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(a)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(a)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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