Subject: Re: CCL:Real-Time Conference

From: [email-masked] (David C. Doherty)
Date: Wed, 25 May 1994 17:09:35 -0600

At  4:24 PM 5/25/94 -0400, Andrew D. Fant wrote:
>...I wonder how well WWW will provide for 
>interactive discussion and feedback.  I know that there can be forms support
>and comment fields, but this is a far cry from a non-virtual conference where
>the contacts and conversations are a primary reason for attending.  What I 
>would like to know, is if there is any interest in setting up a mechanism
>for real-time adjunct discussions to the WWW exhibitions?  There are several
>programs that could be used to provide this degree of support.

How about:

1. Program, abstracts, supplementary materials (figures, movies...)
   served up by a WWW server. 

2. Live video of speakers (assuming that they exist in this
   scenario) broadcast over MBONE (WWW94 is apparently doing this).

3. An IRC (Internet Relay Chat) session for questions and discussion for
   people who are remote. I believe that there is some sort of moderator
   capability in IRC, so the moderator of the session could (somehow)
   moderate the discussion.

In other words, (as I think Andy implied) we needn't limit ourselves
to just WWW tools (Mosaic, httpd, etc.), but should take advantage of several
internet "media", each of which specializes in a certain aspect of the
process.

In principle, a live conference could be strictly virtual (ie, replace 
the speakers with text or pre-recorded video), but the logisitics
are somewhat problematic ("Ok, everyone read paper three now."
"Everyone done?"). 

Of course, this all presupposes my ability to stay awake to
virtually attend a conference physically hosted in Australia
(if only the world were flat and the sun immobile).

My $0.02.

Dave Doherty

---
David C. Doherty
Minnesota Supercomputer Center, Inc.
[email-masked]