On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 12:06 PM, Sue Gardner sgardner@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi folks,
For several years now, people have occasionally floated the notion that there should be a permanent Wikimania oversight committee – basically, a group of people responsible for giving some coaching and guidance and oversight to the local planning team each year. Over the years, support has been offered each year by people like Phoebe, James Forrester, Delphine (Delphine both in her staff role and as a volunteer) and SJ … but there has never (AFAIK) been a formal oversight committee. I think there probably should be.
Hello Sue and all,
Good timing -- we just had a long conversation about this in the #wikimedia open meeting this afternoon. There were quite a few participants, including several past wikimania organizers.
Quick summary of that discussion: * there is definite interest in an ongoing Wikimania (oversight, governance, guidance) (body, committee, group) (we talked for quite a while about those various names and their different connotations)
* there are a few potential roles that people see for such a group: ** 1) collecting and writing better documentation about the conference, including best practices for organization and what has happened in the past ** 2) answering questions from Wikimania organizers about past practices, helping coordinate who to ask about various aspects ** 3) providing oversight to the overall wikimania process -- for instance making sure that a bid jury is called and the bids are submitted in time (like elections) ** 4) providing oversight/governance as the conference progresses -- for instance, getting regular reports about the conference. Along with this, the org team would have someone to report to if, say, a venue burns down or some other catastrophe happens.
These ideas are roughly in order of how much controversy they generated among discussion participants. I think we all pretty much agreed that we need better conference documentation, and a loose community group of past organizers and interested participants can provide such documentation. Here's a start:
Conference handbook: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/Handbook -- let's write the big book of Wikimania Conference checklist: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/checklist -- make sure you have everything you need Conference community: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/community -- a start at a community group, w/ interested participants.
We discussed however that for any oversight/governance functions we might need a more formalized structure and perhaps a formal mandate. This seemed like a Board-level issue to several people (including me). We also discussed that there's not a good process for proposing and forming community committees that would interact with the Foundation on various issues.
What do you all think?
best, Phoebe
Hi Phoebe and all,
great idea! This fits very well into this approach:[1] of sharing experience and talking about best practises. I'll put that on the agenda for the panel, so that it will have some lasting effect.
[1] http://wikimania2010.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Panel_Discussion_for_Kno...
/Manuel
Am 17.06.2010 22:28, schrieb phoebe ayers:
On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 12:06 PM, Sue Gardnersgardner@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi folks,
For several years now, people have occasionally floated the notion that there should be a permanent Wikimania oversight committee – basically, a group of people responsible for giving some coaching and guidance and oversight to the local planning team each year. Over the years, support has been offered each year by people like Phoebe, James Forrester, Delphine (Delphine both in her staff role and as a volunteer) and SJ … but there has never (AFAIK) been a formal oversight committee. I think there probably should be.
Hello Sue and all,
Good timing -- we just had a long conversation about this in the #wikimedia open meeting this afternoon. There were quite a few participants, including several past wikimania organizers.
Quick summary of that discussion:
- there is definite interest in an ongoing Wikimania (oversight,
governance, guidance) (body, committee, group) (we talked for quite a while about those various names and their different connotations)
- there are a few potential roles that people see for such a group:
** 1) collecting and writing better documentation about the conference, including best practices for organization and what has happened in the past ** 2) answering questions from Wikimania organizers about past practices, helping coordinate who to ask about various aspects ** 3) providing oversight to the overall wikimania process -- for instance making sure that a bid jury is called and the bids are submitted in time (like elections) ** 4) providing oversight/governance as the conference progresses -- for instance, getting regular reports about the conference. Along with this, the org team would have someone to report to if, say, a venue burns down or some other catastrophe happens.
These ideas are roughly in order of how much controversy they generated among discussion participants. I think we all pretty much agreed that we need better conference documentation, and a loose community group of past organizers and interested participants can provide such documentation. Here's a start:
Conference handbook: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/Handbook -- let's write the big book of Wikimania Conference checklist: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/checklist -- make sure you have everything you need Conference community: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/community -- a start at a community group, w/ interested participants.
We discussed however that for any oversight/governance functions we might need a more formalized structure and perhaps a formal mandate. This seemed like a Board-level issue to several people (including me). We also discussed that there's not a good process for proposing and forming community committees that would interact with the Foundation on various issues.
What do you all think?
best, Phoebe
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