I was going to write something in response to @mathbabedotorg's post about WAGON, but I didn't want to be a downer. So thanks to @MKlyachman for speaking up... I should have done so. https://twitter.com/littmath/status/1252433507751653376

I'll start with: WAGON was great! The talks were great, even though I didn't completely follow a lot of the time (not a real algebraic geometer... @JSEllenberg made some chat comment about rational points vs derived categories & I'm definitely a rational points girl).

But, the tables... I did the following: I mostly joined tables organized by people I knew. And when I was there I mostly talked to people I knew. And where did I know these people from? Other in-person conferences where we met & got to know each other.

Many of the tables started with "let's introduce ourselves." But then if someone came in a few minutes late, they didn't get introduced & they didn't know who anyone was. And they just dropped into a conversation between people who mostly knew each other already. Awkward.

At my table, I tried to notice as ppl joined & I asked if they had NSF questions, since that's what I had advertised. But mostly I chatted with my already-friends. I "met" a few other people, but no one I would necessarily remember or recognize if I saw them again.

The reason I hesitated posting is that I'm not sure an online environment *can* mimic the things that naturally happen at in-person conferences. Someone gives a talk. You find them after & say: I thought about that a long time & couldn't figure it out. Did you really prove X?

They clarify the perhaps over-simplified statement in their talk. "How did you deal with Y?" They explain. You chat a bit more, and then a new project or friendship emerges.

Maybe this happened to the speakers, but I doubt it.

Or more socially, you see a friend chatting with someone whose name you recognize from a paper. So you join their little group & introduce yourself and talk a bit. Just the three (or some other smallish number) of you.

I know you tried to do that with the "add your name to the table" stuff in the google doc. But that didn't work. There were too many tables, and too many people per table. And there wasn't any natural way to break into a convo or have a side convo.

So... I enjoyed the tables & catching up with friends. But I imagined myself as a grad student or postdoc, and I wouldn't have gotten much out of them. I would have joined one or two, and then I would have bailed on the rest of them.

(In fact, I did bail on most of the social stuff on Sunday, except joining @blviray's table after the panel.)

I want to reiterate: the conference was great. I think you all did an amazing job. The talks were good. The panels were good. The technology worked pretty flawlessly throughout.

Things I missed: We got a count of how many people were there, but I miss that feeling of looking around the room & seeing people you recognize & giving a little wave. I knew there were 400-ish people but not who.

There was no side chatter. I usually sit next to someone like @xanderfaber at talks, and then I whisper my dumb questions to him (esp at algebraic geom talks). Or we make silly comments. Or he mutters "that's baller" under his breath. There was no way to do this.

And I think the zoom tables are fun if you already know lots of people, but not so great if you don't. And they were a bit hard to navigate.

Oh, I also think the coffee breaks were too short to: leave the meeting, actually get coffee, join a zoom table, have any kind of conversation, then re-join the meeting.

At an in-person conference: "wanna talk while we wait in line for coffee?" Here you had to choose.