I think the Wikimania this year was well organized, the talks were diverse and the timing was swift, but I agree with Manuel that there seems to be different groups with diverging goals.
Perhaps it would make sense to think of Wikimania as an outreach event for people that are not in the movement, and put contributors in a separate event (as now happens with tech and representatives). That way we would have:
- Wikimania: first timers, outreach, showcase, invited speakers
- Wikicontributors (?): to discuss collaboration, build consensus, learn, and share more advanced knowledge
- Hackathons: for advanced tech contributors
- WikiCon: for representatives
Some coordination discussions need a long time, and it is not very wise to put it all together in the same event, because everyone is rushing from one talk to the next without getting any in-depth knowledge. And some other would have been more productive if instead we would have focused on teaching how certain tools work before having the discussion... specially regarding sister projects (wikidata, wikisource, wikibooks, etc), that after so many years some contributors don't know very well what they are about because nobody cared to explain it to them and walk them through the edition basics.
In Amical Wikimedia we have planned to organize an internal conference so each editor can show others the projects they are working with, how to use the tools, etc. I think it could be worth thinking of this as potential international event too.
Cheers,
Micru