I agree with Florence's comment about being sad that Wikimania is no longer a giant meetup. For all that the talks and lectures are very informative, I sort of wish that we had the GLAM track lecture, the Dev track, the [whatever] track, AND the "I just want to hang out with people" track. Give those of us who show up mostly because we want to meet and talk to other Wikimanians a big room, and maybe a lot of beer or snacks, and see what develops! We end up ad-hoc-ing this oftentimes by using the ballroom, or the lobby, or whatever large space, but even those are often set up in a way that makes me think it never occurred to anyone that some of us would spend most of our time there if we could. Lack of seating or enough outlets, the tendency Florence mentions for people to clump off at tables by their affiliation, and lack of central location for the hang-out space are some of the pitfalls I've noticed happening in the past two wikimaniae. If I ran the world, every Wikimania would have a large room full of abundant couches (not tables to sit around, and not rows of chairs) and electrical outlets where people would be encouraged to just hang out and meet new people.

-Fluffernutter

On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 5:57 AM, Florence Devouard <anthere@anthere.org> wrote:

https://wikimania2012.wikimedia.org/wiki/Feedback

I dropped my comments over there.

There are three things on which I would like to specifically insist upon

The first is that I see a trend in seeing Wikimania as a "conference" rather than a sort of "giant meetup". I regret it.
I was particularly sensible this year to the fact we had "factions". I could see the French speaking guys hanging together here. And the German chapter people hanging there. And in another corner the editing community of the English Wikipedia. And over there, the Glam people. And though there were naturally bridges between those groups, there was not much mixing and bonding.
Seeing Wikimania as a conference is not really helping closing the gap. We get 4 or 5 sessions in parallel. Glam group goes there in the session related to Glam. Editing community goes there listening to the session related to arbitration. Chapter group here goes to listen to legal risks. And so on. The more sessions we have in parallel, the more chance that each group stick to its habits.
Adding side events does not necessarily help. When wandering in the street, we could meet with a group of iberocoop people sticking together or a group of WMF staff members heading to that restaurant. Even the wikichix meeting could have been done differently. Such as giving the time to each women of ONE table to present to each other rather than all of us to each other. And making sure that women do not sit by their friends but with new women.
The side meeting probably helping the most are actually visits (such as the visit to the Capitol) since these are smaller groups of various origins.
But there is this tendency to group with people you already know because it is always tough to get to new people you know little about.
In the past, I remember events that helped create more bonding. For example, sleeping in one area rather than dozen. For example, breaking a wikiball together. For example, hosting lightning talks in the main lobby all along the conference.
I think we need to think of Wikimania more as a networking event than it is right now. And give more chance to isolated people to connect and more chance to groups to break and bridge with other groups.
I hope there can be discussions on how to achieve that (looking at how networking groups do is a good direction) and that next year team will have that at heart.


The second is that I was actually surprised to see the organizing team put itself so much "in the background".
I did not feel very satisfied that the team was essentially listed on a slide at the beginning and end of the conference and that we see a group of people on stage during 1 mn at the closing. If only because I will hardly remember any of the team member besides James, Aude and Danny. James as the leader. Aude and Danny because I already know them. But others ? Unfortunately not. Their names were plastered on an slide (since I didnot know them, it did not help me to recognise their face afterwards). In a regular conference, this is normal. We just thank the organizers and give them a one minute fame.
But at Wikimania, the team should be special. It should be leader and at the heart of the event. We should know who they are and at the end of the conference, I feel we should feel like hugging them like mad for what they did (or hate them :)). There are various ways to do that. Such as at least presenting each of them at the beginning so that we have a face in front of the name. Putting a big wall in the lobby with the face and name, their role, and their favorite food (or whatever). Setting up a 10 mn presentation at the beginning of the day. Having a contest with them on stage. A banner to sign. A tower in lego to destroy. Anything.


The third is.... WMF board. The Q&A is a tradition; but I feel traditions ought to change sometimes. It probably made more sense to have a board Q&A when we had no staff at all. Now, the staff is providing one keynote (Sue) plus many talks (not far from half of Wikimania talks I think) and providing plenty of input during three days. So the board Q&A is getting boring and not very useful anyway. Plus, as I told Jay, the concept of having a WMF staff select and ask the questions is setting up a barrier, thus increasing the distance between board and wikimedians. To be fair, I find it odd that most wikimedians have next to no idea of what the individual board members think on a specific topic. And most answers to board does not succeed to fix that. It should be clarified if the goal of this "event" is to help members understand better what individual members think OR if it is to understand better board strategy OR if it is to better understand certain issues. But if these issues are operational in nature, the questions should go to staff, not board.
I think it is time to have another format. I wonder if it might not make sense to rather select one hot topic per year and have board give their opinion on that very topic in details and with individual position rather than having them give short, bland answers to 10 random questions.


Florence

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