Something I would personally appreciate as an improvement, is a block of 2
hour around lunch with NO INTERNET! That ought to improve the mingling :)
Also speeddating seems to be an effective method (there are many ways to
accomplish that).
Lodewijk
2012/7/19 Katherine Casey <fluffernutter.wiki(a)gmail.com>
I agree with Florence's comment about being sad
that Wikimania is no
longer a giant meetup. For all that the talks and lectures are very
informative, I sort of wish that we had the GLAM track lecture, the Dev
track, the [whatever] track, *AND *the "I just want to hang out with
people" track. Give those of us who show up mostly because we want to meet
and talk to other Wikimanians a big room, and maybe a lot of beer or
snacks, and see what develops! We end up ad-hoc-ing this oftentimes by
using the ballroom, or the lobby, or whatever large space, but even those
are often set up in a way that makes me think it never occurred to anyone
that some of us would spend most of our time there if we could. Lack of
seating or enough outlets, the tendency Florence mentions for people to
clump off at tables by their affiliation, and lack of central location for
the hang-out space are some of the pitfalls I've noticed happening in the
past two wikimaniae. If I ran the world, every Wikimania would have a large
room full of abundant couches (not tables to sit around, and not rows of
chairs) and electrical outlets where people would be encouraged to just
hang out and meet new people.
-Fluffernutter
On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 5:57 AM, Florence Devouard <anthere(a)anthere.org>wrote;wrote:
https://wikimania2012.**wikimedia.org/wiki/Feedback<https://wikimania201…
I dropped my comments over there.
There are three things on which I would like to specifically insist upon
The first is that I see a trend in seeing Wikimania as a "conference"
rather than a sort of "giant meetup". I regret it.
I was particularly sensible this year to the fact we had "factions". I
could see the French speaking guys hanging together here. And the German
chapter people hanging there. And in another corner the editing community
of the English Wikipedia. And over there, the Glam people. And though there
were naturally bridges between those groups, there was not much mixing and
bonding.
Seeing Wikimania as a conference is not really helping closing the gap.
We get 4 or 5 sessions in parallel. Glam group goes there in the session
related to Glam. Editing community goes there listening to the session
related to arbitration. Chapter group here goes to listen to legal risks.
And so on. The more sessions we have in parallel, the more chance that each
group stick to its habits.
Adding side events does not necessarily help. When wandering in the
street, we could meet with a group of iberocoop people sticking together or
a group of WMF staff members heading to that restaurant. Even the wikichix
meeting could have been done differently. Such as giving the time to each
women of ONE table to present to each other rather than all of us to each
other. And making sure that women do not sit by their friends but with new
women.
The side meeting probably helping the most are actually visits (such as
the visit to the Capitol) since these are smaller groups of various origins.
But there is this tendency to group with people you already know because
it is always tough to get to new people you know little about.
In the past, I remember events that helped create more bonding. For
example, sleeping in one area rather than dozen. For example, breaking a
wikiball together. For example, hosting lightning talks in the main lobby
all along the conference.
I think we need to think of Wikimania more as a networking event than it
is right now. And give more chance to isolated people to connect and more
chance to groups to break and bridge with other groups.
I hope there can be discussions on how to achieve that (looking at how
networking groups do is a good direction) and that next year team will have
that at heart.
The second is that I was actually surprised to see the organizing team
put itself so much "in the background".
I did not feel very satisfied that the team was essentially listed on a
slide at the beginning and end of the conference and that we see a group of
people on stage during 1 mn at the closing. If only because I will hardly
remember any of the team member besides James, Aude and Danny. James as the
leader. Aude and Danny because I already know them. But others ?
Unfortunately not. Their names were plastered on an slide (since I didnot
know them, it did not help me to recognise their face afterwards). In a
regular conference, this is normal. We just thank the organizers and give
them a one minute fame.
But at Wikimania, the team should be special. It should be leader and at
the heart of the event. We should know who they are and at the end of the
conference, I feel we should feel like hugging them like mad for what they
did (or hate them :)). There are various ways to do that. Such as at least
presenting each of them at the beginning so that we have a face in front of
the name. Putting a big wall in the lobby with the face and name, their
role, and their favorite food (or whatever). Setting up a 10 mn
presentation at the beginning of the day. Having a contest with them on
stage. A banner to sign. A tower in lego to destroy. Anything.
The third is.... WMF board. The Q&A is a tradition; but I feel traditions
ought to change sometimes. It probably made more sense to have a board Q&A
when we had no staff at all. Now, the staff is providing one keynote (Sue)
plus many talks (not far from half of Wikimania talks I think) and
providing plenty of input during three days. So the board Q&A is getting
boring and not very useful anyway. Plus, as I told Jay, the concept of
having a WMF staff select and ask the questions is setting up a barrier,
thus increasing the distance between board and wikimedians. To be fair, I
find it odd that most wikimedians have next to no idea of what the
individual board members think on a specific topic. And most answers to
board does not succeed to fix that. It should be clarified if the goal of
this "event" is to help members understand better what individual members
think OR if it is to understand better board strategy OR if it is to better
understand certain issues. But if these issues are operational in nature,
the questions should go to staff, not board.
I think it is time to have another format. I wonder if it might not make
sense to rather select one hot topic per year and have board give their
opinion on that very topic in details and with individual position rather
than having them give short, bland answers to 10 random questions.
Florence
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