Message from the Chairs – 6/6/20

Ellen BoucherNews

Kia ora,

We are buzzing around like bees, getting things ready for our virtual convention and making sure we are ready to welcome you on schedule. Amongst the many things that we are learning about the virtual convention space is that legally, it works differently from the in-person convention space. One of the places that this legal difference is most evident is the parameters for unique membership.

Child Members

We will need to change the structure of our children’s memberships due to these legal differences. Children attending CoNZealand as individuals will need to be at least 13 years old by 29 July 2020. Kid-in-Tow memberships will not be available. We will do our best to have a place available for folks to register their children’s presence for the archives, but we cannot issue unique sign-ons for anyone under the age of 13.

Email accounts

In order to register for CoNZealand, we will need each member to have a unique email account. If you share an email account with another member, we will not be able to issue two unique sign-ons. If you need to register a new email account to do this. You can find directions on how to do this at Free Online Learning at GCFGlobal . Visit their website for more instructions if you want information on changing the settings of your gmail account or how to choose a strong password.

Time zones

We expect to record most events and some panels so that they can be watched in different time zones. We are not able to say exactly what yet, but stay tuned.

Technical Requirements

Regarding the technical requirements to participate in the convention, your equipment will most likely be fine. To deliver a good convention experience, we are using many components, all of which work on many devices. Even if some of the systems won’t work perfectly on your device, you should still be able to engage adequately with CoNZealand through other systems. By “device”, we mean a computer, a smartphone, a tablet, or a web-connected  TV. 

To get the best CoNZealand experience, your device should be able to:

To test your own device(s), try the WebRTC Troubleshooter (https://test.webrtc.org/). It provides a good check.  Click the Start Button.  If you get ticks on everything except IPV6 and Reflexive Connectivity, your device should be OK.

Discord

You will need to register for a Discord ID to use the Discord-based chat rooms. If you have not used Discord before (or do not have a Discord ID) then follow these steps:

  • Go to https://discord.com 
  • Click the blue Open Discord button
  • Discord will offer a user ID, but you should tailor your user ID:
    • Click the Settings cog (lower left next to the headphones)
    • In “My Account”  pick a username (or accept the default), add the email address you used to register for CoNZealand, and select a password.
    • Click Save.

You can use Discord from a browser, but many users find that the experience is significantly better in the app.  We recommend that you install the app from the Download tab on a discord.com page.

Because your online name is the primary way for people to recognise you, you might like to choose a user ID that will be recognizable by people who know you.

Internet Usage

Over the five days of CoNZealand, you will probably use between one and three megabits per second (Mb/s).  If you join for 10 hours per day you could use 60 Gigabytes or more of internet capacity.  You should confirm that your plan is suitable.  We recommend having an unlimited plan for the duration of CoNZealand.  Ideally you should be able to stream at 10Mb/s or more, and you can test this with https://speedtest.net 

Your CoNZealand Experience

If your device passes all of these tests, you should have a good experience. However, we can’t test every device, or guarantee that every device will work. CoNZealand does not have the resources to support specific situations or combinations of hardware. If your general web-surfing experience is good, and you can stream YouTube videos comfortably, then most likely your CoNZealand experience will be good too.

Thank You

We thank you for your patience as we work through this. We want to give you the best experience possible, and we look forward to seeing you at CoNZealand.

Kia kaha,

Kelly Buehler

Norman Cates