Thoughts on livestreaming HYH?

[Brett Neese]

Moheeb can't make it to the next HYH, where we will be discussing the website refresh we've worked on together (among other things.)

I know that we've been very hesitant for good reasons about remote/hybrid meetings and especially allowing remote voting and I don't wish to stir that pot again,.. but I am curious if there would be any strong objections (or support) to the idea of providing an audio livestream of HYH (and our board meetings too!) so that the discussions are more accessible to the broader membership in scenarios like these. 

It doesn't have to be a two-way thing, I'm thinking more like a webinar than a Zoom call, and in fact that's quite impractical given our current A/V setup anyway. And we would not be allowing remote voting. But in this specific case if there are any questions I don't have answers to, it would be good for Moheeb to be able to send them my way to answer over Slack. So it really seems beneficial to provide this as an option. 

I'm sure there are privacy concerns, too, but it seems to me that transparency and privacy are a bit at odds.

Any thoughts?

Brett

[Rick Blake]

We haven't been streaming HYH in the past. I don't thinking we should.

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[sherman...@yahoo.com]

I'd be curious what the downside would be. It could create greater awareness and even stimulate more members attending in person in the future.

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[Brett Neese]

Yeah, I'm not super attached or anything, but I'm struggling to come up with downsides, especially if it's broadcast-only (no backseat drivers). I can see a slight argument to the privacy side, but HYH isn't exactly a hushed affair. 

FWIW, my previous hackerspace switched to doing virtual and then hybrid weekly meetings during the pandemic and never went back. I sometimes even pop in to stay connected. It's been great for engagement, everyone knows how awful LA traffic is so it was great for our members in Pasenda or in my case Mexico (LOL). 

Very different culture around the purpose of their weekly meeting, though, they don't really use proposals so it's more about general updates, finding out what's going on and up and coming in the space, and show and tell. (Cleaning is generally not part of their weekly meetings.)

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[Robert Bushman]

I have no opinion, but I can offer some backstory:

We have had video calls running during HYH on at least a few occassions.
The ones I recall were to loop someone in who couldn't be there. I've
fired them up a couple times, and it was pretty common during some
phases of COVID.

I think the main downside that was raised was rehashing the in-person
voting issue, which is a separate issue and should be kept separate, in
a separate thread.

Nobody is alone at the lab during HYH, so a video link doesn't raise all
the same security issues as the live cams. Roll call is published, which
counters the major privacy concerns as well. (though maybe people can
choose not to be identified in the meeting notes? IDK)

There's also a do-ocracy and in-person-people-first thing. If nobody
starts the video, or if video dies, it should not impede HYH.

There may also be an impact on incentive to be there in person. Being
there is really important. It is, first and foremost, HACK your
hackerspace; not vote on things about your hackerspace. You can't take
out the trash over Jitsi.

[David Lang]

the normal thing if a critical person can't make a HYH is to just postphone the
topic to the next HYH isn't it?

David Lang

On Fri, 2 Jan 2026, Brett Neese wrote:

> Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2026 09:43:54 -0700
> From: Brett Neese <br...@neese.rocks>
> Reply-To: heatsy...@googlegroups.com
> To: heatsy...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: [HSL] Thoughts on livestreaming HYH?

>
> Moheeb can't make it to the next HYH, where we will be discussing the
> website refresh we've worked on together (among other things.)
>
> I know that we've been very hesitant for good reasons about remote/hybrid
> meetings and especially allowing remote voting and I don't wish to stir
> that pot again,.. but I am curious if there would be any strong objections
> (or support) to the idea of providing an audio livestream of HYH (and our
> board meetings too!) so that the discussions are more accessible to
> the broader membership in scenarios like these.
>
> It doesn't have to be a two-way thing, I'm thinking more like a webinar
> than a Zoom call, and in fact that's quite impractical given our current

> A/V setup anyway. And we would *not* be allowing remote voting. But in this

[Brett Neese]

That’s for when it’s the proposer, not other interested parties who may be able to help the proposer with additional context. Anyway my question extends beyond the scope of this particular situation. Seems like it’s been done in the past and there’s no reason not to resume that practice.

Brett

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[Jay McGavren]

In this thread I've heard lots of good, specific reasons in favor of doing this, but not many specific reasons not to do it.

-Jay

[Rick Blake]

In fairness, Jay, you asked ' if there would be any strong objections (or support)' initially.

I voiced my objection, but if you need more than that:

- HYH has traditionally been an in-person meeting for several reasons: cleaning the Lab is a core function of HYH. That cannot be done remotely.

- Proposals have traditionally been promoted or defended in person. 

- In the absence of external demands for remote access to HYH, we have not provided it on a regular basis.

We no longer have external demands for remote meetings. And I prefer we return to the regular order of HYH, with the Saturday meetings a tolerable change, and I have adjusted to them. But remote meetings do not, to me, seem necessary. Desirable, perhaps, but we have a regular order of traditional HYH meetings, and I do not yet see a compelling reason to change that.

From time to time members may be unable to attend. It was noted earlier in this thread that actions on proposals have been postponed to accommodate the sponsor's necessary absence. It is unavoidable. Next month, as an example, I will not attend Saturday HYH due to a conflicting, and once-a-year, event. It happens. Next Saturday I have a similar conflict not with HYH, but my Saturdays have standing meetings all year, 2nd and 4th of the month. These once-a-year meetings disrupt that. Scheduling conflicts are unavoidable. I do not support streaming HYH to accommodate these without a specific, compelling, reason. 

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[Brett Neese]

The idea is not to provide an alternative to attending in person, the intention is to provide a broadcast to those who wish to listen in but can't. This would not be a hybrid meeting, per se; I don't even plan to stream video. No business would be conducted via the broadcast. It is simply a convenience.

I do see a lot of advantages to this convenience and making this a regular practice. A good example is that I am often the notetaker, a responsibility I am happy to take on (and while it's not necessarily the duty of of secretary, it does make sense that I would be the default notetaker). But it may happen that I become sick or otherwise unavailable to attend for physical reasons. This is a duty that CAN be done via audio link and one I'd be happy to take on if I happen to be absent but unable to physically attend. We also have other members who are disabled who might also be interested in joining the broadcast.

In this specific case I am the named sponsor of the proposal that opened this question, but Moheeb also did a ton of work on it as well. I intend to attend HYH to shepard it, but I see no harm and a ton of utility in dialing in Moheeb in case questions arise I can't answer (Moheeb can shoot me responses over Slack). The idea is NOT to accommodate a sponsor's absence because the sponsor is me and I intend to attend (and in fact champion the broadcast.)

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[Jay McGavren]

> Jay, you asked ' if there would be any strong objections (or support)' initially.

That was actually Brett, but it's all good.

> - HYH has traditionally been an in-person meeting for several reasons: cleaning the Lab is a core function of HYH. That cannot be done remotely.

Agreed. Is the concern that offering a live stream would cause enough people not to attend in person for cleaning to get done? I also agree that COULD happen but I don't think it should prevent us from offering the stream in the first place. I think we should revisit this conversation in the event that it DOES happen.

> - Proposals have traditionally been promoted or defended in person. 

Agreed, and I would be in favor of continuing to require this (except perhaps on a case-by-case basis). Remote communication will never be as good as in-person.

> - In the absence of external demands for remote access to HYH, we have not provided it on a regular basis.

Yeah, I think we have good reasons not to REQUIRE that every HYH be streamed. There's no proven demand, at least not sufficient for the effort involved.

Does anyone feel that we should not PERMIT people to do-ocracy a stream, though?

I for one would not want a bunch of meeting interruptions special to the stream, such as continually reminding people "please identify yourself for those listening in". I think if we do this, it should be with the understanding that remote attendees are "second-class citizens" that we will not make special accommodations for. That if they want full participation, they'll need to find a way to attend in person.

We could also make remote attendees "first-class citizens" but that would require effort and annoyance that would cause me to be against streaming the meeting as well, at least with the demand levels we currently know about.

I am in favor of PERMITTING people to stream the meeting. Is anyone against?

-Jay

[Rick Blake]

I think HYH is about as official an event as there is. It's disgusted in the bylaws. If you want to modify it, that deserves at least a proposal. I do not support treating ad hoc streaming as a do-ocracy opportunity. It's more of a community event, and can't be undone... Sorry, but I would not support that. 

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[Brett Neese]

If it's official, all the more reason to make it as broadly available to the community as possible by offering a stream. In the past, this never required a proposal or change to the bylaws. Why should it now?

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[Rick Blake]

When remote and/or streaming was common we had exigent circumstances; no one could attend. That's not the problem now.

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[Brett Neese]

There are different exigent circumstances now. 

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[Rick Blake]

Sorry, I didn't recognize that. What are they? 

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