To fill the void left by ICSE’s cancellation, we are planning on hosting a JSS Happy Hour on May 29th. This happy hour will be streamed via Twitch.tv, ensuring high quality audio and video, and will feature:

• SHORT video summaries of selected papers (3 min or less, 10 papers or less)
• Banter from our expert panel of Paris Avgeriou, Diomidis Spinellis, and Katie Stolee after each video (e.g., “If your result needs a statistician then you should design a better experiment”)
• Interactive crowd voting on key JSS issues via Menti.com (e.g., the goatee, which JSS co-EiC wears it better?)

We want to ensure this event captures some of the valuable community-building that is always a part of ICSE, and so we have some guidelines for watching. They are:

1. Be interactive — One of the best parts of conferences is interacting with a large number of your peers and collaborators. Thus, we encourage you to engage fully during the broadcast. There will be three ways to engage: by chatting on Twitch.tv’s built-in chat (you’ll need an account), by answering questions on Menti.com, and by tweeting #jssOnTwitch.
2. Watch with Friends — Twitch.tv is a broadcast-only medium (i.e., broadcasters cannot hear you). While we will solicit your feedback in the Twitch chat, via Menti.com, and on Twitter, it is simply not the same as interacting directly with friends. Thus, we encourage you to host watch parties. That is, set up a Zoom meeting or Google Hangout session and watch the Twitch.tv stream together with 3–6 of your best conference buddies. It’s a chance to reconnect!*
3. Be respectful — This event is centered around community-building. Before you tweet, chat, or answer on Menti, ask yourself, would I say this in person? Is this comment constructive? We encourage you to have fun, but not at the expense of others.

* PSA — use headphones to avoid echos during the meeting.

We hope you will join us for this fun event! All you need to do to join is visit https://twitch.tv/davidcshepherd on May 29th at 10am EST (4pm Amsterdam time/CET DST/UTC+2). For those not in these time zones we apologize! Note that the broadcast will be publicized on Twitter for your convenience.

All the best,

David C. Shepherd

Paris Avgeriou

<hr><p>Announcing the JSS Happy Hour (May 29th) was originally published in JSS Editor’s Selection on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.</p>