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Guidelines for posting in #events |
The #events{: .mention target="_blank"} channel is used to organize various events related to the Mathematics Discord server. This includes lectures, seminars, talks and other types of live educational content conducted by our server's members, occasional math competitions, reading groups and other collaborative math-related projects.
We could allow other annoncements if we deem them appropriate. In general if uncertain, you can talk to the moderators or message @Modmail.
If you're unable to post in the channel, ask a moderator or message @Modmail and explain what it is that you want to post. We will grant the @Talk Announcements role if it fits the criteria below.
The #events{: .mention target="_blank"} channel is an "Announcement" channel, which means that other servers can "follow" the channel, and selected posts from it will show up on other servers. This will happen when you hit "Publish" on the message, as seen below:
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This should be used for making a finalized announcement of your talk/announcement/reading group. Other types of posts aren't relevant on other servers and thus shouldn't be published.
For published posts make sure they are self-contained, and would make sense if seen on another server (where they can't see your username, channels, roles, etc). For all posts, even non-published ones, still try to condense everything into a single message. Your message will be seen by a large audience, so make sure to check your spelling, markup, etc.
People interested in talks have the @Talks role, and should be pinged for things related to talks. However due to technical limitations, you cannot ping that role, and instead it has to be done through the bot. Post any message starting with !talks and the bot will do the pinging.
We welcome talks on all topics within mathematics, or applications of mathematics as long as the main topic is still the math. Both basic and advanced topics are welcome, although you should keep in mind the demographics of our server: most of our users are in high school; however, if weighted by activity on the server, the most active users are upper undergraduate or graduate students.
We expect the presenter to have a good understanding of the topic of their talk, as well as reasonably adjacent areas of math. If it is not obvious from your other contributions on the server that you fit this criterion (e.g. if you're a new member), we might ask you to provide some relevant credentials, or the slides for your talk, or similar.
If you're unsure if people would be interested in your talk, you can post a message with the talk's tentative description and a request to react a specific emoji if someone's interested. Alternatively you can suggest that people express their interest in the thread which you will create under the message (everyone can message in threads in #events{: .mention target="_blank"}).
To decide on a date/time for the event, you can also use emoji reactions or a thread, or you can use some widely known polling website such as Framadate{:target="_blank" rel="noopener"}, Strawpoll.com{:target="_blank" rel="noopener"}, or even Google Forms{:target="_blank" rel="noopener"} (disable "Collect email addresses"). Remember that people live in different timezones.
Please do not publish these, however you can ping the talks role if you wish.
At the top of the server there is an "Events" section, where you should be able to "Create Event". You will be prompted to enter a location, dates, times, and a description. All of these can be updated later if necessary. Note that the date/time selection happens in your computer's timezone and other people will see the time translated into theirs.
Doing this will create an "event" for which people can RSVP so that they can be notified when the event starts, and a special event-specific invite link for the server that includes the event information.
You can conduct your talk in the #mathematics{: .mention target="_blank"} voice channel using screenshare, but keep in mind that only up to 50 people at once can view your screen. If you expect more, use a different service such as Zoom: you can set the Zoom room link as the location for the event.
Please set a good description: what will you cover, what prerequsites you expect.
Finally, post an announcement of your talk including all the relevant details, possibly an even more expanded description, and the event-specific invite link. The details have to be repeated in the message itself, because once the event is over, its invite link expires and the metadata is erased. Please publish the message and ping the talks role.
When the time comes, you will be able to click "Start Event" on the chosen voice channel (if any), or on the event itself. This will notify all users who have RSVP'd for it. You may wish to ping the talks role to tell them that the event is starting, but please don't publish such announcements.
After the talk you can post slides or a recording of your talk in #events{: .mention target="_blank"}. If you want to, you can publish them, but pinging the talks role is probably unnecessary.
We welcome math competitions with free participation, and whose geographical/demographical restrictions (if any) intersect significantly with the demographics of our server. We expect the person doing the announcement to have some connection with the organization of the competition, so that they can authoritatively answer any questions that may arise.
You can publish the announcement, however please do not ping the talks role.
You can organize a reading group for a maths book or similar media via #events{: .mention target="_blank"}. Consider however that a lot of reading groups die out at an exponential rate if the members aren't sufficiently engaged. You should create your own Discord server for the reading group, and have an idea of the content you want to cover and the timeline. You can post the invite to the Discord server together with some info, publish it if you want, but please do not ping the talks role.