Talking Drupal #551 - Drupal Recording Initiative

Nic: This is Talking Drupal, a weekly chat about web design and development from a group of people with one thing in common. We love Drupal. This is the episode 551 Drupal Recording Initiative. On today's show, we're talking about Drupal Recording Initiative, how it supports open source events, and its long-term success with our guest, Kevin Th.

We'll also cover two-factor authentication as our module of the week. Welcome to Talking Drupal. Our guest today is Kevin. He builds websites, pushes pixels, moves, type, makes media plans, camps, taps man and rules for initiative, eats like a boss, and chases food trucks, and likes into egg on everything. He also leads the Drupal Recording Initiative to record and PostIt Camp Sessions, and he is the president of mosa, which is the Midwest Open Source Alliance, a fiscal sponsor of open source events in the us and we will have an episode on that coming up soon.

Kevin, welcome back to the show and thank you for joining us.

Kevin: Thank you.

Nic: I'm McLaughin, founder at Enlightened Development. Hey Mike. Co Coves are Avi Schwab sitting in for John and Martin today. Avi came to Drupal for the community and has been active in it since 2008. He's a founding organizer of Mid Camp Midwest Open Source Alliance in the event organizer working group at ImageX.

He supports Drupal sites for over 40 YMCA associations.

Avi: Okay, happy to be here

Nic: and joining us for the next four weeks as guest host Bernardo Martinez, senior front end developer at Volta. Bernardo Martinez is a Chattanooga based frontend develop frontend Drupal developer who shares a passion for both higher ed and government sectors.

He's been active in the Drupal community since 2018 and actively contributes through mentoring module support, theme work, and speaking at tech conferences. Welcome to the show and thank you for joining us.

Bernardo: Hey,

Nic: and now to talk about our module of the week. Let's turn it over to Avi. What do you have for us this week?

Avi: Thanks, Nick. Um, so question for you. Have you ever wanted more security than just the password alone can give you? Did you like Nick read, the National Institute for Standards and Technology, special Publication 800 dash 63 B, section 3.2 that says, passwords that are used as part of a multi-factor authentication process can be a minimum of eight characters.

Or if you tried 64 character passwords but still gotten hacked by the quantum Gibson, if so, you might need the two factor authentication or TFA module. So TFA module, uh, two factor authentication was created in March of 2011 by Ben Jevons, AKA Coltrane. Uh, Ben was a member of the Drupal security team and, uh, the team lead for DrupalCon Denver in 2012, uh, which is the only Drupal USA cons that I've missed.

Um, it has a version eight point x dash one point 12, which is recommended. Uh, and there's also a 2.0 alpha five that's a work in progress and is not currently recommended. Um, the module is actively maintained. It has security coverage, it has working GitLab CI test coverage. Uh, it has very complete documentation in its modules.

Read me, there are 94 open issues, 13 of which are bugs against the current branch. The TFA module has almost 14,000 sites that are using it, so it's a pretty big module. So let's talk about some of its features. The TFA is a base module that provides two factor authentication for your Drupal site. Uh, it is a base module.

It handles the Drupal integration work. It provides flexible and well-tested interfaces to enable seamless and configurable choices of two factor authentication solutions, like one time, uh, time-based, one-time passwords, SMS, or email delivered codes and recovery codes. So in order to set up TFA, you first have to enable a couple of other modules.

These all come along with the ride. When you do composer, install drupal slash TFA so you don't have to worry about trying to download all of them. The first one is the encrypt module, which defines reusable encryption profiles. Then you have to define an encryption method, like real a ES. And finally, you need the key module that provides secure access to your encryption key that you'll create later.

Uh, you'll also need some way of managing secrets in whatever environment that you have. Once you've done the initial setup and secured your encryption key, you can set up any number of TFA plugins. So I recommend starting with TOTP, which is the standard scan, a QR code method. Uh, there's also recovery codes and a trusted browser plugin that can let users bypass TFA for a certain period of time in a trusted browser.

Additionally, uh, other contri modules like the TFA email open. It's TFA email, OTP plugin module enables sending one-time passcodes via email. Finally, once you have all that set up, you can tweak your TFA settings and even add role-based requirements, for instance, requiring TFA for admins and not for minimally privileged users.

So in conclusion, the TFA module takes a lot more work, uh, a little more work than the password policy module that we discussed last week, but it can add an essential layer of security for Drupal sites that need it. So let's talk about TFA module.

Nic: Yeah, I think, I think TFA is gonna become kind of like, um, pass requirements over the next few years.

It's just, it's just gonna become required for pretty much every single site because data is not, is inherently not secure anymore. So you need to start adding that. The second factor, um, I will say. Like you said, it takes a little bit of effort to set this up, but the, the real burden is you or your client has to be prepared to support everybody losing their device.

And, um, resetting that is a little bit more involved sometimes than just sending a pass or resetting email for somebody. Yeah,

Avi: and that's been, that's been the conversation we've had with a lot of our clients is, are, are you ready to do this? Do you have a password manager that you use with folks? Like, if we set this up, how many people are going to get angry?

Um,

Nic: yeah. And, and it's one thing if it's an internal audience, um, like if you, if you have 10 editors on the team and you set one person's point to like, handle these resets and things, it can be, you know, somewhat annoying but manageable. But if you have a, uh, user facing population. You have thousands of users on your site, you know, it can be a significant burden to manage and maintain something like this.

I mean, that in my book, that makes it more crucial, right? If you have that much of a user base, um, because it's that much more surface area for people to, you know, try to get into the site, but be prepared for a lot of user support requests.

Avi: Yeah.

Kevin: Although, I would say, and how does, how does this play with a single sign-on?

Avi: So this would probably be, uh, a, if you are already doing single sign-on, I would imagine your single sign-on provider would handle the TFA. So this would be, this would be if you're not using, so it's just, it's it's in parallel. Yeah. Well, it's.

Kevin: It's unnecessary.

Avi: It's, it's, it's unnecessary for this. It's separate from, yeah.

Yeah.

Kevin: Right.

Avi: Okay. If you already have a single sign in flow, then, then this is probably irrelevant. Um, but if you're, if you're managing all of your authentication through the Drupal users, then this is how you would, you would enable that. Um, you, I, yeah,

Nic: you probably could configure it to work with single sign on and just the first request would trigger TFA you, you wouldn't have to enter your password when you visit the site because you'd already be authenticated with the SSO provider.

But I, as Avi said, I, I really suspect if you're using SSO, the SSO provider is gonna have a solution for TFA and that's gonna be integrated directly there. Um,

Kevin: yeah, the only reason I ask is 'cause I've got a couple projects where I, it's an option and like for one client, it's only use single sign on, even though you do have a password field.

And then we're doing another one where we're gonna be adding it, and the design has both. That I didn't know if there was some sort of collaboration between the two or they're just separate paths.

Avi: I would, I would recommend choosing one or the other. Most likely if you're doing single sign on, then handle all of the factors through that service.

Nic: Well,

Avi: um, yeah,

Nic: there, there are reasons to not, to do the way that Kevin's doing. Like sometimes like site admins will not use single sign-on, but site users will. Oh, so yeah, definitely. Oh, yeah. Or or vice versa. Like I have clients where end users have access to the site, but all the admins use single sign-on.

Um, so, so, but I'm sure with TFA the module, you can configure it. So if a user's SSO, it doesn't use it. If they do, they have to, because I think you can define it by role. You can define

Avi: it by

Nic: role. So that is really useful. SSO people. Yeah.

Avi: Yeah. So that's, that's a perfect use case where you have, you have admins who use the Drupal authentication, but.

You know, front end users who, who, who use some other SSO method. Um, I was also going to Nick, were talking about how if you have thousands of users, it might be a lot harder. I, I, I might, I might consider, uh, if you have that many users, you probably have some other, like, support methods. Whereas, uh, a lot of our sites, we only have a handful of, of folks.

And, uh, having whoever's in charge of the handful of content editors try and manage one more thing is, uh, is probably more challenging than having some person on a bigger staff, uh, assist. But either way, um, if you're doing two factor authentication. You pretty much have to have a password manager. Um,

Bernardo: yeah, so that make me wonder if it is used a lot in higher ed and the government sector.

'cause I know in higher ed you have a lot of central authentication and then in that case you'd probably be using like SAML or something, some other protocol. Uh, but it makes sense when you mentioned smaller groups on the smaller sites. 'cause then you wanna have that level of security and if you have a certain amount of users, then you could probably leverage that as well.

Avi: Yeah. And so, I mean. I would say for higher ed, I would imagine a lot of them are doing some other kind of single sign on. Um, at least in my experience, that was the case when I left higher ed over 10 years ago. Um,

Nic: yeah.

Avi: But for instance, for the YMCAs, you know, we don't have any kind of central authentication for, for all of them.

And each one has their own kind of independent authentication, um, structure. Some use Google, some use Microsoft, um, but, uh, but most of them are just doing Drupal authentication for a handful of, uh, of, of site users.

Nic: Well, thank you Avi, as always. You and Martin both continue to find, uh, great modules of the week. Uh, how can folks connect or suggest a module of week.

Avi: Thanks Nick. So, uh, if listeners would like to suggest a module of the week or connect, um, you can reach out on Drupal Slack to the regular module of the week.

Host Martin Sluts. He's man clue there. Um, he is happy to, uh, to take your suggestions. You can also reach out, uh, on the Talking Drupal channel on Drupal Slack and make suggestions there. Uh, I'm on Drupal Slack as for a boy, so if you have questions about DFA or other stuff, you can find me there.

Nic: Awesome.

Okay, let's jump into our primary topic. So Kevin, what was the problem that the Drupal Recording Initiative was originally trying to solve in the community and, and how did you get involved?

Kevin: Um. I guess minor segue because it's weird that Drupal Con Chicago happened at the Hilton, Chicago. 'cause that's essentially where everything that I've done and brought to camp recording has started because we had professional AV and it was too expensive to run it in every room.

So we've kind of hacked away that we could do the, the breakout sessions. And that's, so having that in my back pocket of like that was my day job. Well once a year. 'cause we ran our own conference. Um, people think I'm some sort of AV pro and that's not true. Uh, so when I then started planning our, our own camps, so I was on the initial team for Drupal Camp Fox Valley, which was a suburban Chicago group.

I was like, of course we'll record our sessions 'cause that's what I do at my job. And so. And especially when I was first getting into Drupal, like all the recorded sessions I found were on like archive.org. Like there was no central way to find it, but I learned a lot from videos, so I figured, well, if I learn from videos, other people learn from videos and it's good information to have out there.

So it's like it's, it was just a no brainer for me that this is, this is gonna happen. Um, but it turns out the method that I used for recording marketing conferences doesn't work well for tech conferences.

Avi: Hmm. So,

Kevin: and at the time, most, most camps were not recording.

Nic: Yeah. No, definitely not.

Avi: Yeah. So you said there were other people doing recordings out there.

Um, had like are there other competitors in the, like, recording space and, and why you think competitors,

Kevin: competitors, competitors?

Avi: Uh,

Kevin: no. No. Nobody's doing it.

Avi: Yeah.

Kevin: But Well,

Avi: so whoever was recording before is, is, yeah. Stopped?

Kevin: Well, the, there were just through the years, like there are some cases where the venue will record it.

Like if it's at a university, um, like I know that like, uh, Drupal Camp London, the year before I recorded, there's like, and this is what kills me. It's like, yeah, we have, we have all the recordings from last year, but we haven't done anything with them because the university gave us one large file and my system can't even open it.

It's like, I'm like, I could probably fix that because, you know, I've, because of my job, I have the equipment that's, you know, probably more robust in order to, to deal with that. Never got that file, but I was intrigued. But yeah, so many times it's like either it's provided by the venue and then it's a hit or miss whether anyone on the team can do anything with it.

Like do they have the software? Do they have the know-how? Granted this was also what 10. 20 13, 12 years ago. Um, yeah. So I wouldn't say there's any direct competitors except for, for higher AV companies which want way more money than local camps can afford and sometimes even large cons.

Bernardo: Yeah.

Avi: Well, and I, the Oh yeah.

I remember the, the setups at Drupal Cons in, in years past that had, like, you had to plug in through a separate laptop and like run, like we, we got that

Kevin: equipment for mid camp number one. Yeah. And you had to set that up.

Avi: Yeah. It was not easy.

Kevin: Nope.

Bernardo: So, along those lines, uh, what trigger each evolution of the Drupal recording initiative?

I know at the beginning it was you just yourself as a person paying your way to the different events and then it transition into something else.

Kevin: Um, are you talking equipment transition or overall planning

Bernardo: phase? I would say overall, like the different phases, like getting more organized, like trying to get, got it.

More steps into it.

Kevin: Yeah. So from the very beginning it was like, well, I'm gonna do this regardless, so let's just go. And so I was doing the local events that I was involved in. That was Drupal Camp, Fox Valley and Mid Camp. Um, and then it's like, well hey, I know that other events don't do this, so I put out a tweet.

'cause at the time I used Twitter, uh, and it was like, Hey, I've got this set up. If you pay my way, I'll record your stuff. And the first one was St. Louis. And that was an easy no brainer, quick, quick, you know, hop down, uh, a train. And we went there and it was a very easy venue, so it was a hundred percent capture.

I'm like, oh, this is great. Uh, twin Cities. Also went really well. And then Badc camp was an epic failure because it was too big and too far. And so, which was great because, you know, you live in a bubble when things are working, and so when things fail, you then have to find out ways to, to fix it. And so early on, like things were just kinda, uh, four or five events until what I call Slack explosion, when Drupal Slack happened.

And, and a dear friend of mine who was, you know, running her own event in Austin, basically said, Hey everybody, if you have an event, call Kevin. And so suddenly I'm doing 15 events a year, and I'm like, this is not sustainable. Uh, and, and it's, it's bigger than just me. And so that's when it's like, well, I was running all expenses through my own bank account, hoping.

And there's enough time passed hoping that taxes wouldn't get in the way and missed, missed that one. You know, that one's fine. Uh, but like I needed open accounting. I needed some, a more formalized plan so that way it didn't just die with me.

Nic: Yeah. Was w was bag camp that specific moment that you realized, or was it more when you just got too many people called that you realized I needed, I needed a formal initiative.

And who did you kind of turn to for advice on kind of setting it up more formally?

Kevin: Uh, no, I didn't turn to anybody. It's, I call this I, it was the official, the unofficial official in initiative. Like it has initiative in the name, but it's not an official Drupal initiative. Um,

Nic: we can fix that.

Kevin: Uh, sure.

Nic: Just takes

Kevin: an issue, I guess.

So, um. Yeah, uh, I, it really was the, just the, the growth that was like, this is, this is too much for just me. And that's like 2020 was, uh, 2019, actually, I recorded DrupalCon Amsterdam, which like, I thought that was crazy. You know, basically I did have help from, uh, onsite attendees, but it was me covering eight rooms.

That was eight rooms is always a tough one. Um, but only missed like two sessions because of a, a weird equipment failure that also recently hit New Jersey camps. Um, but like, yeah, it was, uh, the, the goal around then was to then like globalize and expand, but then, you know, COVID hit and killed everything.

Avi: So, so. You've talked about a little bit of the challenges of like having to run across giant venues to, to record things, but like once you get all this stuff, then you have many, many hours of video and audio and all this other stuff. So like how did you deal with, with producing and distributing all of this once you've got it?

Kevin: Just, uh, again, just power through it. Um, it, the equipment is pretty good at, like, it records a compressed file, so if it's got a good start, stop and clean audio, I don't have any processing to do. Um, lately I seem to have to process more and more, so I don't know if that's, as the technology gap grows between the projectors, the laptops are connecting to, and this hardware that is now no longer produced and.

Geared for what? PS two and Xbox. That's how old this stuff is. Um, I think we're just finally hitting the point where, as sad as it is, like we may be outgrowing this, this equipment or this equipment is, is showing, its its age, but I've yet to find something as easy and foolproof and, um, monitorable while it, while at the event, oh, Nick, I can't.

Then once

Avi: you get, oh yeah,

Nic: I, I joked in the beginning about changing the title of the show to push the big rug button, which kind of a Drupal meme and, and yeah. It's, it's as simple as that, right? You, you have the, like everybody that goes to camps now, there, well, not everybody, there are people in every session that have been to enough camps that they know, Hey, you need to push a button and see the, see, I never remember if it's red or green that's supposed to be on, but there's instructions and everybody knows that.

Um, switch switching. That process would probably be painful, but we have a question from, uh, Steven Cross. He wants to know, like, do you see specific equipment upgrades in the future? Are you looking for new setups?

Kevin: I, I need to, 'cause, uh, currently my method of checking eBay on a semi-regular basis to get equipment is, you know, I've, I've kind of hit the bottom, although I did just get one yesterday for $17.

Nic: Oh wow.

Kevin: I know. Uh, you know, plus shipping. But, um, yeah, like the existing equipment is an issue. I now have enough to hopefully equip another hub in Europe. How,

Nic: how many do you have

Kevin: this fall? Um, okay, total, let's see. Bernardo's got 13. He's got two setups, an eight, an eight and a five. Bob McDonald has a five pack, so that's what, 18.

Uh, I've got my own five, so that's 23. Math Plus I now have another eight that I haven't yet assembled into a Kit. 31 plus that one I just got yesterday. 32. I gave Paul Johnson one at DrupalCon, so 33, and then I know that eight went to London. Those are the NED camp. Well, that Ned Camp's five Pack is, uh, Rick's own.

He's, I inc. I I consider him in the initiative unofficially, but um,

Nic: yeah,

Kevin: there's also

Avi: Drupal Recording Initiative, extra special packs,

Kevin: something like that. Sure. Uh, yeah, London, I had set a full eight pack up and that's gone missing. Uh,

Nic: oh no.

Kevin: Mountain Camp has four, so yeah, quite a bit.

Nic: Wow. That's way more than I expected.

Bernardo: So I was wondering, I know we recently got into the DrupalCon. If you could tell us a little more about, uh, the experience of recording at DrupalCon versus a camp, and then alongside that, um, what was DrupalCon doing before it?

Kevin: Uh, well it's, it's a little, so there's, when you talk DrupalCon, you now have to talk DrupalCon Europe, DrupalCon, US, DrupalCon, Japan.

'cause they're all run by different entities. Mm-hmm. Um, DrupalCon Europe, I think, I don't know. I consider Amsterdam a success. I, we hadn't talked about future cons, but then, you know, again, COVID pandemic. So they, I don't know what they were doing before Vienna. 'cause they reached out to me again for Vienna.

This was last year saying like, Hey, you did this before. It worked out well, do you wanna do it again? It's like, sure. Um, Nara, that was strictly Bob McDonald, who's also on the team. He pushed for that because they had, they didn't have the budget. There were no plans. Um, so we crowdfunded that one by, he sold sponsorships to various companies and that was, there was some political maneuvering around that, because

like you, if you can't afford, if. Well, whatever. I'm, I shouldn't say this, but I'm saying it like, it was just, it, it had to be separate from the event because if we can't afford it, we can't afford it. So this was all like, let's just give money to the initiative so that we can do this because it's important.

And it was, so who knows what's gonna happen going forward for DrupalCon next Asia chapter?

Nic: Yeah,

Kevin: Chicago.

Nic: I was gonna say also, I imagine the cost is significantly higher to go to Asia since most of the recording stuff is based in US and Europe. Um,

Kevin: yeah, we, we just bring it with us, but still you've got, look, so for Amsterdam, the way I still needed, um, a sponsor and then it was just me, but I, that was just untenable.

So for vna, I'm like, there's a, you, you have to cover at least two of us. And so they did. And my goal is to then also try and train someone locally. Um, that didn't happen for Vienna, but that did happen in Nara, which is really cool. Oh, okay. So Bob trained someone, mentored someone. So, but, uh, we need to keep growing.

Avi: I, I learned in Chicago that Bob like lived in Japan for a while and speaks Japanese. Yeah, yeah. Uh, which was, which was pretty cool. That was, uh,

Kevin: yeah, unexpected.

Avi: Yeah.

Kevin: But as far as Chicago, we had talked to them way back 'cause they had the, the way DrupalCon North America runs it is they have a company they've used for a long time.

Their setup is such that it can be remote monitored from like one like hub where they can see all sessions and remote start remote troubleshoot. And so they don't have that with this, with my system. And so they were uncomfortable with that. So I figured. North America was, would never happen. But, uh, for budgetary reasons, they reached out to me this year and said, Hey, uh, so do you wanna do this?

I'm like, hell yeah.

Nic: So do you, do you know roughly the cost of this service they were paying before versus what the Drupal Initiative, uh, expects? Because I know for camps you ask for a nominal donation, and if somebody has to come out, we pay, I think hotel and, you know, flight, that kind of stuff. Like expenses.

Kevin: Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's evolved since the earlier days. It's now just a, it, when I first started it was just like direct, direct expenses. Um, but now, like I've had done enough where it's like I rounded up to, at, at that point it was a thousand dollars for someone. For me at that time to come and record your, your event so that the, the goal being that there'd be a little bit extra to go into the fund for equipment maintenance.

Nic: Yeah.

Kevin: Broken Don, lost don. New equipment, stuff like that. Um, I've raised it to 1500 since hotels and airfare are so much more money these days.

Nic: Yeah.

Kevin: Um, so, but yeah, it is relatively nominal. Uh, we only get, um, expenses covered for larger events like DrupalCon for mo like many more days. I've instituted as of DrupalCon Vienna, like a, uh, fractional per diem because it was like all cash in in Vienna.

It's like, how do you get receipts for all cash stuff and it's in Euros? Yeah. Like what a pain. So we now have Yeah.

Nic: Just

Kevin: essentially

Nic: Yeah. Makes sense.

Kevin: Makes sense. Yeah. But like a DrupalCon is about. For two people is about close to $5,000 in fees and expenses. Um, we lost money last year on Vienna and Nara Chicago.

We didn't use the whole 5,000. Um, so yeah, so the way I'm try, the way I the fee structure now is if we're shipping you the equipment for you to do it yourself, it's $500. If one of our team is coming on site to record, it's 1500 no matter how many of us happen to be there. But if it's a major con, that's 5,000.

Nic: Okay.

Kevin: And minimum. And

Nic: do you know how much, and do you know how much DrupalCon paid the previous service? Like, roughly? Just, just to get an idea of the value, because Yeah, I wanna make it clear. The, the DRI more than that is an extremely good value.

Kevin: I wanna, I think it, I don't know officially, but I think it was on a scale of a hundred thousand or more

Nic: that.

Kevin: But I also know that into a different business, they charge,

Nic: I I should, I should be recording

Kevin: conferences. Hate charge way too much money.

Nic: Yeah. A hundred thousand is obscene. Yeah. I I

Kevin: mean,

Nic: even, even

Kevin: like

Nic: 20 grand,

Kevin: 10, 10 to 15 is your typical one or two day event.

Nic: Yeah.

Kevin: Like, like a, like a a a regular camp would be 10 or 15,000.

That's why nobody did it.

Nic: Yeah.

Kevin: Yeah. And it's like,

Nic: yeah, I remember.

Kevin: And, and they'd wait and they would wait two or so weeks to get the recordings back.

Nic: Yeah. Yeah. I, I remember when we first started talking with you initially with Net Camp, I think we talked to a couple companies too before we found out about your initiative.

And yeah, the decision was basically if we, if we couldn't do something at the college already, we, we couldn't justify the budget to bring somebody in. Um, and then, like you said, it was, I think you say two weeks. I think some of the people we talked to was month, two months.

Kevin: Yeah.

Nic: Before things would be for

Avi: production

Nic: finished.

Yeah.

Kevin: Because they hand it off and then it's, and it's not their priority. Me, I just wanna be done with it. I have a job to do. I don't want to do videos for the next week.

Nic: Yeah. So, so something, if I remember correctly, something changed around DrupalCon Pittsburgh 2023. What, what was the turning point there?

Kevin: So, um, again, talking about, so 2020 was gonna be the big push to start getting out of North America. And so we had the, the Drupal North had their, or not Drupal Mountain Camp, had a, had a set. I was bringing a set to London. The, the agreement was like, I will give you these, this new set of equipment and you'll kind of like send 'em around Europe like I'm doing in North America.

And then that all died. And so 2023 is around when events were starting to come back. It IRL again, 'cause 2022, they were mostly, it was mostly shipping stuff. Um, and only like five. So it was like the, the time was to start talking about like, how do we remove me as a blocker? How do we expand this? How do we kind of pick up steam again on, on growth?

And that was the reason for going to Pittsburgh and having a b to, to discuss it. And that's when Bernardo volunteered to be the first mentee basically. So I, he, he and I did Asheville camp shortly after. And I, I'm like, here, take my equipment home. Oh look, wow. I was wearing an Asheville

Nic: shirt

Kevin: for,

Nic: for audio.

Uh,

Bernardo: nice

Nic: audio listeners.

Kevin: Yeah, so it was, yeah, go ahead. No,

Avi: no, no. I mean, I think that leads into the next question, which is like we've talked about now you have, you've got like dozens of, of, uh, devices out there and multiple hubs around the world. Like how does this whole hub situation work?

Kevin: Well, I mean, you make it sound grander than it is currently.

There's three and they're all, well, two in the US and one in in Western Canada. So at least we have Canadian kids 'cause Bob's in Vancouver area. Um, yeah, so that's my next plan is to it, assuming like I. At the end of Vienna, they're like, yep, we're definitely using your team going forward. But I haven't heard anything since then.

So assuming we go to Rotterdam, assuming there's enough fuel in the world to get us to Rotterdam, uh, my intent is to leave, uh, an eight pack of equipment with, and I haven't talked to them yet, but like through my work on the, uh, federation working group, like I now know people who run, it's nata, I forget, NEDA, I forget what the, the acronym stands for, but basically

Avi: it's the European Association.

Kevin: Yeah. Get, get the equipment into the hands of a, a, a group that is designed to support multiple events and then rather than just one event that potentially whoever is, is using the equipment, goes radio silent and then suddenly the equipment sits in the garage somewhere.

Avi: Yeah.

Nic: It's, it's the, it's, sorry.

It's the network of your European Drupal Associations. But

Kevin: yeah,

Nic: go ahead, Abby.

Avi: Yeah, no, no. I was just gonna like follow up with like Bernardo. Did you get like training? Did you have documentation? Did Kevin just like drop drop stuff in your, in your lap and be like, go?

Bernardo: I did get some training. I, uh, Kevin kind of guided me through Asheville that one time around.

We went through the different rooms, basically the whole volunteer setup, but a little extra 'cause it was mentor. And then I think I did Florida that year as well, or maybe the following year on my own. And then from there on it was larger events as Drupal Golf Con, which has a few extra rooms. And then at that point I felt a little more confident about taking on a bigger venue just because, you know, we troubleshooted like the setup for the recording initiative is not hard until you run into challenges with people's machines and some of the AV issues you will come across.

Uh. Regardless of what you use and when you come across those, you hope you have some experience. And that's where I feel like the maintainers, uh, have a little bit of an edge potentially, uh, on volunteers. 'cause volunteers never seen this issue before, so they just hope they can troubleshoot it right there.

But we may have seen some of those issues and we might be able to come back from them a little faster. Yeah, makes sense.

Kevin: I also have this, I refuse to fail attitude. So even if I just stand there and look angrily at the equipment until it starts, it usually works.

Avi: Nice. Uh, okay. I think we have a question from, uh, Steven again. Um, so have non Drupal events used the Drupal Recording Initiative?

Kevin: Uh, I don't think officially. I do remember hearing. Tangential stuff early on, like, uh, through Twitter, like, Hey, I just saw this equipment at x, y, Z event. Um, but I know Bernardo was trying to push that initiative forward with what?

Ric Con, right?

Bernardo: Yeah, with Ric Con. Yeah. But, uh, most recently we used it for a local Chattanooga one. There is a conference here, scenic City Summit. We used it for that last year just because they couldn't afford to record the sessions, even though it's hosted by the city and there's a bunch of big sponsors.

So we had it for that, and we're planning to do it again for, uh, this year. So we're trying to break through a little bit, uh, on that market,

Nic: even though

Bernardo: also that's

Nic: also Nerd Summit, right? Which technically isn't a Drupal camp anymore. I, I guess adjacent

Kevin: Drupal adjacent. Same with like, uh, Drupal Adelphia was part of a larger open source.

Oh thing, but like it was still, still came through Drupal. Um, I know what also helps is doing the larger cons because you get more eyes on, on what's going on, and then people who are in other, other communities to be like, Hey, we could probably use that too. Right? I'm like, absolutely you can.

Nic: Yeah, that makes sense.

Avi: Is that a goal to like, I mean, I know the Dral Association is trying to like get out to other open source things. Are you, are you kind of thinking about that?

Kevin: Uh, my goal is to be a little bit more hands off, so yes. No, maybe, um, it's, it's funny. When I started this, uh, I was just doing Drupal freelance. I worked full time, I had a salary.

And because I also learned at these events, they kind of treated this as, um. Work from home days, essentially. So the whole paradigm changed when suddenly I'm now just a solo contractor and I don't get paid for time, that I'm not actually working hours. And so to do this to the level that I had before is, is not, not achievable.

Bernardo: Okay. So I was wondering, um, have you heard from CAM organizers how the Drupal recording initiative has, uh, positively affected them when it comes to their ability to record the sessions and have some extra support? And do we know what percentage of us, uh, Drupal camps in general or um, use the recording initiative?

Kevin: Um, to your first question, I've heard mixed, mixed results. Some, some. Events have said it, it gives them the credibility. Like they, you know, they're a bigger player because their events are recorded and so it helps get attendance and sponsors. And in other cases, like, well attendance, they wonder, and I wonder too, has attendance dropped because at attendees don't actually have to come in person anymore to get the content.

Um, which will always be an issue. Um, and I don't know that there's ever a solution for that. There are different motivations to go to events more than just learning. There's also the networking, which you can't do from watching a video. There's, um, just all the spontaneous aspects to an event, but there's also the costs and maybe the, the fear, the intimidation, like there's a lot of, I think it's always gonna help, but to some extent it's gonna also hurt.

You know, for the people who are just looking to solely get content, um, I forget the second question.

Bernardo: The second one was about, uh, how many camps in the us?

Kevin: The percentage. Oh, the percentage. Um, I, there there are only a couple that don't use my equipment. Uh, Colorado, they use a different system, but also they have the same equipment.

So if they ever stop using their current setup, they plan to use this equipment. Um,

who else? Like, I think that's it in, oh, Atlanta never did, but Atlanta stopped

Avi: those bad

Kevin: Cam, who knows if bad cam use GovCon. GovCon uses it. Yeah. Yeah,

Nic: yeah.

Kevin: It was hard. It was, I mean there, there, and there are fewer now. So that's the other thing, like. At, at the time it was, it was pretty much everybody but Atlanta and Colorado.

Nic: Hmm. So turning back to the technology a bit, you had mentioned that your, um, you kind of remind me of all the, like the banks that are using, like equipment from the 1970s and they're trying to find capacitors everywhere. Like, you know, the equipment itself is fairly reliable, but it's also old, like, it, it's video capture equipment for game systems.

Kevin: Yeah.

Nic: And newer game systems just kind of have integrated video capture systems now, so they, the external equipment isn't as as necessary. Um, but also kind of people's video has become more accessible in general, so people's expectations have changed. Um, what's kind of the biggest technology, uh, you know, I guess workflow challenge right now for you?

Um,

Kevin: um. I think it's random audio. Well, random video. So there, there's this weird Mac setting that turns the output on some yellowish, which is just, I had that this year. Yeah.

Avi: Super weird.

Kevin: Yeah, it's, it's this weird, I forget, it's the night.

Nic: How yellow are we talking? Are we talking like ceia, like a movie set in?

Avi: So like it's the

Kevin: night shift mode

Avi: that,

Kevin: uh, but more yellow, but it's not though Tins your

Avi: screen. Yeah,

Kevin: it's not, it's, it's, that can also complicate it. No, it, I've got a pinned, um, post in the recording channel on Drupal Slack on how to set up, but there's never time to be like, I've got eight rooms to set up.

Oh, did you do this thing? I,

Nic: yeah.

Kevin: So no, what what really killed me is I tried to fix those. Here's where night shift will get you. Is. I was kind of, I was monitoring these as I was processing them, but they were looking good when I was working on them. So I think night shift was preventing me from seeing some of these.

'cause like I could have just done a, a color filter on these during processing. And so then when I went to post, I'm like, how that, that, that didn't look like that when I was working on it. So, so the video that was like

Avi: a true tone

Kevin: or something

Avi: too, I think.

Kevin: Something like that. Yeah. So that, that's an issue.

And audio has always been a problem. Um, what though, one thing that I've learned as I did it, a test for DrupalCon Chicago because they, they, uh, it's a weird setup. They had met several microphones. They were very noisy echoy rooms. And so typically what I have is on the, the audio recorder that feeds into it, I had it set to auto gain.

To catch audience questions, but I, I was suspecting that was adding a whole lot of noise, so I turned auto gain off and the audio is a whole lot cleaner. In fact, most of the audio that I used, my audio was better than the AV supplied audio.

Nic: Oh, really?

Kevin: At in Chicago? Yeah, because there's just, it's, it's too hard to monitor.

Like you don't really, that, that is the disadvantage of the system is like you don't know what it is until you watch the recording.

Nic: Yeah.

Kevin: So like, if there was an audio issue, you won't pick it up. Like Yeah, it was hard to troubleshoot. There were a couple rooms that were really weird and it's like. You're outputting audio, but I'm not picking it up.

What's the, what's the deal?

Nic: I, I, I will say just, just as somebody who is a consumer, I mean, I've, obviously, I helped with Ned camp, so I've, I've been the person in the room that says push the button. Mm-hmm. But I, and I've helped Rick set up, but I wasn't like on the team, it was just, I was helping with Ned camp, so I helped.

But, um, as somebody who generally is just a consumer, the qual like the quality is so much better. Like, you see the slides directly, you can hear, generally hear the people. There's some exceptions, like if there's an audio issue, but the vast majority of 'em just works. I was trying to watch, I don't even remember what conference, it was like a non Drupal conference and I think they basically just had a phone set up where they recorded it.

And it was a session I was very, very interested in. And I couldn't get past 10 minutes, like the interesting audio, like you just couldn't hear. You couldn't see, first of all, you could see the presenters and the. Screen, but she couldn't read anything because it was a phone set up 12 feet back or 20 feet back or something, and, and you could hear it was closer to the audience.

So I'm just saying that to say like, the small percentage of ones where they go awry is more than made up for the ones that go well are, are top notch. Like they're excellent. Yeah. Excellent. Well,

Kevin: and

Avi: and I think

Kevin: that, and I always prioritize content over everything else because at least once per event is like, well, we really would benefit from having the speaker in the slides.

I'm like, no, you won't, because Yeah. Who's gonna, who's gonna light 'em? Who's gonna keep 'em in frame? Who's gonna make sure they're not covering content?

Nic: Yeah.

Avi: Right. I think that's been one of the biggest, yeah, I remember having those conversations a bunch of times over the years with, with mid camp, with DrupalCon, like, and, and I think.

I, I, I think that was one of the decisions that has really helped you scale things is the decision to like never capture video. Like apart from the, the slides from the computer. Like you're capturing, right? You're capturing screen capture, but you're not capturing video of people. Uh,

Kevin: and so many presenters are relieved when they're like, oh, there's not an actual camera.

Thank God. It's like, because that's just one more thing to worry about. And it's another thing though, like this would never fly at a Word Camp event. 'cause they require live, live camera in their things. And they even sent reference videos and I'm like, here, here's like a hand in frame because nobody is manning that camera.

So it's like, how is that adding value to see the hand or that empty podium? 'cause your speaker walks.

Nic: Yeah.

Kevin: The other thing people will ask about is streaming. It's like, yeah, good luck getting reliable wifi at a, at a conference. So no, I never will.

Nic: Yeah. And even if we could, it's like an extra thing to go wrong, like we, or

Kevin: Right.

Nic: We've been streaming now for, we've technically been streaming for a few years, although we've only been publicly streaming for about a month and we're still, and we've been doing like shows and podcasts for a very long time. It's so complicated. Yeah. Every time you change your workflow just a little bit, and if you have to figure that out for 25 speakers and every single device being slightly different, like no, I, I would never want to do that.

Um,

Avi: yeah, I think it can. Yeah, I, I think streaming can work if you have a volunteer who, who can set it up and run the whole thing independently at mid camp last year, like Dre did the keynote and we had Taryn like set up her own whole like, recording or live stream thing. And it worked great, but like, it was completely independent.

It was like all like separate equipment and, uh, and I think it was, it was good. But I'm gonna pivot back a little bit. Um, you talked earlier, Kevin, about like removing yourself as the blocker, um, from, uh, the initiative moving forward and I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about how like, um, you know, the contributors maintainers and volunteers, like what role they play in, in making everything successful.

Kevin: Sure. Um, so as essentially all the maintainers are somebody who I've personally mentored to record an event and have. Like we, we've done it together at least once. And so, and they feel comfortable and confident enough to, to take equipment and be on the hook for running it to a FedEx set whenever we need.

Suddenly, oh, we have this event coming up that we need the equipment in five days. So it's like, yeah. So that, that's the commitment of a maintainer is they have equipment and they will go to events to record. Um, everybody else is, well, I guess the next level down are, are the, the events that rent the equipment because essentially those, I need to start building a network because those are people who are familiar with the equipment but don't have as good of a success rate in capturing sessions because it's not their sole responsibility.

That's the other issue, or the other differentiator between someone from our team coming on site is that's our sole. And too many times, like if you start to split your attention or responsibility, it's too often that the recording falls because it, when it works, it works great, but when it doesn't, you have to be there to catch it.

And so people hit the button or, or they hit the button, but the, uh, backup audio wasn't turned on and recording. And so there are cases where the audio becomes unusable from the recording or it's not there because certain machines do a weird thing that there is no audio in the recording.

Nic: Yeah. St.

Stephen actually had a, a follow up question on that. Um, 'cause at Nedc camp, I, I think we do the backup recording just continuous and just replace batteries once a day. But I know that he does a lot of post-production on the audio to clean it up. Is that, is that common for camps or for ones that you do or is that kinda unique to us?

Kevin: It's not common though for DrupalCon Chicago. I did it on almost all sessions. And then I think European cons or European, European events, there se seems to be this like cyclical click in the audio. I don't know if it's

Nic: oh,

Kevin: through the, the, the converters for the power that to get, you know, from their power to our power, but like, so, and that it's picked up in, in the, the mixed record, but not the backup audio recording.

So most of those are replaced and I've only just started, I still only use Final Cut. Um, so their audio cleanup is not the best. But I did do a fair amount of cleanup for the Chicago sessions. But it, yeah, I try, I try to minimize that because again, the more time that this costs, the less. Realistic, this becomes,

Bernardo: do we know how stressful it is for a volunteer to take care of the recordings?

Kevin: Um, I, I actually don't know how stressful it is because I don't ask, and I should, but I do know that there, I've, I've seen levels of frustration because, like if I'm a room monitor, say, and my job is to make sure that the speaker's taken care of and they hit the button, but, but if that person is not known to me, I don't know that that person is there.

And so I may, I will likely step on their toes a bit and do their tasks for them because that's why I'm there. Um, so that's a stressor. Go ahead.

Bernardo: And, and I will add to that, that at least at Florida Drupal Camp, there were a couple of people who were volunteers who were recording it before, uh, I came in and started helping them as a maintainer of the DRI initiative.

And they always told me how grateful they were to not have to take care of that one task because recording as a volunteer can be, uh, pretty stressful. 'cause if you blew it, you're gonna be known as the person who didn't get the recordings done and you were in charge of the one thing and you never know what's gonna come.

'cause every now and then, uh, the location might change a screen or you might have somebody who has a different device. Uh, so yeah. So I added that question in there, but I also know from the other perspective that, you know, they're being pretty grateful when it comes to like, oh yeah, one less worry.

Kevin: That's, that's good to hear. I do. When I got that feedback a few years back, I, what was from that point was always trying to be more cognizant like, oh, like I've seen you, like if I know you're the room monitor and I can trust you, I'm gonna back off a little bit, but I'm still gonna make sure that it's, 'cause again, like I'm essentially being paid to be there.

Like, I'm not getting paid, but the event paid money to make this happen. So, sorry about your feelings. I'm gonna make sure that my job is, is getting done because it's bigger than the both of us. Um,

Nic: yeah.

Kevin: But I will try to acknowledge, but like, I won't even, no offense, Bernardo, I won't even trust you.

Technically if I'm there, I'm gonna make sure they're happening.

Nic: Yeah. I, I, I think it changes when money is exchanged for that, right? Like if we're, I mean, obviously each camp is paying the shipping fee or they're paying the, if they're just getting it shipped the 500. Mm-hmm. But as a volunteer, I mean, in general, I think it's best effort as a, uh, co-organizer of Net camp, like we do our best to do it.

If we missed a session, we try to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. But ultimately we're doing best effort, right?

Kevin: Yeah.

Nic: But, um, the, the, the part as a, a room monitor, the part that feels stressful for me is when something goes wrong halfway through, right?

Kevin: Oh, yeah.

Nic: Like, so, like for example, many times Max will go to sleep, even if they have it set not to, and then that stops the recording.

Some I've seen sometimes, sometimes it doesn't. Mm-hmm. And you have to remember each time, like, and, and that each time that happens, it's also more work for whoever's doing post-production, because now they have to stitch 'em together. But. Um, we, we have a, we have a few comments from, uh, from our viewers.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna read through, so get Pantheon, wanted to say thank you for all the work you've been doing, the Drupal community. Kevin, uh, we haven't talked about Drupal tv, but I know that, you know, putting that stuff up is, is, is a huge benefit to the community. Um, then we have a, a couple comments from M-N-L-B-C works.

Uh, look at the stunning most board members. Uh, we'll be talking about that next week, I think as well. So if you wanna come back and

Kevin: Hilarious

Avi: segue.

Nic: Yeah. And they also said, uh, you know, they're acknowledging that it's hard work, right? It, it's helped so many people, especially in the underrepresented populations, to kind of show their expertise.

Like, it, it helps not just people learning about Drupal, but it helps the speakers expand their profile. And you can, it, it's one thing to be like, I spoke at this event. It's something to be like, I spoke at this event. Here's this. Professional recorded video of the session so you can see. 'cause I know we sometimes watch people that are submitting to Ned Camp to be like, oh, you know, are they, are they an experienced speaker?

What time slot should we put them in? Do they need extra mentorship? Um, and, and having these recordings gives us a good way if we haven't been to one of the conferences. And

Kevin: Yeah, that used, that used to be a requirement of DrupalCon, I think, is to show recordings of your previous talks and Yeah. That,

Nic: and finally, was this you, Avi, you, you can read this

Kevin: hilarious.

Avi: Not me.

Nic: Uh, yeah. Mid camp, but Shadow

Avi: Mid Camp. Uh, may, May 12th through 14th. Uh, get your tickets.

Kevin: I'll be

Avi: recording it.org.

Nic: Yep. So, yeah, may camp wanted to say, shout out to the two, two, the OG organizers.

Kevin: That the, that does bring up a, a interesting perspective that, so when I first went into this, I went into it from the conference organizer perspective again.

'cause that was my lens is like, this alleviates the stress of having to be in two places at once. Right. Um, it wasn't until later that people then kind of keyed in on like the accessibility benefit of it and also the professional benefit of it, where it's like, look, I've got a resume right here of all the talks I've done right here.

You know, it's like, and they're like, you did that? I'm like, stop it. But that's, that's great.

Nic: Awesome. Okay, so getting back to, uh, the, the next question is. Are, are there other differences? Because, because you mentioned you feel a little bit more responsibility when it's one of you guys going out, but are there other differences between a maintainer and a volunteer?

Do you have, I imagine you have different instructions that you send to the volunteer than you send to a camp that is inviting you out directly?

Kevin: Um, well, I guess what do you mean by volunteer?

Nic: Um, so, so like, I think the first year or two that we did at Ned Camp, I don't think Rick had his own set set up at that point.

I think it was just the DRI mm-hmm. Set up. And so I think the first time, it, first two times you came out yourself.

Kevin: Yeah.

Nic: Then after that it was just him kind of managing it. Was it, you know, what, what was it like, I guess the first time you sent out a kit? I hear, but on its own,

Kevin: well, okay. Yes. So Rick is a special case.

He took that all on his own. Like he, he, he, we, like, he saw what I was doing. He got excited about it and he, he owned it. And that's, I love people who do that. Like, that's, that's exactly what we need. Um, looking back, my very first shift equipment was in 2018 to Pacific Northwest Drupal Summit. Um, but when I ship the equipment, what I do is I, I, I give the instructions, which is, I've got docs on GitHub, which full setup instructions for pre-event during event, and then just the in-room recording instructions that go on the podium.

But I also, for every event say, let's do, let's get on a zoom after you have the equipment in hand. Read the instructions and let's go through basically a tutorial mm-hmm. On how this works. So that's, that's the offer for anyone who rents it. So it's like, I'll give you the support you need, but I can't, what, what sometimes happens is they then think, okay, I know how this works.

Great. It'll be easy. And then, oh, I didn't pay attention once the event started and I didn't make sure it was happening.

Nic: Yeah.

Kevin: Or I forgot to do this one thing and so we lost half the sessions.

Nic: Yeah. The all, all the, like plugging in all the cables is, and Velcro and all that kinda stuff is a little bit more involved.

Like, you look at it like, oh, there's just a couple cables. But no, there you have to find power outlet. You have to get all the dongles together. You have to, you have to find room monitors for each room. I mean, there, there's a lot that goes into it. And we, we were fortunate for so many years that you, and then Rick kind of just handled that.

Um, so yeah, I, I don't know who's in charge of video recording this year. Um, not it, but I don't wanna be the one, but, uh, yeah.

Avi: Nice.

Nic: Good to know.

Avi: Okay, so we've talked a lot about like the logistics of, of, uh, all of, you know, sending everything around and setting it up. Uh, we talked a little bit about the funding model, uh, but how is that, like, how, how does the initiative kind of like sustained, how is it funded?

Um, what's kind of been the evolution of that? If you wanna do a little bit of a shameless plug, maybe?

Kevin: Oh, absolutely. So, uh, so as I mentioned, it first started with me just I was getting money and tracking money and hoping I wouldn't get audited by the IRS. And so then, uh, when. When Mid Camp had to do, I forget what year it was, 2014 I think when the, the Triple Association stopped acting as fiscal sponsor for events.

Avi: Oh, that was like 17 I think.

Kevin: Ah, it was, yeah.

Avi: I dunno.

Kevin: Whenever that happened, um, the organizers of mid camp had already toyed with the idea of creating their own nonprofit, um, to, so that way we didn't have to pay 5% to another entity to hold our money. And so when that happened, the, the kind of message was like, send all your money to Open Collective.

They'll do what, what we've been doing. And open collective's like, sure, we'll do that for another 5%. It's like, well we already gave our 5%. We don't wanna give another 5% because we had money in the bank and we were still struggling as mid camp 'cause it was in our early years. And so. As, as event organizers typically do.

It's like, let's start a nonprofit. And so once Mosa mid Midwest Open Source Alliance, once Mossa started, I then moved, I, I stopped using my personal bank account and used, uh, M OSA's bank account. Yeah, because it was directly through our Chase mid camp account, essentially. So mid camp was the defacto mid, I don't know.

Essentially it, it became fiscally sponsored, but I was still doing, doing it through Open Collective, so it could be open accounting, because I just wanted people to know like, Hey, if I'm an event giving you a thousand dollars, what's going with, what's happening with the, the extra money or how much? So I wanted to make sure that it was always clear like, here it costs me $800 to go, go and record your event.

The other 200 sits here. Oh look, I needed new equipment. Oh, that dongle broke. Oh, I needed more duct tape. Or not gaffers tape or an equipment. Yeah, it was,

Avi: that's always been a nice feature of Open Collective is like that that is one thing that it did really well is like showing all of that, that accounting.

Kevin: Yeah. But, uh, then when Open Collective imploded and also their charging platform. Oh, the Collective Foundation. Open Collective Foundation, yeah. They imploded, which is how OSA grew. Uh, 'cause we took everybody in who needed a home. But, uh, as of this year, open Collective itself is charging platform fees.

And based on the activity, Mosa made the decision to, to Sunset Open Collective. And so I've moved to Zaphy for, um, so I, there were a handful of, uh, recurring donors through Open Collective 'cause that was another nice feature. From early on, like people were giving monthly. Mm-hmm. Which was great. Um, so those have stopped and it's now zaphy is gonna be what we're using going forward.

But yeah, in terms of sustainability, it's, it's still primarily gonna be charging the events, keeping it as affordable as possible, but always charging a little bit extra so that way we can cover shortages for other events or, uh, equipment replacement search, whatever.

Nic: Yeah. Or, or like if, like as you said, like hotels and airlines have gotten more expensive and you need time to be able to react to increase prices.

So you need a little bit of cushion to Yeah. To handle that too. Um. Yeah.

Bernardo: So Kevin, tell us a little bit more about Drupal tv. When did that come into play? What, uh, was the setup before it? Did people just share their YouTube accounts?

Kevin: Yeah, so I would post to each camp's YouTube account, uh, playlist for each event.

I still do that. Um, but 2019, um, Ashraf from Debug Academy, he had his students as, as their class project, create Drupal tv and he reached out to me. It was, I think it was like New Year's Day was the launch on January 19. It was 2019 is like, Hey, uh, could you give me links to all the YouTube playlists so that we can populate this?

And I'm like, totally. And so, 'cause I just keep a running spreadsheet of, of the recording history and, uh. I helped populate Drupal tv, so yeah, but I didn't build it. People credit me for building it, and that's not true. But I did, uh, I did help populate it and I still do, for each event that I do, I will, I will do the camps playlist and then I will feed that to Drupal tv.

Nic: Yeah, I do, I do still occasionally go there and kind of poke around and see what's, um, see what's, um, see what's new, see what, see what event recently happened that I, I missed and if there's anything I wanna watch. Um,

oh, sorry. I think it's, uh, I think it's your question. Bernardo Jimo.

Bernardo: Oh, I think that that question, we can probably merge it in with the last one if you wanna read that one.

Nic: Okay, sure. So if you, if you're looking ahead, we, we, we like to ask the roadmap question. Um, I guess in this case, what, what's the continued success and, uh, what, what other opportunities for growth do you think the initiative in general is looking for?

Kevin: Um, still always looking for like regional volunteers. Um, like Midwest needs one 'cause I don't wanna be it. Uh, also Canada. Like we've got Western Canada, but Canada's pretty big too. So potentially another, um, that's pretty big maintainer, you know, in Canada I heard.

And he's for Ottawa. Is that true? I don't, that's middle. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know my Canadian geography, but also like, uh, I need to potentially talk with, um, evolving web because they've been using the equipment for their evolve. Drupal, which has now evolved digital events. And so they know the equipment pretty well.

So theoretically, you know, I don't know, but like the Drupal event scene is also pretty quiet in Canada. They're just starting to start again. 'cause once Drupal North Association died, that kind of stopped a lot of the events. Again, like a lot of Canada didn't really, hasn't really ramped up since COVID.

But that's starting to happen it sounds like. So I made sure to be

Avi: next year,

Kevin: made sure to be part of their boss at at Chicago to be like, Hey, there's recording if you need it. But like South America, central America, Mexico, like Europe. India, like there are so many countries that don't have, that are running events that are not getting recorded.

So growth is finding a way to either with this equipment or different equipment, find a way to help push people to, to get recording. Um,

Nic: yeah,

Kevin: whether that's me directly doing some things, and I think, again, as European cons happen, that's, that's how, that's what kind of kickstarted the potential growth, like in London and beyond.

So Yeah. Is, and also finding new equipment that's gonna be a feature. And then now that there are more people involved, there needs to be some sort of scheduling that it's not our what Slack note in the recording channel of like, what's, what's coming up and who's doing it. Like an official request. Maybe a website.

Nic: Yeah. Google, Google form maybe.

Kevin: Sure.

Nic: Well, well, Kevin, thank you for joining us again. It's always a pleasure to have you on, and I think Drupal Recording Initiative is, is definitely one of the, um, it's definitely one of the crown jewels. I think being able to kinda see what's going on through the years is, is one of the great things about Drupal Camps.

Kevin: Thank you.

Avi: Do you have questions or feedback? Reach out to talking Drupal on the socials with the handle talking Drupal or by email with [email protected]. You can connect with our hosts and other listeners on Drupal Slack in the Talking Drupal channel.

Nic: If you want to be a guest on Talking Drupal or a no, or a new show, TD Cafe, you can click on the guest request button in the [email protected]

Avi: and you can promote your Drupal community event on talking Drupal, just like I promoted MIDC Camp last week.

Uh. You can learn more about [email protected] slash td promo,

Nic: and you can get the Talking Drupal newsletter to learn more about our guest hosts, show news, upcoming shows, and much more. You can sign up for the [email protected] slash newsletter.

Avi: And thank you patrons for supporting talking Drupal.

Here's support is greatly appreciated. You can learn more about becoming a [email protected] and choose Become a Patron.

Nic: I'd also like to thank all of the, uh, people watching live right now and participating in the comments. It's, it's a pleasure having you guys along with us. All right, Kevin, if our listeners wanted to get in touch with you, just had any questions, what's the best way for them to do that?

Kevin: Uh, lately I'm on LinkedIn, and then also I'm al in triple slack.

Nic: Perfect. And Bernardo, how about you?

Bernardo: For me, it'd be on Slack at Bernard M 28 or on LinkedIn as well.

Nic: Awesome. Avi, how about you?

Avi: Yep. I am fro boy on Drupal Slack. Uh, I'm on LinkedIn and you can reach out to ImageX if you'd [email protected].

Nic: And you can find me pretty much everywhere at Nsan, N-I-C-X-V-N,

Avi: if you would've.

If you've enjoyed listening. We've enjoyed talking.

Nic: Awesome. See you guys next week.

Avi: Thank you.

Nic: Bye.

Avi: Thanks folks.

Nic: Great show.