This information is for community members who are hosting meetings.  Zoom is the main video communication platform for Hyperledger and is used to run community calls and virtual meetups.  A Zoom host needs to know the following information to deal with any issues that may happen during a meeting.  This could include issues such as a lot of background noise on the call because someone is unmuted or someone has joined the call and is trying to be disruptive.

Code of Conduct

The Hyperledger project adheres to our Code of Conduct and all meeting attendees are expected to follow these guidelines.  As host, please read and familiarize yourself with the Code of Conduct details.

Obtaining Host Access

If you are a project lead, Working Group or Special Interest Group lead, meetup organizer or another community who needs to host a Zoom meeting and you would like host access, please email community-architects@hyperledger.org.

Claiming Host in a Meeting

When you join a meeting, you'll need to claim host in order to have host access. To claim host, follow these steps:

Here is a video that shows the process of claiming host on Zoom.

Default Meeting Settings

Be aware that our Zoom accounts have configured some default settings to prevent people from interfering with meetings.  As host, you should be aware of these so that you can help address and modify settings as needed.

Recording a Meeting

One of the main roles of a host is to record and share meetings after for anyone who missed the call.  Since we are a global community with people all over the world, there will be community members who are interested in your meeting that won't be able to attend because of time zone issues and other conflicts.  For most community calls you can handle recordings by following these instructions:

  • Most Zoom calls are set to automatically record as soon as you start.  After claiming Zoom host you have the ability to pause or stop recording but we recommend that you don't.  Some hosts like to pause recordings for the first few minutes while people dial-in and before the meeting starts.  We've found though that sometimes hosts forget to unpause and then the calls aren't recorded, so we recommend not pausing or stopping recordings.
    • If you are the host of a Zoom call that isn't set to automatically record, you can claim host and start the recording and set it to record to the cloud.  Please also reach out to the Community Architects so we can update the settings for your call so recording will be automatic.
  • When the meeting ends the recording will be moved over to the Hyperledger YouTube channel.  This process can sometimes take a day or two.  To find your video, you can look through the recently uploaded videos on the channel.  If you don't see it there feel free to ask one of the Community Architects and they'll be able to help you find your video.

  • Once you have the link to the video, we recommend that you add it to the meeting page for the call so people can find the link there.  You can also share it with people on your Discord channel or any other community forums you use.  You can also coordinate with the Community Architects to get a playlist set up on the Hyperledger YouTube channel so all of your videos will be in one place.

Moderating Meetings and Dealing with Disruptions

After the meeting has started you can make use of the following host features to moderate your meetings and deal with any bad actors:

  • Prepare to mute people who are making unwanted noises – this will usually be people who don't realize that they are unmuted, but it could be people who are trying to make distracting noises.  As host, you can select specific participants and mute them.  Make sure you have the participant list view open while hosting a meeting and it will show you the mute/unmute status of everyone in the meeting.
  • Assign a co-host to help with moderation
  • Turn off screen sharing for everyone and indicate only host. If you have others that need to share their screen, the host can enable that on the fly. (via the ^ menu next to Share Screen). Be on the lookout for people that you don't know who are requesting to get screen access.
  • Put the troll or bad actor on hold. The participant will be put into a "waiting room" and will not be able to participate in the call until the host removes the hold.
    • NOTE: Depending on your client version this will be called "Put in Waiting Room" instead of on hold.
  • Remove the participant. Please be cautious when testing or using this feature, as it is permanent. They will never be able to come back into that meeting ID on that particular device. Do not joke around with this feature; it's better to put the attendee on "hold" first and then remove.

NOTE: You can find these actions when clicking on the more or "..." options after scrolling over the participants name/information.

For more information about moderating meetings, check out the Zoom blog post: How to Keep Uninvited Guests Out of Your Zoom Event.

Screen sharing guidelines and recommendations

Zoom has a documentation on how to use their screen sharing feature:

Recommendations:

  • Turn off notification to prevent any interference.
  • Close all sensitive documents and unrelated programs before sharing the screen eg. Emails.
  • Test your presentation before hand to make sure everything goes smoothly.
  • Keep your desktop clean. Make sure there is no offensive or/and distracting background.

Escalating and/Reporting a Problem

Issues that cannot be handle via normal moderation should be reported to the Community Architects.  Please email community-architects@hyperledger.org.

Audio/Video quality recommendations

While video conferencing has been a real boon to productivity there are still lots of things that can go wrong during a conference video call.

There are some things that are just plain out of your control, but there are some things that you can control. Here are some tips if you're just getting into remote meetings. Keep in mind that sometimes things just break. These are not hard rules, more of a set of loose guidelines on how to tip the odds in your favor.

Recommended hardware to have

  • A dedicated microphone - This is the number one upgrade you can do. Sound is one of those things that can immediately change the quality of your call. If you plan on being here for the long haul, something like a Blue Yeti will work great due to the simplicity of using USB audio and having a hardware mute button. Consider a pop filter as well if necessary.
  • A Video Camera - A bad image can be worked around if the audio is good. Certain models have noise cancelling dual-microphones, which are a great backup for a dedicated microphone or if you are travelling.
  • A decent set of headphones - Personal preference, these cut down on the audio feedback when in larger meetings.

What about an integrated headset and microphone? This totally depends on the type. We recommend testing it with a friend or asking around for recommendations for which models work best.

Hardware we don't recommend

  • Earbuds. Generally speaking they are not ideal, and while they might sound fine to you when 50 people are on a call the ambient noise adds up. Some people join with earbuds and it sounds excellent, others join and it sounds terrible. Practicing with someone ahead of time can help you determine how well your earbuds work.

Pro-tips

  • Join on muted audio and video in order to prevent noise to those already in a call.
  • If you don't have anything to say at that moment, MUTE. This is a common problem. You can help out a teammate by mentioning it on Zoom chat or asking them to mute on the call itself. The meeting co-host can help with muting noisly attendees before it becomes too disruptive. Don't feel bad if this happens to you, it's a common occurrence.
  • Try to find a quiet meeting place to join from; some coworking spaces and coffee shops have a ton of ambient noise that won't be obvious to you but will be to other people in the meeting. When presenting to large groups consider delegating to another person who is in a quieter environment.
  • Using your computer's built in microphone and speakers might work in a pinch, but in general won't work as well as a dedicated headset/microphone.
  • Consider using visual signals to agree to points so that you don't have to mute/unmute often during a call. This can be an especially useful technique when people are asking for lazy consensus. A simple thumbs up can go a long way!
  • It is common for people to step on each other when there's an audio delay, and both parties are trying to communicate something. Don't worry, just remember to try and pause before speaking, or consider raising your hand (if your video is on) to help the host determine who should speak first.


Thanks to the Kubernetes Zoom Guidelines doc for the basis of much of this document.


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6 Comments

  1. Peter Somogyvari

    Google Drive is no longer used to upload recordings because it's blocked where a lot of developers are.
    For labs you can create a child page for your presentation/recording here: Lab Presentations

  2. John Carpenter

    This comment is in relation to disruptive behavior that I encountered while hosting a Hyperledger virtual Meetup.  Here are a few thoughts and ideas around dealing with a disruption and potentially limiting the possibility of it going forward. 

    If a moderator ever encounters an individual that's being a disruptor, they need to identify and "Remove" that disruptive individual from a Hyperledger Zoom Meeting.  Disruption may be in the form of requesting to take control of a presenters screen during the presentation, inappropriate screen names, unwelcome chat messages, and/or inappropriate audio from that disruptive individual that impacts the Zoom session.  Some items to consider for virtual meetings going forward would be to allow the host/moderator to start the virtual Meetup with everyone on mute except for the presenter and the moderator, and provide the host with the ability to turn off the ability for an attendee to request to present during the Virtual Meetup unless the access was granted by the host.

    1. Idowu Akinde

      Hi John Carpenter,

      Sorry to hear that your meetup was disrupted. The lessons we took away from a similar incident in the Africa Chapter a few months ago - based on the observation that the primary vectors of attack were screen annotation, audio and chat - were:

      1. Screen Annotation - Disable "screen annotation for all future meetings by default". Interestingly, the default setting on Zoom is to leave this on, but it can easily be disabled both in Zoom's global settings and meeting-specific settings.
      2. Audio - Enable the setting to "Mute participants on Join", and then appoint a moderator to keep a vigilant eye on the Participants panel during the course of the meeting and click/tap the "Mute All" button from time to time.
      3. Chat - Similar to Audio, appoint a moderator to keep an eye on the Chat panel as well, so as to quickly spot offending parties and remove them from the meeting. Worthy of mention here that Zoom provides two options for "removing" an erring participant - a "soft removal" where said participant is only evicted and sent back to the Waiting Room, and a "hard removal" by which said participant's device is banned for life from that meeting.
      4. In addition, we also set up a registration link for the next iteration of the meetup, to the effect that every intending participant would have to give up an email address to "register" for this event. We considered that yes, a few malicious people could probably bypass this by providing a fake email address, but we hoped that the "stress" of registration would dissuade the malicious actor(s) from showing up again.

      We applied these mitigations and were able to host a "repeat" of the virtual meetup without an incidence. You could leverage our learning curve by adopting the above recommendations as a base template upon which you can add more. For instance, I'm going to add to our list of mitigations:

      1. Screen Share - Disabling by default for all participants. I think this is Zoom's default setting, but I stand corrected.
      2. File Sharing - Disabling by default, and
      3. Join Before Host - Disabling by default.


      Kind regards.

  3. David Boswell

    John Carpenter – thanks for your feedback and for your suggestions based on the experience from your most recent online meetup.  I made the section about how to moderate more clear by changing the section title to "Moderating Meetings and Dealing with Disruptions".  It wasn't clear before that the information in that section was what to look at to learn about dealing with people who may be trying to interfere with a meeting.  I also added your tip of being careful about when people are requesting screen share access if you don't know who they are.  Clearly in most situations, like a virtual meetup, the host will know who the presenters are.  And currently the default setting is to have people be muted on joining, although people can unmute themselves.  The host does also have the ability to go through the participant list and mute people manually if they're being disruptive.  If you have any other suggestions for edits to this guide, feel free to let us know.

  4. John Carpenter

    Idowu Akinde and David Boswell thanks for the great feedback, and David I appreciate that you added that section.  I co-hosted another virtual Meetup today, and found that having all of the participants listed to the side of the presenter video with their video/mic status listed, as well as having the chat open in a separate pop-out window gave me greater visibility into all of the participants in the Meetup to be able to monitor and address any potential disruption to the session if needed.  Thankfully this latest session went smoothly.

    1. David Boswell

      John Carpenter – Glad to hear that the meetup today went smoothly.  And I added your tip about having the participant list showing when someone is host so you can see the mute/unmute status of all participants.