As a native German speaker living in the US, I have mixed feelings:
- Talks in German feel slightly less, hmm, professional? Maybe it's the field I grow up in (physics). Like, ok, in your studies you speak German, but when you grow up and go to big-boy conferences, it's English. The Congress should be big-boy league.
- Also, realistically, many technical terms are English, so the a German talk might have to make hard choices. CPU, not "zentrale Recheneinheit"
- At the same time, I like that it lowers the barriers for entry. Speakers and visitors who are not fluent in English can participate.
- Personally, though, I prefer a good fluent German presentation from a cringy English one. As a German native speaker, typical German mistakes in English irritate me more than others, I think, so I found some talks given in English hard to follow. Pet peeve: Technology. I think that's a better Shibboleth than Flash-Thunder-Welcome.
- Realistically though, the congress is a worldwide phenomenon, and important, and as English is the current lingua franca (hah), I think they should encourage English presentations, or at least English slides. (Because they provide translated audio in the recordings!)
- Lastly, I can only encourage everyone to learn more languages, at a young age. I kick myself I didn't. But even in languages which are relatively close, like English and German (compared to, say, Japanese), I found that one language has concepts the other one doesn't, and that changes how you think about things. For example, English has accuracy and precision, with, at least in physics, different meanings. In German, it's both "Genauigkeit".
> "Realistically though, the congress is a worldwide phenomenon"
Actually it is an open meeting of the German members of the CCC. What you see online is an important part of the congress, but it is only a part of the whole thing. Much more it is a gathering of activists. Thus its from the CCC for CCC. Guests are welcome. Since the talks maybe interesting to a larger audience they are streamed and translated in real-time.
Visit the congress in Hamburg and you are beamed to an alternate reality for four days and nights, meeting all kinds of interesting people in person. That experience is a bit more mind-blowing than seeing translated talks online. ;-) People from outside Germany are visiting the congress.
Coming to my first congress (36c3) was special in this regard: Congress was all about talks for me before, but I only went to 2 talks. Last year I went to none. This year I plan to go to none too.
Congress is a gathering ground for likeminded people from all sorts of interests. Talks can be watched at home (except for ones that are not recorded at the request of the talk-givers), but being in the room with likeminded people, talking with them, learning from them is IMO irreplaceable.
>> "Realistically though, the congress is a worldwide phenomenon"
>People from outside Germany are visiting the congress.
My point exactly! International people want to take part, best in-person, and they are more able to take part if as much as possible is available in the common-denominator language. I applaud CCC for all the effort they put in to make it such an awesome and accessible event!
Maybe they do this already: I'd ask all presenters to prepare slides in English, either as primary, or as a backup. So that the English stream could show the English slides. Hey, I'd even volunteer to help translate!
I may be too used to physics conferences. The German physics society (btw the largest physicists society in the world) has a yearly conference (well, multiple, split by topic), and they tend to be attended by many non-Germans. So many of the talks are in English, especially the main ones. But there are many many parallel session filled with short talks. Many of these are "my first talk at a conference" type of talks, and are in German. That's perfectly OK. That's part of the role of that conference: Every student submission is accepted. Some are good, most are not great, both from content (because you don't present world changing news in a short talk in a parallel session) and style (because giving good talks requires experience). That's all OK, and important. And it's important to lower the stress level by not also requiring English. Of course, as a "grown up", you go there to support your students, to chat and meet colleagues, and it's great for that. But I am also a lot at "higher level" conferences, with a more robust vetting of talks or even only invite only talks. The talk quality is much better. They are 100% in English. So in my brain, I connect "talk is in German" with "everybody can give a talk", and "my-first-talk-ever", but not with "guaranteed super high quality talks".
But CCC has to sort out many talks, AFAIU, so "everybody can give a talk" isn't true.
I'm not sure how many people actively involved with the community who agrees with this. It's a grassroots movement and I'm fairly sure many (most?) people want it to remain as such.
- Talks in German feel slightly less, hmm, professional? Maybe it's the field I grow up in (physics). Like, ok, in your studies you speak German, but when you grow up and go to big-boy conferences, it's English. The Congress should be big-boy league.
- Also, realistically, many technical terms are English, so the a German talk might have to make hard choices. CPU, not "zentrale Recheneinheit"
- At the same time, I like that it lowers the barriers for entry. Speakers and visitors who are not fluent in English can participate.
- Personally, though, I prefer a good fluent German presentation from a cringy English one. As a German native speaker, typical German mistakes in English irritate me more than others, I think, so I found some talks given in English hard to follow. Pet peeve: Technology. I think that's a better Shibboleth than Flash-Thunder-Welcome.
- Realistically though, the congress is a worldwide phenomenon, and important, and as English is the current lingua franca (hah), I think they should encourage English presentations, or at least English slides. (Because they provide translated audio in the recordings!)
- Lastly, I can only encourage everyone to learn more languages, at a young age. I kick myself I didn't. But even in languages which are relatively close, like English and German (compared to, say, Japanese), I found that one language has concepts the other one doesn't, and that changes how you think about things. For example, English has accuracy and precision, with, at least in physics, different meanings. In German, it's both "Genauigkeit".
(Edited: Formatting)