| 8 Mar 2020 |
 yaronk | Apologies if this, too, has been discussed. | 16:58:06 |
 hexmode | I think dataspects said almost exactly that | 16:58:42 |
| yaronk | Oh, okay. | 16:58:52 |
 cicalese | Yes, IIRC, he was of the opinion we should cancel and then make sure that something happens in the fall. | 16:59:16 |
| cicalese | Somebody also said that they were concerned that a remote only conference would be interrupted by normal work. | 17:00:41 |
| yaronk | I agree with that... it helps to have a cohesive center. | 17:01:31 |
| hexmode | (stats side note: this site shows 150 new cases in the US since yesterday morning. Something to keep in mind.) | 17:03:00 |
| yaronk | cicalese: your suggested questions are interesting, but it's a different sort of poll: it's not "what should we do", but "what will you do?" | 17:03:58 |
| yaronk | Of course, the two are related. | 17:05:01 |
| yaronk | Maybe it doesn't matter, because it doesn't seem like anyone's voting any more. 😒 | 17:05:41 |
 darenwelsh | There's a poll? | 17:08:08 |
| yaronk | Ah! No wonder. | 17:08:15 |
| yaronk | Scroll up until you see it. And there's also this: https://www.strawpoll.me/19492336 | 17:08:54 |
| darenwelsh | Not sure how that poll works but unless you confirm you get a response to it by every/most registrants, you're likely biased by the subset who read this channel frequently | 17:11:33 |
| darenwelsh | Was it sent to every registrant? | 17:11:59 |
| cicalese | No, it started as an effort to get the temperature of the room and then it was mentioned at the mwstake meeting. An email to the participants would probably be good. I think, despite the uncertainly, we should make a decision soon. Different options require different planning. | 17:15:57 |
| yaronk | Well, in a sense, we've already made the decision - the conference is indeed happening, unless something changes. | 17:23:27 |
| yaronk | That's a decision I, for one, am comfortable with. | 17:24:03 |
| yaronk | And if you add together the votes for "As planned" and "Remote talks and hackathon", then that's the majority of votes. 🙂 | 17:26:38 |
| yaronk | (Assuming it makes sense to do that.) | 17:39:43 |
| cicalese | OK, that's fair. I will most likely not be able to attend in person, which will make it a bit more difficult to run the program, but yaronk and revansx are of course more than capable of doing so on site. I will reach out to the folks who were going to speak to see if they will be attending and, if not, will be willing to present remotely. | 18:07:37 |
| yaronk | That would be great. | 18:09:43 |
 tgr | I don't really see the point of postponing | 18:46:17 |
| tgr | what would be different in the fall? | 18:46:27 |
| yaronk | I agree, but for different reasons. | 18:55:15 |
| yaronk | If you're saying everyone will still be holed up at home six months from now, that's possible, but I'm guessing that won't be the case. Maybe I'm optimistic. | 18:57:35 |
| 10 Mar 2020 |
| yaronk | A contrarian, more-positive take on the coronavirus, for anyone still on the fence: https://nypost.com/2020/03/08/coronavirus-going-to-hit-its-peak-and-start-falling-sooner-than-you-think/ | 01:01:28 |
| hexmode | yaronk: it is possible that Trump is right and this virus doesn't do well in the heat. But then it would probably be back with a vengence in the fall. | 01:02:40 |
| hexmode | And, while we're doing contrarian: the good news is that the whole country of Italy will be practicing social distancing 🙂 | 01:03:54 |
| yaronk | I'm not worried about the fall per se; I'm worried/talking about early April. | 01:04:32 |
