The WiMLDS guide to running online meetups. This is a work-in-progress -- we are looking for contributions!
What is WiMLDS? The mission of Women in Machine Learning & Data Science (WiMLDS) is to support and promote women and gender minorities who are practicing, studying or are interested in the fields of machine learning and data science. Learn more at wimlds.org.
- Pick a time and date for your online meetup just like an in-person meetup. Use meetup.com as usual to plan the event.
- If you use a tool with a participant limit, you will have to limit attendance via meetup.com RSVPs and deliver the web conference URL privately to participants only. Alternatively, you can just post the link publicly on your meetup event page and have a "first-come, first-served" policy. For example, if you use Zoom, the free meetings have a limit of 100 participants.
- Choose a format/topic for your meetup: live presentations, co-working/hangout, networking, code workshop, pre-recorded talks/videos, etc.
- Choose a web conferencing platform (see below for options). Most WiMLDS groups are currently using Zoom. Some things to consider when evaluating different platforms:
- You might want something with an option for participants to group chat with each other.
- Should your participants be muted throughout presentations or do you want anyone to be able to speak at any time?
- If it's the latter, you might want that to be regulated by a moderator. Some tools will let you virtually raise your hand before speaking. You may also want a combination of both options.
- Think about how to enforce the WiMLDS Code of Conduct in your chat spaces. Assign someone to be a moderator of the chat to watch for any bad behavior. Be aware of the concept of "Zoom bombing" and take neccessary precautions to prevent your meetup by being hijacked by trolls.
- Consider whether you can record the presentations and/or the hangout.
- If you decide to record, it's a good idea to seek verbal consent from participants and only then upload the video to YouTube or other social media. If you can record your meetup, please do! We would love to put them on the WiMLDS YouTube page. Please send an email to info@wimlds.org if you have a meetup video to share.
- We recommend having more than one organizer join. Extra organizers can help individuals resolve technical issues without disrupting the general flow for the rest of the audience. They can also monitor and moderate the chat for passive aggressive communication. It is recommended to add emojis to help others pick up context clues.
- If you are unable to find speakers for your event, you can still host a meetup! You could recruit a speaker that already has a re-recorded talk (then they can join the meeting and answer questions live in the chat). Consider co-viewing conference talks by women and gender minorities, and moderating a discussion. Alternatively, the group can take an online learning course together and have virtual study sessions around it. Lastly, you can keep your group together just by having casual co-working sessions (example here).
📅 WiMLDS has a public online meetup calendar here. Please look through these events for inspiration and when you schedule yours, please email info@wimlds.org to get it added to the calendar. You are also welcome to attend events from other chapters to get experience with how others are hosting online meetups... and to learn and grow the connections within our community!
For WiMLDS organizers, you can use the WiMLDS Zoom account to host online meetups via Zoom. Our account can host meetings with up to 100 participants. Get in touch with @erin (Erin LeDell) on the WiMLDS Organizer Slack to schedule an online meetup on the WiMLDS Zoom account. You can also use a different Zoom account if you want (if you need more than 100 participants, for example), but we recommed using WiMLDS, since it's free (for you) and easy.
- Recommended how-to articles:
- Given the prevalence of Zoom bombing, we recommend never posting your Zoom link publicly (there's a spot on meetup.com to put the Zoom link, which will only be shown to people to RSVP). We also recommend enabling the "Waiting Room" option, and well as turning off screen sharing for participants. You can make your speakers/presenters co-hosts, so they can share their screens. Recently a PyLadies Berlin meetup got trolled and so they have written about the experience and advice on how to plan/prepare for it here. We also highly recommend you bookmark the "Zoom Safety Settings Checklist" which can quickly help you get the settings correct and bounce trolls from the meeting if neccessary.
If you're not using the WiMLDS Zoom account, or are not a WiMLDS organizer reading this, here is some other information about Zoom accounts:
- Free version: Meetings can only last for 40 mins (though you can create several URLs and switch over each 40 minutes). You can host up to 100 participants.
- Other Paid version: You can use your own paid account (pricing), or you can borrow one. If you work for a company that uses Zoom and you have a paid/corporate account, that is one way of getting around the 100 participant or 40 minute limit.
- Companies, instead of hosting, could offer to virtually “host” (sponsor) the meetup by providing a corporate Zoom account that you can use with fewer limitations.
- On a paid account, you can start a meeting and then make another person a co-host which gives them some control (for example, if a company donates their pro account for you to use, they can make you a co-host so you can control things like breakout rooms).
- Free version: Meetings can last as long as needed. They have a 100 participant limit. If you work for a company that uses Webex and have a corporate account, you can get around these limits.
- Pricing
- Some additional resources on using Webex.
- Jitsi is an open-source alternative for Zoom.
- Google Hangouts supports group calls of up to 10 participants. Similar to Zoom & Webex, with a corporate GSuite account you could get around the participant limit and add up to 250 participants to a call.