Re: [Wikimania-l] A thought: Different tracks

Hi Deror, while I appreciate your efforts, I feel it necessary to object to the picture you draw here about the discussions. Already in a very early stage I contacted the program committee, asking if it would be possible to set up a proper room for discussion tracks, and I even proposed a method to come to actual topics (and not outdated ones). However, the program committee insisted that I should simply 'submit' them as regular sessions. This is not how discussions work! There should be much more flexibility and much later deadlines for discussion sessions. I don't mean to blame anyone here, I just want to point out that because of how things went, I don't think it is fair to simply extrapolate. A full discussion track is very well possible, if you announce it as such, give it the tools it needs, and put a proper procedure in place for suggestions. The deadline should rather be 1 week before the conference than 3 months. I think I can come up with at least 5 people (not even counting you) who would be willing to lead one or two discussions, and who I think are capable to do so in a neutral way. At least, if organized. The hot seat model sounds interesting, although I would personally prefer to make Wikimania /less/ about WMF and more about the community. Another very different model that has been suggested many times but nobody has worked it out: wikimania wide speed dating. Set one plenary session aside, and allocate people table numbers. Yes, this includes the keynote speakers, Wikimania volunteers/organizers, board members and /all/ staff members that are in town! And connect them semi-randomly (ideally avoiding similar people somewhat). If we do that at the beginning of the conference, I'm sure that the rest will be so much more vivid and effective! Because after one hour of 8 x 5 min you know at least 8 people you never spoke before and probably would not have talked with otherwise! I'd love to find more ways to use Wikimania effectively to strengthen the community ties and improve exchange of thoughts and knowledge. Lodewijk 2013/8/18 Deror Avi <deror_avi(a)yahoo.com> A Few emails have been circulating re the content and the programme of the conference, and I wish to put in my two cents. This year a track of "discussions" have been introduced. Though a full track (and rooms) have been set aside for this, a total of one discussion has been proposed to the programme committee (and has been accepted of course). I do agree with what Louis suggest, and with some of the things suggested. The breaks should remain breaks – time to rest, have coffee and have informal talks which are an important part of Wikimania. Time should also be set aside for discussions and for lightning talks, but the fact is – the community who comes to the conference does not propose discussions (and nobody volunteers to lead them). My experience from past conferences is that the "unconference" day is a waste of time. Most people already leave the conference and go touring or go home, and do not stay for the unconference talks. The fact is – no one wanted to lead a discussion this year, and no one came and said "I want a basic course of Wikipedia editing". What we can do different next year is to "impose" some discussion time. I have suggested during the conference that next year we will have a discussion track set aside, where, for example, one day, every half hour, one WMF board member will be in the "hot seat" answering questions, the best of which will be asked again in the Q&A session for the whole gathering to hear. On the second day, WMF teams will be in the hot sit to answer legal or technical questions. I also suggest that WMF stuff will submit talks in which they conduct a tutorial to various aspects such as the visual editor, wikidata etc – but this is of course up to them to submit, and for the entire conference programme committee to approve. As to the number of tracks – as I have shown in my lecture – this has not really changed in the past 8 years (with the exception of DC due to the large number of attendees) and I think four tracks + 2 workshops/tutorials + 1 discussion is a good composition for next year as well. And by "four tracks" I mean four presentations or panels tracks. This does not meant the entire time there will be four tracks. The conference may have 8 or 12 subject tracks (such as "women", "Asia", "GLAM", "culture", and the best submissions of all will be chosed and placed, thus a track may only be in one session of the conference if only one good panel or 3 good lectures have been submitted). I do believe that a conference session should be 90 minutes of which 3 * 30 sessions (allowing 25 min session + 5 min Q&A) but this is flexible, and can be 90 min panel and discussion, or 30 min talk + 30 min panel + 30 min discussion, or any other variant. But this also enables a 30 min break every two hours which is important. I personally (in my biased opinion) think the programme was good, and believe that a situation where the attendees say "there are two good things to listen to right now, which one will I chose" only leads to wanting to come again next year (as opposed to "there is noting interesting right now, I will go back to the hotel and rest"). Deror (Deputy programme chair for Wikimania 2011, 2012 and 2013) ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l