History, search or external links
Dating exchange
The categories got a mess and not easy to navigate. +2
Suggestion: When someone enters a category, first either present a drop-down list with already existing categories (and "create new" only at the bottom), or do partial string autocompletion as soon as someone starts typing, and when a new category is about to be created put a dialogue in between asking for confirmation if the already existing categories do not fit and one really wants to create a new category.
Some categories where just doubled due to typos, different writing, different language.
Assemblies
i loved the concept of shared tables (both for sessions and for people without assemblies) +5
Same, but the scope of the signs was a bit unclear for the non-round tables. In a row of the long tables, only the first pair of tables (or sometimes even only two seats) were shared, perhaps a number of seats can be added to the shared signs +1
why do the assemblies tear down so early? I get that everyone wants to go get home in a timely manner but once the first pack, everyone around them packs too and it just feels off. Then we get a few awkward hours with no assemblies but the real teardown hasn’t started either. +1
Difficult topic: for the decision how much space an assembly gets, there should be taken into account, what the assembly is contributing to the Chaos Vibes. Do they have events, do they have setups like art work or other cool stuff to play with. They should get priority over those who just want reserved seats for their group. I don't know if that's already handled that way, so if it is, just keep it.
Personally, I would appreciate more space for smaller community groups and personal interaction instead of more space for (basically professional albeit they started as community projects) organisations like Wikimedia, Digitalcourage, Rote Hilfe, Cadus, GnuTaler… felt even more commercial(?) partly more like market stalls this year than in the last years. Additionally, the repeating presentations with hardly any new content in the scarce main tracks or shared spaces by such organisations feels off.
Merch
For the open sale, the line is getting out of hand and requires quite some effort to control. Perhaps a different queuing approach could be evaluated (like the last time the DECT registration was a manual process and queue tags were handed out to decouple the place of queuing from the place of receiving the service rendered). One angel controlling a queue ticket printer seems like a sensible anti DDoS protection.
One option would be to handle it like airlines and have time slots for different "seat" sections. Allow beings to click a collection "ticket" for a time slot so they can schedule it with their talks.
Venue
The air in CCH was very dry, which was uncomfortable (dry skin and chapped lips) +5
The air in CCH was made much worse with the use of fog machines. Fog machines are not necessary and cause health issues for some people. I get sick from them every year and so do several people I know. This year it was worse than ever, with the air in the main lobby as well as in most of the areas with bars being very bad every evening. This is an accessibility issue, please take it seriously and stop using fog machines - they're not an essential need and they hurt people.
The food space in front of Saal D smells unbearably like burnt frying oil. Must very much improve ventilation, or get rid of all food production which evaporates toxic fumes.
The upstairs areas got uncomfortably hot while crowded, the ventilation configuration should be improved
Wer startet mit mir eine Crowdfunding-Kampagne, um der CCH-Verwaltung ein paar Thermometer zu kaufen? Ich hatte echt Schwierigkeiten wegen der Temperaturen. Meistens war es brüllend heiss. Ich habe ca. 4 Liter pro Tag getrunken, bei Minustemperaturen ausserhalb des Gebäudes. Was ist da los?
-1 (ich fand's angenehm, ein T-Shirt tragen zu können) +1
I liked that orga recognized the need to keep the entrances smoke free +1 ... unfortunately, this only moved the problem 5-10m away from the doors. Maybe set up a cozy smoking corner off to the side and also away from the food trucks? On one day I couldn't get dinner there cause beings smoked in the queues there, I would have been a case for CERT, if I tried to ignore that and queue in their exhaust!
To me, it felt like the infrastructure this year was particularly unreliable (WiFi felt way slower oftentimes, DECT issues, freight elevators breaking constantly). Not sure if anything can be done about the latter, but according to local security staff they only ever break during the congress. Perhaps the CCH should invest more in preventive maintenance?
I found the walls in Halle H really annoying. Like going through a metro station while behind the walls the cool stuff was going on. To me much of the CCC spirit is about inclusiveness and openness. Hiding assemblies behind walls is to me undermining that CCC spirit. There should be, of course, safe spaces, maybe even closed private spaces, for those who need them. They can be implemented like Heaven. From a visitors point of view all the cool stuff is hidden behind the walls. From an assembly's point of view, people passing by don't notice you. Maybe instead of the walls we should consider barriers, one can sit on. Then the ways are still free for people to quickly go through the hall, there are more places to sit and you can oversee the cools stuff that's going on. Maybe the triangle where the Uptime bar is, can still be behind walls. Same for the stage. But the hack center parts should be open. +4
The Internet via Wifi in Saal 1 oftentimes did not work at all, especially when the room was full.
It wasn't my problem however there were some people in wheelchairs struggling with the lack of automatic door between the Radisson and CCH. +1
In the food corner at level 2, there were still no accessible tables for wheelchair users
Actual stickers with cool content are drowned in advertisement stickers
Partly too dark coloured lights: Impossible to read some signs
Food
The CCH vegan food was hit or miss, sometimes the food bowl were well filled, other times a much smaller amount. Sometimes it was possible to get an extra roll, other times it was not possible as the computer says no. Especially when trying to avoid the Angel Refueling due to long lines and conflicting shifts, I would have hoped to have better catering +2
One sugar-free mate option in all the bars would I'm sure be very popular (and keep our teeth healthy <3) +2
It would be great to have an alternative drink to the Tschunk because not everyone likes Mate, e.g. Cuba Libe.
Travel
I asked one of the taxi drivers outside for approximate cost to my target destination. He told me a price that was ~2x the actual cost you would typically expect for this route. The next driver I asked did give me a sensible estimate, and he transported me via a direct route. Did anyone here have any similar experiences?
Public transport in Hamburg after midnight can be pretty annoying.
Heaven
It's great tea was reintroduced, but black tea was only added around day 3 or something. Please supply more black tea earlier on 🙏
Accesscontrol Schichten sollten Wesen nicht ungefragt berühren. Vermutlich sollte das nächstes Jahr auf den Zettel der bei den Schichte rumliegt stehen.
Das steht bereits seit Jahren auf den Zetteln.
wenn sowas vorkommt: Person drauf ansprechen, falls nicht möglich: Tag + Zeit merken und nachher im Himmel melden oder direkt Nick des Engel aufschreiben und an den Himmel weitergeben
Minderjährigen-merch fürs Engeln, bzw. separates goodie-score-tracking für Minderjährige? Finde generell, dass man da evtl. mit dem Stundenkontingent ein bisschen runtergehen könnte. Innerhalb von 4 Tagen 20h Arbeiten ist für Kinder vielleicht etwas hart angesetzt und wenn alle anderen um das Engelshirt eifern kann ich verstehen dass die das auch wollen. Hintergrund: Kleines Geschwister engelte ein paar Mal nachts weils da mehr zählt. Nachdem sie da auch bock drauf hatte ist alles ok, aber separate Kinder-Engel die sich nach Uhrzeiten, wo die Polizei das uncool findet, keine Schichten mehr clicken können wären vielleicht eine Idee.
I'm really glad for the after-party and tear down vouchers, but please do not repeat the system of two types of vouchers again.
The system wasn't explained until overworked Angeles hit the (wrong) bar and got told, that they "just" need to walk into the freezing outside, get into the loud, stuffy lounge, get their Tschunk and come back to talk to their friends again. The alternative was to just know the proper people, somewhat interrupting their chat with their friends and ask for an exchange.
+2
Distribution of vouchers for the after-party is a game of luck (as every year). Working in the catacombs, cleaning up forgotten stuff and getting back to the LOC after LOC was closed resulted in a round of begging for vouchers (and getting the wrong type, see above).
Angelfood
The food vouchers seem to have worked nicely (apart from the initial issues with the missing quiet zone around the QR Code in dark mode) 👍
The menu for the day should be posted on a daily basis in the news section, the same way it worked in previous years
Food was great, thanks to everyone involved <3
+3
Die digitalen Essens-Voucher haben gut funktioniert, allerdings hatte ich das Problem, dass ich meine ersten Schichten erst an Tag 1 Nachmittag/Abend gemacht hatte. Ich war daher an Tag 1 komplett auf das Essen außerhalb angewiesen, hatte dafür dann aber am Ende (Tag 4) zwei ungenutzte Voucher übrig, die ich an Tag 1 gut hätte gebrauchen können. Es wäre toll, wenn sich dafür eine Lösung finden würde, z. B. die ersten 1-2 Voucher bekommt man schon, wenn man sich Schichten mit der entsprechenden Stundenzahl geklickt hat. Oder man hat ein Guthaben von sechs Stunden an Tag 0, was nach und nach reduziert wird auf Null an Tag vier, so dass man am Ende wirklich genug Stunden haben muss. +1
I had a similar problem with the food vouchers plus I arrived on Day -2 during the holidays when a lot of food places were closed: Hungry on the first days but several unused vouchers in the end
After trying to discuss the issue at length in the last two years, I find that still nothing is done to encourage people to wash their hands after they’ve eaten. The outgoing traffic is routed away from any hand-washing opportunity and going past the sinks at the entrance is discouraged by signs establishing a one-way system. In my memory signs in Leipzig encouraged people to wash their hands before and after eating via the toilets that people passed on their way in and out. I can understand the reasoning behind the traffic flow at the CCH angel restaurant but still think this is a grave mistake and a solution should be found. (+1)
I would find it very helpful if the closure labels on the Engelbrötchen were color-coded according to type, as in some refrigerators or when you take a roll out of a box, it is very difficult to see what is on the roll. e.g.: red glue means meat, white means jam, black means Nutella, yellow means cheese, or something like that. (+1)
Cameras in presentation halls
Kameras zur Zählung des Füllstands in den Vortragsräumen gehen GAR NICHT. Sicher, auf der einen Seite filmen diese, wie auf den Hinweisschildern behauptet, die Menschen nur von hinten. Also, so lange niemand auf die Idee kommt, sich mal umzudrehen. Und so lange alle den Saal nur rückwärts gehend wieder verlassen, aber das versteht sich von selbst. Auf der anderen Seite jedoch würde ich den Leuten, die für diese Entscheidung verantwortlich sind, mal empfehlen sich über aktuelle Möglichkeiten zur Identifizierung von Personen über Videomaterial zu informieren. Mal die erstbesten Stichpunkte aufgelistet: Kleidung, Körpergröße, Gangart, Form des Kopfs von hinten. Wie bitte, das macht ihr alles gar nicht? Nur leider haben diese Kameras weniger Transparenz als die KI-Kameras am Hansaplatz, und ob das System dahinter z.B. in einem eigenen Netzwerk läuft und airgapped ist, weiss ich auch nicht. Datensparsamere Methoden sind verfügbar, nutzt sie bitte. Und ja, ich bin verbittert und verwirrt darüber, so etwas ausgerechnet an diesem Ort zu sehen.
+1
Ich konnte auch von außerhalb des Gebäudes zeitweise beobachten wie CCH-Mitarbeiter in dessen Leitwarte vmtl. genau so einen Kamerafeed von Saal 1 angeschaut haben. Menschen waren gerade auf dem oberen Rang gut erkennbar dabei.
Signage
Screens right above lecture hall doors were showing events all around the venue, I think they should (additionally) show what's coming up in that specific room. Some rooms hosted some smaller talks and I wasn't very familiar with the CCH venue, and unsure if I went to the right place sometimes.
+1
Wondering whether the angel allocation worked way better than before: I didn't see angel statistics and calls this year on the public displays
Video
The sign language interpreter is very small: Please make them bigger (see for example Sendung mit der Maus). „sign language interpreter must occupy at least 1/3 of visible screen area.“ > Link Guidelines : https://www.arcom.fr/sites/default/files/2022-03/Guide%20de%20mise%20en%20image%20de%20la%20Langue%20des%20signes%20fran%C3%A7aise%20%28LSF%29_4.pdf
House of Tea
I would have loved to go but it was full and loud. I noticed how dirty the tables were left and how many people were there just to chat or worse to roll their smokable. +1
Here’s my idea to fix it
2 new shift types, Host and Greeter: the host walks around inside, makes sure people keep an appropriate volume (you don’t need to whisper all the time but a lower volume would be tons better than everyone sooner or later yelling because no one can understand each other) and maybe ask if everything is alright cleaning if people did forget something etc; and the greeter who makes sure people put away their shoes properly (there were shelves but no sign, and we need the emergency exit free of shoes) and explains rules like making sure you leave it as clean as you found it, how to drink/host Tea etc.
Dirty tables are somehow a default to not put laptops on them. If a table is crammed full, bring the dirty cups to the buffet, ask for a garbage bag and bring some order to the chaos. A couple of beings became part of the HoT like that.
In general, this is a shared space. Telling people, what they are allowed to do and what not, seems absurd. You can try to do that next year on your own (hopefully not!). But don't expect anyone to follow your words. The same for signage. This community is well known for ignoring signs. The more signs, the worse. There are already too many signs. A lot of discussions center around the signs, so many, an extra signage group formed within the HoT. Feel free to join them. Really, this is not to be defensive. You could have just tried to talk to us and we may have even printed and laminated new signs during congress.
The shoes create a lot of problems. Also lost and found. If you have any ideas, please join the matrix channel (#houseoftea:1312.media).
Trash/Littering
I had the feeling that there was way more trash on the floor compared to the last years. I personally would love to do a pickup shift at let’s say two points of the day, just to get a certain cleanliness back. It was especially bad after the night from day 3 to 4. Yeah we will do tear down up on day 4 but there are still some hours that also deserve to be clean.
+1 I sometimes cleaned up the area around me when doing evacuation shifts and freeing escape routes in the mornings and noticed the big amount of trash/disrespect for this community-made community event, too.
Presale
thanks for changing the replication rules of the community vouchers!
according to some people chatting on Mastodon, there weren't any changes, so maybe it's how the bank process stuff?
as somebody who is affected by this change (i don't live in germany) i can definitly say: there was a change. Maybe don't trust randoms on mastodon and rather read events.ccc.de or the info pages.
the people on mastodon where the people in charge of the system, also no change was actually described on the blog or the info pages. So what was the change?