On Wed, Aug 14, 2013 at 12:58 AM, Manuel Schneider < manuel.schneider@wikimedia.ch> wrote:
Thanks Lodewijk for bringing this up.
I had several discussions in the past, mostly when it was about the future of Wikimania, when I told people that Wikimania should have less parallel sessions, longer sessions with more time between the sessions and an "open space" as an additional track.
We implemented this idea last year at the WikiCon and I think it worked well. The concept is simple:
- there are only 45 minutes sessions (with only one topic) plus a 15
minutes time buffer for sessions not ending on time, people changing rooms, grabbing coffee on their way etc.
this makes a schedule with a simple 1 hour grid
due to the 15 minutes allowance in each session we skip any coffee
breaks - there is coffee break available at all times, from breakfast to dinner
- instead, to give people some time to rest we added a 30 minutes break
where no sessions were going on half way between lunch and dinner. This was not just a coffee break, it was meant to allow people to go outside, catch some fresh air, have a nap or similar.
- there were only three tracks of talks (okay, for Wikimania I would do
up to five - but no more) plus workshops (real hands on sessions, partly in labs) which were longer (~ half a day)
- there was one room near the coffee table with a pin board and an empty
schedule in front, where people could pick a card, write down a topic and pin it on the schedule, to reserve the open space for a spontaneous meeting - like the break sessions we were having at Wikimania
Example: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiCon_2012/Programm/Programmraster
I know that my ideas are not welcomed so much, I have been told so many times that it would be inefficient use of everyone's time to reduce the program so much, that there were so many great submissions we really must put into the schedule and that we need many, many parallel tracks just to make sure we have small enough groups in each sessions to be realistic. Still, I am not convinced by these arguments.
- How many people could not attend sessions they wanted to attend, just
because they were in parallel / they couldn't make it due to something else that kept them away?
- How many sessions were too short and the time was up when they just
felt that they were starting to be effective?
I am a strong believer that less is actually more. I would like to have a less stressful but more effictive Wikimania.
Your ideas are welcomed by me :) I've been wanting fewer sessions at Wikimania for a long time. I know I kind of pioneered the "busy" program schedule in 2006, and that there are many competing interests (including wanting to include all the great presentation ideas)... but at this point I would much rather leave a lot of informal time and see what kind of meetups pop up over the course of the week. Another idea would be to focus on groups of lightning talks -- the 'activating africa' panel was a good model for this, with 8 or 9 talks in the course of the session. I think everyone feels a bit overscheduled at Wikimania and it might be nice to have more experiences in common -- which would mean fewer tracks.
In answer to Lodewijk's question: no, I didn't go to any break sessions, but it's largely because I stood around talking to people instead, and spent two of the lunches preparing with my panel groups. You will be happy to know that this year I did actually go to quite a few talks and sessions, however! :)
-- phoebe
-- Phoebe Ayers Wikimedia Foundation | UC Davis Libraries http://phoebeayers.info