I have attended several Wikimanias. I would have thought that with the Wikipedias being voluntary contributed and managed projects, that the conference shoud have a sharp focus on attendance and presentations by the communities. However, this is not the case. Presentation time is, IMO, excessively allocated to various speakers from the salaried staff. This has been brought up on several occasions. In some instances, some presentations have had almost duplicate content. Many Foundations take on a promotional aspect of the WMF’s work. The credit for the entire movement should go to the community volunteers.
Kudpung
On 01, Jun2018, at 08:31, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Harry, I recall hearing that there was a push a year or two back to alter the proportion of presentations at Wikimania so that there were fewer WMF presentations and more community presentations. I don't know if that was a one time event or if that's ongoing. I have never been to Wikimania, and have no plans to go in the foreseeable future, but I watch what happens with Wikimania partly because it's an expensive operation in terms of financial cost and in terms of volunteer time. Also, the scholarship system is a perennial point of friction.
Dariusz or Ellie, are there any thoughts at WMF about doing a full review of the scholarship system and the value of Wikimania to the community? With WMF spending so much money on Wikimania year after year, and volunteers spending so much time on Wikimania year after year, I think that it would make sense to do this type of review, which might be possible to synchronize with WMF's strategy process. I am very interested in ensuring that there are SMART goals being achieved with all of the money and time that goes into Wikimania. At the same time, I think that the scholarship system could be reviewed to consider the strategic priorities for scholarships and how to align those priorities to SMART goals. I don't envision reducing funding for Wikimania and scholarships, but I think that some re-thinking and evaluation would be good to align funding with the WMF strategic plan and with SMART goals.
Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
On Thu, May 31, 2018 at 12:31 PM, Harry Mitchell <hjmwiki@gmail.com mailto:hjmwiki@gmail.com> wrote: Since you raise chapter scholarships, it would be nice to see some of the other big chapters (and to some extent the WMF) spending more on scholarships for rank-and-file Wikimedians rather than staff and board members. That might help with the perception that Wikimania is the same old faces year in, year out.
Harry Mitchell http://enwp.org/User:HJ http://enwp.org/User:HJ +44 (0) 7507 536 971 Skype: harry_j_mitchell
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