Kaya
Wikimania is a magical event, as it brings so many different people into
the same place to share knowledge, to experience different cultures, and to
collaborate with members of the global community. Singapore is working on
developing these aspects, we have already shifted the scholarship process
from one of attending and writing a report to one where scholars are
requested to be active volunteers during the event from the Expo space to
supporting rooms and help upload content to our projects so everyone can be
there while Wikimania is happening.
Evelin raises an interesting perspective about " the only good place to
ever do it is Europe" , historically Wikimania has spent a lot of time in
Europe because it had large individual communities who could absorb the
negative impacts on their volunteers organising Wikimania. Europe offers
many advantages in being accessible to a large local contributing
community, yet visa requirements exclude the majority of our contributors
likewise for the US, Canada, Australia though it's something we could lobby
our governments to change. To balance this, countries like Singapore are
invaluable for hosting Wikimanias where everyone can attend most with no
visa required for the few that do a simple online application.
The real value for the movement is what Wikimania does to strengthen our
global community, whether that's leaving a local legacy like Esino Lario,
Cape Town, or strengthening a regional community like ESEAP and CEE. The
WMF has stepped up and recognised the value from the positive impacts of
Wikimania and provided support to address the negative impacts it has on
communities. We need regular Wikimanias in places that allow more people
to attend, we need to consider what positive impacts can be achieved
whether its internal or external ideally we want both. To achieve that
Wikimania needs to be moved around the world and into as many communities
as possible, yes regional events can also do that but a "Global audience"
is so important to external partners getting involved.
As Wikimania evolves we know the community will find new ways to make it
even better and more inclusive. It could be multiple city hosting so that
Wikimania is a 24 hour 3 day global event with live connections. Think
about something like Live Aid <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Aid> which
37 years was a first. We have the technology and skills to do that now just
need the team to take on the challenge.
However we approach Wikimania in the future the one key we must retain is
the personal interactions, we have yet to find an effective way to make
random connections in person happen.
Cheers
On Tue, 21 Mar 2023 at 08:36, Abdulkadir Abdulkadir <
abdulkadirabdulkadir215(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hello folks
Wikimania serve as a bridge that connect beautiful people from different
parts of the world to come together and share experiences, knowledge,
culture, skills and many more which I can't wait to find myself among of
them.
Hopefully one day one time I will be part of the of journey, also when the
Wikimania will be hosted in Africa.
On Mon, 20 Mar 2023, 23:44 Evelin Heidel, <scannopolis(a)gmail.com> wrote:
El lun, 20 mar 2023 a las 17:54, phoebe ayers (<phoebe.wiki(a)gmail.com>)
escribió:
For folks who are newer to Wikimania, one core principle we do have is
to make sure the conference goes to different parts of the world, precisely
because we have community members everywhere and we don't want it to always
be an extra-long journey for the same people. Of course rotation by itself
isn't enough: we also need a group or collaboration that is excited to host
the conference, as well as a location that will work well for a global
conference. But these factors together hopefully result in a Wikimania that
moves around. We got some great expressions of interest for Wikimania, and
I find it exciting that after the lull of the pandemic there is lots of
interest in hosting Wikimania going forward from so many groups.
I'd argue that based on that criteria ("a location that will work well
for a global conference") unfortunately the only good place to ever do it
is Europe (both for convenience of travel & because it's an international
flying hub), and we'd probably all agree that's a very bad idea. However,
out of 18 Wikimanias so far, most of them have been in Europe nevertheless.
This is not a critique to Wikimedia Polska -- I'm very happy for them and
I have no doubt they deserve this, but there's a need to review the whole
model with some type of community discussion that goes well beyond a
session on Wikimania about the "Future of Wikimania", some discussions on a
mailing list, and the steering committee. Maybe it's time to do a committee
that focuses specifically on "re-imagining the future of Wikimania" that
can focus on doing several needed things -- like analyzing all the reports,
learnings & surveys from previous years, running a community survey, and
actually advocating more time to run a community conversation on what
things are important; including how the WMF can (or cannot) support this
event.
I'm saying this too because one can personally find some arguments
compelling (i.e. sustainability) but then others in the movement might find
other arguments more important, and it's always good to know that.
cheers,
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Boodarwun
Gnangarra
'ngany dabakarn koorliny arn boodjera dardoon ngalang Nyungar koortaboodjar'