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# System prepended metadata

title: IPFS Thing 2023 - Retro

---

# IPFS Thing 2023 - Retro

Use this doc to gather feedback about the 2023.
We will split the time as follows:8888

- **15m writing** - ~3m for each of the sections below.
- **7m reading + rate** - read, group, & emoji-rate
- **20m Discussion** - discuss the top items in each section

Reminders:
- Retros are blameless -- sourcing lots of feedback and opinion
- Feedback is a gift -- both positive and negative feedback.
- Retros shape the future -- lots about this event was shaped by last event's retro.
- Opinions vary, people disagree, it's better to voice your opinion, even if others disagree. We take feedback w/ appropriate salt. 🧂
- Try to make it concrete & actionable


## Writing

Things to consider:
- Venue
- Event Format
- Tracks
- Unconf
- Discussions
- The þing itself
- Things for IPFS Camp
- Next Steps


### Liked 💜

- Venue: 
    - Everything in one spot to get used to over the days ++++++++++++++++👍+👍👍👍
    - the hotel's food was really good +++++👍+
    - Great Beer +++👍👍
    - Events were all well planned and everything was conveniently located. Great food nearby. ++++
    - Wolf across the street 4 food+++
    - ⚛ Atomium was very cool ++++++++++👍👍
    - Atrium with natural sun light ++
    - Many rooms for break out sessions and quiet hacking ++ +👍👍
    - lot's of space for hacking ++
    - was at the same place as the conf. +++ 👍👍👍
    - .
    - Venue and Staff very accommodating;Fact that all was on the same floor helped the flow, and made the whole thing smooth ++
    - travel here was fast
    -  Social time/events were nicely planned and executed - good venue options, good food [go YUNI]+++👍💓💓👍👍+
    -  Game NIGHT! 👍👍
    -  Atrium f
    -  Yuni and Nicole are awesome 💓👍💓👍💓👍💓👍💓👍💓👍👍👍👍👍++
- Event Format
    - only three tracks to fight between at a time+👍+
    - tracks format with a running theme +👍
    - Running theme & cross team is great for collaboration!
    - excellent -- many connections made +👍👍
- Tracks
    - competing tracks were hard to follow.👍👍
    - i liked the track choices, and that there was a clear leader of each track👍👍
    - shared topic & cross team is great mix

    - tracks having non-aligned timeslot ligned timesloligned timesloligned timeslo
    - All content was highly relevant.+👍👍
    - 
    - all the tracks had incredibly engaging titles
    - End to end demos of things working
- Unconf
    - Prepared agendas were helpful in making progress 👍
    - so many rooms to unconf in ++👍
    - Lots of room for more impromptu conversation compared to previous events👍
    - Very easy to schedule and get people to hear ideas +
    - Incredibly productive sessions with highly actionable discussions + ⭐️👍👍
    - sheet made it easy to see, and to add to +
    - 
    - Great to sync with other teams and build alignment on features to be build!+👍👍
    - 
- Discussions
    - 
    - loved UCANs❤️ 🦜❤️❤️💜👍
    - 
    - Lotus+Boost discussions helped sovle tricky things
    - real talk - some hard things covered in a lot of hallways👍💖
    - Diversity of participants resulted in a lot of enlightening discussions with fresh perspectives.
    - Communal meeting spot was good for ad-hoc discussions
    - Tiles
    - RIBS Exists!+👍
    - 
- The þing itself
    - Enough concentration to really focus on just the thing.
    - 
    - Enough breaks for 1-1 conversations in addition to talks👍
    - 
    - felt like the website could have more info (maybe behind a pw for attendees)
    - 
    - Sync time ❤️❤️
    - meeting people outside PL ❤️
    - Talkin application of the stuff we are building.👍 
    - Was great to work with 
- Things for IPFS Camp
ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs     - ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs ipfs 
    - more ipfs based tools👍
- Next Steps
    - Can we capture commitments and next steps and circulate. Maybe Starmaps👍+
    - Involve managers more in the event
    - Publish a 👍
    - build on the promises made
    - more docs more videos more blog posts

### Learned 🧠
- Venue
    - i will not leave the building if it's the same as event+ 👍
    - great atrium
    - Use the do not disturb or get an early wake up -
        - 8 is not early
            - it is if you came from US
                - yeah
    - 
    - How far along implementations have already come! Great progress!++ 👍
    - Brussels gave us all Smurfs+++
    - concept of PLN and blue/green teams still not 
    - ~~french~~ freedom fries in brussels is a thing++
      - THEY ARE NOT FRENCH
- Event Format
    - happy hours were great+++👍👍👍
    - Right balance of session lengths (although long days)++👍👍+👍
    - its great to have so much time to network ++1+++++
    - very nice to see coworkers and community members again+ 👍
- Tracks
    - Better be prepared to run between tracks
    - Combined sense of Q2 roadmaps and expected work from many of the teams
    - Community & Governance should've been on Monday 👍
    - three tracks per day is still a lot!!!+👍👍
    - QUIC seems to be everywhere 👍
    - People actually like Rust :)++++++👍👍❤️+💯
    - Lots of folks are genuinely interested in participating in content routing design discussions+👍
    - 


- Unconf
    - more show and tell for things already working and perf improvements, not just the shiny new things.++👍
    - RIBS (the blockstore) is very cool!+ :meat_on_bone: 👍👍
      - did you go to the Amadeus place?!
    - We can make our software usable by normal humans 👍
    - The Hydras are slaying themselves
    - NNS all the things plz +++
    - WebTransport is really cool ++👍👍 👍
- Discussions
    - 🗣 HTTP is really important + 👍👍👍+👍👍
    - Privacy and threat modeling may need more intentional consider 👍👍
    - Maybe we get rid of block size limit++++🤯
    - We are builiding a taller stack now 👍
    - IPFS is content addressing now 🗣 (always has been?++)
    - Very excited with better than Web2 speeds (with rapide etc) 👍
    - We could do a better job learning from existing (content addressable) systems
    - People want IPFS to do the p2p things +
    - Difficultgs
    - Lots of
- The þing itself
    - it's ok to sneak off to get some rest sometimes+++++👍👍👍👍
    - it's good to have the space to get rest nearby+ 👍
    - hackathon could've been a nice addition maybe.+👍+++
    - ch awesome
    - i can only take so much awesome+
- Things for IPFS Camp
    - It's happening in India! +👍👍
    - I want to bring in the technical FFDW partners -- IPFS is often more what they want/need to know than the Filecoin side of things 
    - how do we recap IPFS Thing for IPFS Camp (and v)
    - ipfs camp and thing are VERY different things+
    - mork workshop and hands on experience
    - we probably have some stuff that should work by camp
        - Commit to shipping end to end experiences for usage at Camp
- Next Steps
    - More protocols, more UCAN, more of everything?
    - We have IPFS Camp, then IPFS Thing.. we need another abstraction
    - We should focus on making IPFS implementations that have a specific usageation for self-hosting, implementation for in-browser uasge, etc. One size does not fit all.⭐️
    - Fix peerpad 👍👍
    - IPVM when?

### Lacked 🤔wwwwwwwwwwwwww

- Venue
    - Slightly too spread out -- more loops with everyone together (maybe retros every day)
    - seating at dinner +++++++++++++👍
    - very isolated from outdoors; what i👍
    - Table and seats for breakfast and lunches. 👍👍++
        - Did anyone eat in Royal?
    - Sunlight 👍👍👍+
    - microphones for games night
    - Management track to bring more harmony to the network
    - starting on saturday is though. missing a weekend is exhausting 👍👍👍👍
- Event Format
    - Important to do timezone changes a few days beforehand or won't be at full capacity.👍
    - calendar+ 👍
    - wwwwww  - 
    - Mornings for talks/afternoons for unconf/sessions?+ 👍👍👍👍
    - The schedule on the web was difficult to read on a mobile phone. 👍👍
        - Also has a bug when reloading the website after opening one of the events. You can't open the event info anymore.
    - hackat
    - Dinners were starting (and finishing!) very late
        - 
    - More options for sitting down at dinners, not standing all night  👍 👍 👍
    - Too intense. After listening to talks for half a day, it was difficult to concentrate in the afternoons. Suggestion: talks in the morning, workshops & unconf sessions.+ 👍👍
    - too much concurrency less tracks would be nicer 👍 
    - We need a way to get CSV dump / export of tracks/talks so can more easily plot your adventure.  👍👍
    - the even
- Tracks
    - What's on 
- Unconf
    - No opening session/circle each day where people announce the unconf sessions they are organizing +
    - No closing session/circle to highlight what was awesome each day
- Discussions
- The þing itself
- 
- Things for IPFS Camp
- Next Steps
    - A way to fold together all the improvements 
    - go through the onboarding process for every tool your team is responsible for, and fix any bugs in that process


### Longed For / STOP 😩

- Venue
    - Alcohol cart went away too abruptly/quickly +
        - During happy hour? Unfortuantely only had it for an hour. 
    - more microphones to avoid huge delays passing them around in the main room +
        - Moreso when speakers were remote
- Event Format
    - outdoor time 👍👍👍+1 +👍👍👍👍=========👍
    - maybe blend tracks/unconf more: a full day of talks is hard to pay attention to, maybe talks in the morning and unconf in the afternoon 👍 👍
    - Dinners were starting very late. 👍
        - Do you prefer to get rid of "free" time in between? 
- Tracks
    - separate Compute from AI ++
    - Current website very hard to find sessions +👍👍
    - slack invite hard to find
        - We emailed and also added everyone. Let me know if there's a better way to get people invited.
    - publish videos early so we can watch talks we missed before the conference ends 👍
    - video will support faster as soon as we get "curated" list of the videos that should be published faster
- Unconf
    - less prepared unconf sessions for freestyling on things
    - longed for a physical board/whiteboard with the unconf schedule on it...digital is "fine" but an actual board is more convenient for coordinating rooms and times. 👍
- Discussions
- The þing itself
    - hackathon
    - Bring our own network infra -- IPFS in a box 👍
- Things for IPFS Camp
- Next Steps
    - Several engineers said they did not have manager approval for time to a) prep for IPFS Thing content or b) to commit to do work afterwards 👍
    - Revive Peerpad and test w/ 300 concurrent users 👍👍👍


## Ratings

_After writing, reread and add emojis to rate_

👍 Agree / yes / +1
❤️ Loved!
⭐️ Favorite / Most Impactful
🗣 Discuss (max 2 votes per section)


