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Wikimania Scholarship committee and ambassadors
by Martin Rulsch 19 Nov '15

19 Nov '15

Hi, I was informed that my last mail was poorly formatted. I hope that this time it looks better. Cheers, Martin ---- Dear Wikimaniacs, Thank you very much for all the many applications for the Scholarship committee for Wikimania 2016. We are happy to present the following committee members: * David Richfield (South Africa, languages: en, af, de-3, nl-2) * Dsvyas (India, languages: gu, en-4, hi-3) * Eugene Alvin Villar (Philippines, languages: tl, en) * GastelEtzwane (Switzerland, languages: fr, en, de-2) * Mel 23 (Argentina, languages: es, en-4) * Mardetanha (Iran, languages: fa, az, en-3, tr-2) * Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight (USA, languages: en) * Ruslik0 (Russia, languages: ru, en-3) * Venus Lui (Hong Kong, languages: zh, zh-yue, en) * Federico Leva (Italy, languages: it, en-3, “Scholarships working group chair”) * Martin Rulsch (Germany, languages: de, en-3, es-2, “Scholarships working group deputy chair”) Assisted by: * one Wikimania 2017 non-voting observer tbd * Ellie Young (WMF Conference Coordinator) * Sati Houston (WMF Staff) Additionally, around a dozen users offered their help with preparations of the scholarship applications, required translations, and communications as Scholarship ambassadors. We invite more people to volunteer. Please contact us on domande.wikimania(a)wikimedia.it when you are interested in this function. We appreciate your help! Find more information on https://wikimania2016.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarship_committee . Thanks, Federico Leva and Martin Rulsch Wikimania 2016 team, scholarships subteam

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Wikimania Scholarship committee and ambassadors
by derhexer＠wikipedia.de 17 Nov '15

17 Nov '15

Dear Wikimaniacs, Thank you very much for all the many applications for the Scholarship committee for Wikimania 2016. We are happy to present the following committee members: * David Richfield (South Africa, languages: en, af, de-3, nl-2)* Dsvyas (India, languages: gu, en-4, hi-3)* Eugene Alvin Villar (Philippines, languages: tl, en)* GastelEtzwane (Switzerland, languages: fr, en, de-2)* Mel 23 (Argentina, languages: es, en-4)* Mardetanha (Iran, languages: fa, az, en-3, tr-2)* Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight (USA, languages: en)* Ruslik0 (Russia, languages: ru, en-3)* Venus Lui (Hong Kong, languages: zh, zh-yue, en)* Federico Leva (Italy, languages: it, en-3, “Scholarships working group chair”)* Martin Rulsch (Germany, languages: de, en-3, es-2, “Scholarships working group deputy chair”) Assisted by:* one Wikimania 2017 non-voting observer tbd* Ellie Young (WMF Conference Coordinator)* Sati Houston (WMF Staff) Additionally, around a dozen users offered their help with preparations of the scholarship applications, required translations, and communications as Scholarship ambassadors. We invite more people to volunteer. Please contact us on domande.wikimania(a)wikimedia.it when you are interested in this function. We appreciate your help! Find more information on https://wikimania2016.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarship_committee . Thanks,Federico Leva and Martin RulschWikimania 2016 team, scholarships subteam

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Did you ever attend Wikimania with your money? Talk to us!
by Federico Leva (Nemo) 12 Nov '15

12 Nov '15

TL;DR: Fill https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1RtBz72MTmKJKcraZk8FORHZRL6Y0gSo5VeNIFOKwHt… , it takes 5 min. -- As you probably know by now, Wikimania 2016 Esino Lario wants to achieve a Wikimania format which allows people to "get things done" and leave the conference fully satisfied with the result of their investment of time and other resources (see pillars 2 and 4: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2016_bids/Esino_Lario/Pillars ). For this purpose, we consider all audiences (see https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2016_bids/Esino_Lario/Program#Tar… ). Participants other than scholarship recipients and reimbursed representatives are one group we heard very little from, but we think they are important because: 1) they have financial resources and help make the Wikimania budget sustainable; 2) they have motivation to share and ideas on what makes Wikimania valuable. We set up this form mainly to collect names of some such people and talk with them later: if you provide your contact, we may write you on this topic. We may release aggregate data from the resposes; data will be handled by us and the Wikimania 2016 fiscal sponsor "Ecomuseo delle Grigne" (under EU law). Please fill the whole form, it's short! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1RtBz72MTmKJKcraZk8FORHZRL6Y0gSo5VeNIFOKwHt… Feel free to forward this invite to anyone. Thanks, Federico Leva and Martin Rulsch Wikimania 2016 team, scholarships subteam

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Did you ever attend Wikimania with your money? Talk to us!
by WereSpielChequers 12 Nov '15

12 Nov '15

Re: what is the purpose of wikimania? I think the central purpose of Wikimania is to bring wikimedians together and thereby enable things to happen. We are a decentralised movement with a thousand Wikis, hundreds of languages and a global community. There are huge opportunities for wikimedians to share experiences across those thousand different wikis, and Wikimania is one opportunity to create links across languages and projects. In a nearly fifteen year old organisation that in many ways is very decentralised there is a big risk that different parts of the movement will drift ever further apart and the organisation could fragment. Wikimania is an investment in preventing that, and in getting links that cut across the gaps between projects. It isn't the only thing we can or should do to build links across projects. But in my view we should be doing more to build links across our barriers of language and culture. For example have we done an audit of the larger wiki communities against the wikimania attendees to see which communities of any size have not had anyone attend wikimania? ~~~~ On 11 November 2015 at 13:50, Chris Keating <chriskeatingwiki(a)gmail.com> wrote: > uuh - i am not sure if one should open that can of worms. what is the >>> purpose of wikimania? is it to raise money? for sure not. there are >>> more intelligent ways to do that. is wikimania a business, i.e. the >>> organizer want to get as much money out of the conference as possible? >>> for sure not. there are other conference topics which are more >>> promising. >> >> >> If there is interest by participants to chip in on scholarships for >> others to attend, I'm not sure providing an outlet for that interest means >> opening any cans, full of worms or other critters. It's an efficient >> matching of donor interest to funding needed. >> > > Quite! I can certainly see there being people (probably some Wikimedians) > who would be interested in making a donation to help others (certainly > Wikimedians) to get to Wikimania. Much more interested than they are in > giving to WMF's general funds to pay for cups of coffee for developers. Of > course, this might result in very few donations and not be worth the > effort, but you don't know until you've tried it. > > By contrast I'd guess that very few banner-campaign donors are interested > in Wikimania at all. > > Chris > > >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimania-l mailing list > Wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l > >

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Invitation to Wikimania 2016 Scholarship Committee
by derhexer＠wikipedia.de 01 Nov '15

01 Nov '15

Dear Wikimaniacs,we are now calling for a scholarship review committee.This year, we additionally want a scholarship ambassador for each major geography or language, including a representative from each entity which pays for additional scholarships; the ambassadors will be committee observers.The scholarship review committee is an important and diverse group of volunteers who help to run the scholarship program in accordance with the pillars of this Wikimania. We encourage people from all Wikimedia wikis to apply for this position so that the committee can handle applications in many different languages.The main duties of the committee members prior to Wikimania 2016 are: - Participation in periodic online meetings with scholarships program manager and other committee members. - Review and edit communications material (e.g. Scholarship wiki, application questions). - Assistance in determination of scholarship applicant requirements. - Assurance of due consideration and speedy response time to Wikimania scholarship applications in multiple languages. - Work with the local team. For further information please visit m:Wikimania/Scholarships/Tasks (the committee will also be polishing this page).We are looking for Wikimedians from all over the world, who are: - fluent in written English and have good communication skills, or can name local community member(s)/ambassadors who help them with English translations. - discreet and able to handle confidential applicant information, and objectively assess candidates. - willing to review scholarship applications in late 2015/early 2016. - having either or both: - previously attended Wikimania. - strong knowledge of the cross-project Wikimedia community. You will be working remotely. While we hope that scholarship review committee members will enjoy Wikimania 2016 by giving significant input to it, the local team cannot guarantee financial support for the committee members' travel expenses since scholarship review committee members may not apply for a scholarship themselves.If you're interested in serving on the scholarship reviewing committee and/or as scholarship ambassador, please send us an email at domande.wikimania(a)wikimedia.it. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us.Deadline to apply is Sunday, November 15, 2015. The local team will contact all candidates and publish the list of scholarship committee members right afterwards. Please help with translations on wm2016:Scholarship committee.Proposed timeline - Nov 1–Nov 15: Call for Scholarship Committee - Nov 16–Dec 6: Preparations of the Scholarship Committee - Dec 6–Jan 9: Submission time Thanks, Federico Leva and Martin Rulsch Wikimania 2016 team, scholarships subteam

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Thoughts on carrying the Wikimania conversation forward
by Siko Bouterse 13 Oct '15

13 Oct '15

Hi folks, Just letting you know that I’m reading the recent Wikimania-focused mailing list threads with interest, as the Community Resources team is now on-point for funding and coordinating WMF’s involvement in Wikimania. A couple of first thoughts to share: 1. WMF has learned from past Wikimanias that we need to do our due-diligence on venue etc before the host team and location is announced. One reason for this is that we have a limited budget for Wikimania, and doing a site visit before the host is finalized helps us ensure that we’re able to support the costs of the event in a given location. Ellie Young is headed to Montreal in 2 weeks and based on what she learns from that visit, we’re aiming to give the steering committee what they need to confirm selection before the end of 2015. That said, we recognize that communications around this haven’t gone as planned, and we are looking into improvements…(see thought 2) 2. We, too, would like to see the movement building towards a shared vision of Wikimania! It is great to see so many people, in true Wikimedian-style, thinking about big-picture questions of participation, representation, and content at Wikimania. Knowing that mailing list discussions have their limits, here’s how my team is thinking about collecting feedback more systematically for this going forward: We’ll be launching a community consultation in November to help build towards more shared vision and process improvements for Wikimania 2018 - 2021. Two key inputs we’ve been thinking about using to launch that conversation are 1) responses from the survey of last Wikimania’s attendees and 2) the steering committee’s recommendation for host selection going forward. We’re still regrouping from the latest Resources Consultation, and will begin planning for a Wikimania Consultation next week, so after that we’ll be able to share more information about what this consultation will look like and the exact timeline. Meanwhile, suggestions and open questions that you’d like to see resolved via this consultation are most welcome in this thread. My hope is that a consultation will help broaden participation in these conversations and get us from input to action. Warm regards, Siko -- Siko Bouterse Director of Community Resources Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. sbouterse(a)wikimedia.org *Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. * *Donate <https://donate.wikimedia.org> or click the "edit" button today, and help us make it a reality!*

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Coming up with a new process for Wikimania selection
by James Forrester 11 Oct '15

11 Oct '15

All, TL;DR: The Wikimania Committee and the WMF Community Engagement department will be working on coming up with a new process for venues for future Wikimanias, which we will be seeking input from the community in the next few months ------ At the Committee’s meeting in Mexico City in August, we agreed to alter the way that Wikimania locations are decided. The existing bidding process has developed over time. It has become unwieldy and hard work for the community and staff. It demands that people pour a huge amount of effort into building local teams, contracts and institutional relationships only for rejected bids' work to be left unused. A lot of pressure is put on volunteers to try to work on logistics rather than dream about what would make a great programme for our communities. Each year, the jury has to decide on a venue based on what is presented by each group divisively, rather than what we as a community could come together and build. The process is too short-term, setting out venue much less than two years ahead (often only just more than twelve months in advance). This greatly increases expenses when other similar conferences plan locations out many years ahead. This makes it impossible for us to be strategic about location, prevents us from arranging co-location with like-minded conferences, and it means that some areas of the world are ignored when they could provide great Wikimanias. Consequently, from now on the Committee will pick an area for Wikimania four to five years in advance, from the following (provisional) list. The years in which we have already held Wikimanias in these areas are shown in parentheses * Western, Northern, and Southern Europe (2005, 2014) * Canada and United States (2006, 2012) * Asia-Pacific (2007, 2013) * Middle East and North Africa (2008, 2011) * Latin America (2009, 2015) * Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia (2010) * South Asia (none yet) * Sub-Saharan Africa (none yet) * Oceania (none yet) The Committee intends to deliberately rotate between these areas to make sure we allow as many community members to attend as cheaply as possible. The large majority of our community members are based in either North America or Europe; organising Wikimanias in these areas allows the majority of our community members to attend cheaply, so that money spent on scholarships can go further, and be more focussed in supporting our community members wherever they are based. Locating Wikimania in other continents does not assure that participants from these areas can attend more cheaply. Nevertheless, to support the movement worldwide, we do want to ensure that, every third year, Wikimania will take place neither in Europe nor North America. We propose that a sequence of "Western, Northern, and Southern Europe", "Canada and United States", and one of the others every three years, picked out several years into the future. Beyond the first two areas, we may not visit some as often as others. (I have not listed Antarctica as an area to which we will rotate, which may well be a disappointment to members of the British Antarctic Survey and others in that location.) More widely, we would like to encourage Wikimedia conferences as open, engaging and fun community meetups, alongside the annual Wikimania conference. I know that several chapters run country-specific conferences each year, which is a good move. I think that there should be at least one annual Wikimedia conference in each of these areas. This would help newer editors know that there are people like them nearby without requiring the existence of, or putting too great a demand on, every national chapter or other local affiliated body. In some areas like Africa where the distances are great, multiple regional conferences may make sense. As part of the new system of location selection, we will no longer have a 'bidding' process. Instead, the Committee invites people interested in leading or helping to run a Wikimania to contact us on-wiki <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimania>, or via the wikimania-l list. If you think that you know a great team, venue or concept for holding Wikimania, in your area or anywhere else, please discuss the possibilities with us. We will work with interested community members to narrow down the selection to a particular venue. Our next few locations will thus go like this: * 2016: Western, Northern, and Southern Europe – Esino Lario in Italy * 2017: Canada and United States – TBD * 2018: TBD – TBD * 2019: Western, Northern, and Southern Europe – TBD * 2020: Canada and United States – TBD * 2021: TBD – TBD As you can see, as well as picking the 2017 venue in Canada or the United States, for which we have a candidate lined up, we need to select very quickly the area for 2018, and after that, 2019 and beyond. There are several areas we’ve outlined above that have never had a Wikimania, and others where we have not visited for some time. We would love your thoughts on the areas on which we should focus for 2018 and beyond. We’ll also be asking in future for your thoughts about how to structure the programme of each Wikimania to make it as good as it can be for you, for others, and for our community overall. Thank you. Yours, -- James D. Forrester Chair, Wikimania Committee

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WikiConference USA in DC
by Andrew Lih 08 Oct '15

08 Oct '15

Just a reminder that WikiConference USA will be from October 9-11, in Washington DC at the National Archives. The main McGowan theater sessions will be live streamed via YouTube. If all goes well, we'll have the other sessions recorded for release later. Schedule: http://wikiconferenceusa.org/wiki/2015/Schedule -Andrew

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Biggest disappointment from Wikimania 2017
by Gnangarra 06 Oct '15

06 Oct '15

This has been going on for three days, yet not one person involved in this decision has take a moment to reachout personally to the people who worked on bids, They have tabled justifications on list discussions, they have changed the status of Meta pages but not once have they given anyone the courtesy of owning the mistakes that have caused this, not even the WMF has made any personal attempt to help reconcile the damage at a more personal level.. my month ahead; - in three hours a meeting with a bid sponsor - in 2 days a workshop with GLAM commencement of a new project that will include 100,000+ image donation - in 5 days WMAU AGM where no doubt these events will be a topic of discussion - in 15 days on 21st & 22nd I'll giving presentations at a national GLAM conference about working with us and about we have already started I do all of this and a lot more as a volunteer not a paid employee, 3 days ago my perception in the openness, honesty and integrity of the projects took a big hit, so as hollow as it'll be now it'd still be nice to think that the people involved in this have the courage to acknowledge & own their failures in the way the changes evolved and were communicated. As a foot note I contacted the WMF three days ago asking for information and an apology then that I could take to those outside our community who have also put time, effort and resources into the bid, those email havent even been acknowledge as being received. -- We all make mistakes but its what we do next that counts Gideon

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Why Wikimania?
by Lodewijk 05 Oct '15

05 Oct '15

(giving a name to this thread, because I can ;) ) On Sun, Oct 4, 2015 at 10:03 PM, James Forrester <jdforrester(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On Sun, 4 Oct 2015 at 12:45 Lodewijk <lodewijk(a)effeietsanders.org> wrote: > >> Michal's comments reflect part of what I'm thinking - and I think the >> exact splits of the regions may require some further discussions. Given the >> notes I've seen elsewhere, I trust that this is a first draft of the exact >> outlines of the regions, and not necessarily definitive? >> > > As has already been stated in this thread, yes. > > >> For example, I was also surprised to see your definition of 'North >> America' being US + Canada, and not to include Mexico. >> > > False. > > We explicitly a repeatedly used the term "Canada and United States" > because "North America" includes Mexico, and we didn't think that was > appropriate. > Then I must have seen that name being used elsewhere in this context. Still, I'm not sure if it shouldn't be included - but as said, that is a second tier discussion imho. > > This is a discussion we seem to skip each year as a community - what do we >> expect exactly of Wikimania, what do we want to accomplish with it? What >> are its goals? >> > > If you re-read our call for input, you might see that this is precisely > the question asked: > > We’ll also be asking in future for your thoughts about how to structure >> the programme of each Wikimania to make it as good as it can be for you, >> for others, and for our community overall. >> > > Ensuring that as many Wikimedians can come to Wikimania each year is of > little value if they event isn't as useful as it can be. > It was a bit snowed under in practical and regional discussions, I'm afraid. My point is that somehow, we always say we should have that discussion, but we never do. It is not that I 'blame' the committee for this, but I remark that we really should have that discussion. I'm glad I find you in agreement there. But, I also think I would go a few steps further. I wouldn't only ask 'how to structure the programme' but really go a few levels deeper. Why do we want a Wikimania? What is its general purpose? What do we want to accomplish. Not quite the question you quote - although I know from experience that you do ask that question yourself. I would have liked to see that discussion before deciding that we need more than two years of preperation, before we even decide there should be a rotational schedule (although I doubt that the outcome would be that we should have it in the same city each year). It has proven time and again that having such fundamental discussions is difficult in our community, especially going beyond the usual suspects. Maybe the outcomes of the Wikimania surveys (were those published yet?) could be a good starting point. Lodewijk > > J. > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimania-l mailing list > Wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l > >

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