[NFB-Talk] Live Presidential Release and Related Technical Difficulties

[Judy Jones]

Yes, it is up on Newsline.

Judy

“Embrace each day with His mercies and blessings.”


-----Original Message-----
From: nFB-Talk [mailto:nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Chris Nusbaum via nFB-Talk
Sent: Sunday, April 5, 2020 11:08 AM
To: nfb-talk at nfbnet.org
Cc: Chris Nusbaum
Subject: [NFB-Talk] Live Presidential Release and Related Technical Difficulties

Dear Fellow Federationists:

First, I'm sorry to anyone who wasn't able to get into Thursday's call. You missed a great event, a good opportunity for us to come together on a national scale, and (for the most part) a good execution of a very cool idea. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I'm sure I'm not alone. Fortunately, in looking at the Participants Panel in Zoom a few times during the call, I noticed that there were several members of the national office staff who were listed as people who were recording the meeting. So I'm sure that the recording will soon be posted in all the places from which we normally get Presidential Releases.

I joined the meeting about 10 minutes before it started, when we had a little over 200 participants. In the next 10-15 minutes, the participant numbers skyrocketed until it was announced that the meeting capacity was exceeded, at which point we had about 300 people on the call. As President Riccobono began his Release, someone increased the meeting capacity, which allowed us to have over 800 participants by the time the Q&A session began. I happen to be something of a power user of Zoom, and I have used the platform for many purposes. I once had the exact same problem which was dealt with on the live Presidential Release. So, from my experience, here's what I think happened.

Zoom has many levels of plans one can buy which gradually go up in price. One of the features which changes as a plan is upgraded or downgraded is the maximum number of participants one can host in a single meeting. However, a host can set the participant limit at a smaller number than the maximum participant limit allowed by their account. Therefore, my guess is that the NFB national office bought the plan which maxes out at 1000 participants, but set the max for that particular meeting at 300, probably in an effort to more easily control the sound in the meeting and prevent crashing the server. I presume President Riccobono and company expected no more than 300 people in the meeting and were taken by surprise when so many others attempted to join. Since they still had room for many more people, they increased the maximum capacity to allow more people to join in.

Of course, the wisdom of either decision could be debated; in my personal opinion, the national office's expectation of 300 people should have been recognized as a misestimation from the beginning, considering that the meeting was advertised to the entire organization of nearly 50000 members. However, we must keep in mind that this was the first time NFB has tried anything of that size on that platform, and every first attempt will have its share of glitches. You should have seen my church's attempt at streaming a service on Facebook Live today! Anyway, I think it was very well done overall, and I hope we will be able to have other similar events in the future until our social lives return to normal.

Warmly,   

Chris Nusbaum
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