I suspect that there may be pushback from the community about it being "taken over" by the WMF, if it were run by staff. There's also the issue with other countries - if we hold Wikimania in London, the WMF would not really be able to help, as they'd have no contacts and would be running the whole event at a year's notice, which isn't very long at all in conference terms.
The UK chapter has an events organiser who handled all our scholarships this year. People had their hotels, hostels, and flights booked for them, and she sent out the details to everyone. Having a WMF person in charge of some of the process would be very useful, but having the WMF run the entire event may not be an ideal solution.
Personally, I'd like to see a core WMF events team who help all major events (Wikimania-sized), but liaise with volunteers on them. Very difficult to do in practice, but better than the current system of unsupported volunteers running a conference. James Hare is doing a wonderful job, but running a conference AND being a student is a very, very difficult thing to do, and I fear we'll start to burn out valuable volunteers if we're not careful - or adversely impact their studies.
I'd also like to see Wikimania moved to a two-year-in-advance system, rather than a one-year-in-advance as we have now. One year is
not enough time to plan a conference.
Richard Symonds
On 5 July 2012 11:32, Theo10011
<de10011@gmail.com> wrote:
Is there a good reason why there is still no "Wikimania coordinator" on staff?
I remember bringing this up with James Owen about an year and a half ago. The staff is almost twice as large as that time. Wikimania is by far, the single largest event that happens within this world, and yet there is not a single dedicated staff personnel? I don't think not being able to afford a staff position for this is a credible excuse anymore.
An event-organizer from within US/EU, with experience in organizing international conferences, can make this process a lot easier. Organization like WMF, Mozilla for example, have several event organizers, and Visa coordinators on staff or on part-time basis for these issues.
I see more wisdom in that thought now, than before.
Regards
Theo
On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 2:23 PM, Deryck Chan
<deryckchan@gmail.com> wrote:
As a response to this thread and a few others, I've created this page on the WM2012 wiki:
http://wikimania2012.wikimedia.org/wiki/Visa_rejections
...in the hope that information gathered there will help future
Wikimania organizers assists participants to get visas and clear the
immigration process.
DeryckOn 4 July 2012 18:23, Federico Leva (Nemo)
<nemowiki@gmail.com> wrote:
Stephen Wanjau, 04/07/2012 19:01:
I wonder if there is a record somewhere that lists the prospective
attendees who didn’t attend Wikimania since they were denied Visa or on
any other grounds. Such a record would help us decide on future
Wikimania hosts with regards to easy of Visa acquaintance.
This is not needed. Visa problems were very well known when the decision has been made.
Nemo
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