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)
------------------------------
>Date: Fri, 16 Aug 2013 02:46:32 -0700
>From: Luis Villa <lvilla(a)wikimedia.org>
>To: "Wikimania general list (open subscription)"
> <wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [Wikimania-l] A thought: Different tracks
>Message-ID:
> <CAM2wSz4SfgGjCgQzEYKbwX5+Q7TObv0tHEcRE1qxxLJVFwmn1g(a)mail.gmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
>On Thu, Aug 15, 2013 at 7:36 PM, Samuel Klein <meta.sj(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> I would prefer more of Wikimania to be interactive and
>> discussion-oriented; perhaps you would prefer more to be
>> presentation-oriented. That's a good tradeoff for a program team to
>> discuss. But presenters could then think consciously about which of
>> these modes they intend to participate in.
>
> a simple change, the default language for submissions could be shifted
>from "presentations" (currently used repeatedly as the 'default' term to
>describe what is going on) to "discussions and presentations" or something
>along those lines. Simply that reminder that presentations aren't the only
>way to have a session at the conference might go a long way towards opening
>things up.
>
>Luis