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Isn't this a forum or bbs?

Yes, but a forum where you would expect the quality of discussion to be high.

I feel some sympathy for grad students, but am personally quite excited to see how this plays out since I've wanted virtual conferences to be more of a thing since I started pirating Blackhat/DEF CON videos as a teenager :)

What if instead of text based chat you had to post voice responses. May make it more real?

you are right we have voice notes option for that which is digital version of sticky notes. They remain active for 24 hours only in your inbox. You can use it as voice chat also. You should download app for android and recommend to your friends too: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=in.demo.muspic...

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