Gert van DijkAug 12, 2025
Suran

The #Badge situation at @why2025camp
is such a shit show.
As a name badge, it would only have made sense to get it at arrival and wear it throughout the event.

Now the event it practically over and there is not even a publicly available, written information about ever getting it at all.

Just verbal comments given our at the badge tent yesterday about there not being any badge pickup yesterday or today, before the event is over.

There is a signal group given but the way signal works, event if I could get my old signal account activated (I can't. Need to be home for that at the very least.), any announcement made there before you join would be invisible to you as #Signal has no replayed history.
Aside from the fact that it's obviously not public in any way
and people rightly don't want to maintain more then a dozen different messengers and other communication apps.
That's no way to make public announcement and keep the attendees informed.

Aug 12, 2025 at 7:56amWeb
Show threadSuranAug 12, 2025

@why2025camp

So CONTRARY to the verbal announcement yesterday there suddenly IS a queue for another #Badge handout.
There was a posting with no details at all in the the #Signal channel, that I can't possibly access and that you can't read by joining the channel AFTER the posting was made.
It said to not ask infodesk.

However the badge team has no contact info. So the global infodesk is the only point of contact.

Many had to leave yesterday.
I have to leave in the next 18 minutes to arrive before midnight and get a minimum of sleep before tomorrow's workday.

There is no information whatsoever from #Why2025 about getting or not not getting your badge, if they fail to hand you a badge before you have to leave.

Show threadnano 🔜 #eh2026Aug 13, 2025

@Suran While I do get your disappointment, I would like to remind you, that the badge was developedand built by a team of volunteers in their freetime. You are more than welcome to help with delivering a badge on time for some future event.

The communication was very open over the last days in the Signal group you mentioned.
Signal is one of the most trusted messaging services within the community, while still being accessible to non technical persons…
So the info channel (which was announced everywhere from the welcoming / ticket tent, on toilet/shower containers to the actual badge tent itself via QR codes) did a good job I guess for 99% of the people that wanted the information.

Please don’t get me wrong, but don’t blame the badge team for your signal not working.

@why2025camp

Show threadSuranAug 14, 2025

@sico93

That group of volunteers probably tried their best to carry out a wrong decision to still go ahead with the badge. The team leader should have cancelled the badge in time.
Plain and simple.
Thats what we elect team leaders for. To make decisions.

Signal is for secrets.
It's a terrible choice here.
We have a wiki and a website for public information.
That's what every other aspect of the chaos events uses for many decades. It works.
Signal deactivates when not used for a while.
Signal can not simply be reinstalled when needed.
It also requires you to install a 25th messenger app.
With the username feature never implemented, it publishes to everyone who has your number that you have signal.
You will never, ever be able to change your phone number again.
You have to already be in there BEFORE any announcement to ever read it. Even with the required access to the old phone number now,
it would be impossible to read what was discussed in that group a few days ago. It's ephemeral on purpose.

None of that excuses

  • not communicating with the signage and time table team. Everything that has a time and place is supposed to be in the time table that's what it exists for. Plenty of people where surprised that there suddenly was a giant queue while already packing up for a departure organised well ahead of time
  • staff communicating clearly that there would be NO pickup of badges on the last 2 days. People trusted in that announcement and planned accordingly.
  • not communicating with CERT about hour long queues in the noon sun
  • still not having reached out to everyone who had to leave before having any chance to get one.They still have zero information if it's even intended that the badge team comes up with a future process for the them to get their badge. "we're working on it" and "we're investigating if it's possible" would have been sensible announcements to make on the wiki page.
  • not preparing any answers about consequences to not saying yes to any of the questions. Nobody could say what would happen then when asked in person.
  • not having anything ready including a possible "we're working on instructions" about how to transport it home safely or getting a current launcher and the default apps onto it. Not even a "we're working on it" to not require the specific camp network to connect to while giving no error messages or instructions.

@why2025camp

Show threadnano 🔜 #eh2026Aug 14, 2025

@Suran I’m all with you, that the wiki would’ve been the best way to communicate.
Yet: there is no messaging in wikis to make sure people get the info in Time.

Yes, the should’ve been canceling the Badge when most of the old Team left, but when they decided (wrong?!) to keep going and did endless hours of onsite sweatshops to still deliver something, should they still don't hand it out to anyone?

I just wanted to remind you, that you are complaining about that a group of volunteers didn’t deliver on time and (yes) fucked things up (Communication, Documentation & Design-Flaws). Still: they are volunteers doing this for fun.
Being angry at them doesn't help.

I don’t certainly feel that hating around on the internet is considered being excellent to each other.

Show threadSuranAug 14, 2025

@sico93

Of cause there are notifications from Wikis.
RSS is 25 years old.

Show threadnano 🔜 #eh2026Aug 14, 2025

@Suran I hope for the best, that next events will again have hardware / software from the old @badgeteam - i would especially love to see evolution in existing badges instead of starting from scratch with all new Hardware year after year.

I find this a bit wasteful and feel that it would be nice to use the hardware of the last camp and tweak software or build addon-boards.

I think the badge of this year could very well be a starting point with display, keyboard and an M.2 Socket.
But I’m also not a hardware person, so I’m not sure wether working around the existing flaws is even possible.

Show threadSuranAug 14, 2025

@sico93 @badgeteam

I hope for new software and attachments to existing badges with the option of now buying the base badge again.

I have a ton of unused PCB badges from events that are completely useless at this point.

Like the existing Rad1o, Flow3r and R0cket.