Thanks Harry, Ed,

Of course London was a bit of an exceptionally big Wikimania - but did you evaluate your effort somewhere, and note what you spent your time on somewhere? Just to get an impression which components take most effort (as Dariusz suggested)?

Best, Lodewijk

2016-07-10 20:25 GMT+02:00 Harry Mitchell hjmwiki@gmail.com:

I agree with Ed here. Organising a conference of this size is a huge undertaking to ask of volunteers. I wouldn't want to see Wikimania go down the road of being organised by a team of professional conference organisers because then it would lose the organic community feel that makes it so special, but we shouldn't rule out stipends for the local team. Otherwise we end up with the slightly odd situation of the WMF or local chapter bringing in paid staff to fill gaps left by volunteers but the volunteers still effectively working full-time unpaid. I had a much smaller role in 2014 than Ed and others and was fortunate to be in a position to dedicate a lot of time to it; I certainly wouldn't be in a position now to devote as much time as I did for free and without wishing to speak for Ed, I doubt he would be either even if he was willing.

If that's a problem in major developed economies, I'd imagine it would be even more of a problem in places where people have less disposable income.

Harry Mitchell http://enwp.org/User:HJ +44 (0) 7507 536 971 Skype: harry_j_mitchell

On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 4:22 PM, Edward Saperia edsaperia@gmail.com wrote:

...

Thanks for that comment, Dariusz;

Wikimania London took over two years of preparation, and occupied me full time for six months in the run up to the event. It's a massive undertaking, and in retrospect it seems deeply unfair to expect volunteers to do this.

There was a bidding process, so there was heavy pressure to minimise/understate the budget - which mostly comes at the cost of the volunteers. I think the community just has to be more realistic about what it costs to put on a 1000+ person event.

Were I to do it again I would absolutely include subsistence for the organising team in the budget. It needs professional commitment and professional skills, even with WMF staff support.

I do think that the movement deserves an annual event, and particularly that the WMF should capitalise on it more from a comms perspective. Wiki*edia is a significant entity and we should be presenting ourselves as such.

*Edward Saperia* Conference Director Wikimania London http://www.wikimanialondon.org email edsaperia@gmail.com • facebook http://www.facebook.com/edsaperia • twitter http://www.twitter.com/edsaperia • 07796955572 133-135 Bethnal Green Road, E2 7DG

...

In the same time, I've seen the following problems over the years, not directly linked to the financial cost (which in the face of our relative financial stability can be justified by the benefits, depending on how we define them):

• huge WMF staff involvement (most Wikimanias run smoothly also thanks

to countless hours put in by the staff),

• huge volunteer local organizers involvement (in fact, my observation

is that many chapters organizing WIkimanias suffer from a motivation crisis afterward).

[...]

While we can get the money (at least for now), the human involvement cost is something I would not dare to dismiss just by emphasizing the benefits of Wikimania for the movement.

[...]

Instead of discussing whether we should have a Wikimania every year or not, perhaps we should try to list and discuss the reasons why it is such a big strain? If it is clear that we can't afford it every year (because of the human cost, probably more importantly than the finances), the decision to break with the annual format will be a natural consequence of such an analysis.

[...]

Dariusz Jemielniak ("pundit", a current Trustee).

---

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---

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It's a lot of work, last week before Wikimania Mexico the coordination team slept less than 4 hours each day. But for me being honest was not a shaming time, was great. And we can have people intended to keep Wikimania annual and run similar challenges.

Harry, we had here 72 committed volunteers working without paid and we are not a major developed economy.

Darius, I think that "motivations criris afterward" must also be considered in the planning and prior call for Wikimanía volunteers and can be avoided. In Mexico we always tell to people that we did not want them just for giving the best of themselves for three days around, but we wanted to keep them with Wikimedia mission. A month ago we broke a Guinness record and 60% of attendees were Wikimania volunteers. It is a matter of long preplanning, I think.

2016-07-10 15:03 GMT-05:00 Harry Mitchell hjmwiki@gmail.com:

Yes, London was big, and the two Wikimaniae since have been on a smaller scale, but I'm not sure a ~1,000-person conference is significantly less of a headache than a ~2,000-person conference, and actually I'd wager that Esino was more logistically complicated due to the location - for example having to arrange buses to Varenna and the airports (which were around 50 miles away). Not that that should be taken as a criticism of the Esino team

• they did a fantastic job in a beautiful location and I'd love to have

another 'scenic Wikimania'.

I'll let Ed tell you about what he did. I know I saw him spend a lot of time dealing with the venue and the programme and discussing finance and logistics, but I'm sure there are lots of other things. Speaking for myself: those volunteers in red shirts? That was my contribution. The volunteers on the helpdesks, running sessions, meeting and greeting, tweeting, photographing, doing odd jobs and generally making things run smoothly ... I recruited most of them*, got to know them, trained them, split them into teams, did a lot of the scheduling (easier said than done - lots of moving parts!). During the conference, they looked after the attendees, and I looked after them. And I've never worked with such an amazing group of people. It was a truly humbling experience, but it was a lot of work. At one point I was receiving something like 200 emails a day just relating to Wikimania and was having to set aside time at the start and end of the day to answer the ones that didn't require an immediate response. I also devised the scheme of reporting and emergency/contingency planning for volunteers (thankfully this wasn't necessary, but the death of a Wikimedian at that year's Wikimedia Conference was painfully fresh in our memories), and spent a lot of time trying to drum up and channel interest within the UK Wikimedian community. I'm sure there were other things, but those roles alone took up a significant amount of time - certainly in excess of 40 hours a week in the final few weeks before the conference.

*(Not wishing to take credit from anyone else; I worked closely with lots of other people on all these things, particularly Hera Hussain, and Fabian Tompsett and Chris McKenna who were at the time employed by Wikimedia UK.)

Harry Mitchell http://enwp.org/User:HJ +44 (0) 7507 536 971 Skype: harry_j_mitchell

On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 7:40 PM, Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org wrote:

...

Thanks Harry, Ed,

Of course London was a bit of an exceptionally big Wikimania - but did you evaluate your effort somewhere, and note what you spent your time on somewhere? Just to get an impression which components take most effort (as Dariusz suggested)?

Best, Lodewijk

2016-07-10 20:25 GMT+02:00 Harry Mitchell hjmwiki@gmail.com:

...

I agree with Ed here. Organising a conference of this size is a huge undertaking to ask of volunteers. I wouldn't want to see Wikimania go down the road of being organised by a team of professional conference organisers because then it would lose the organic community feel that makes it so special, but we shouldn't rule out stipends for the local team. Otherwise we end up with the slightly odd situation of the WMF or local chapter bringing in paid staff to fill gaps left by volunteers but the volunteers still effectively working full-time unpaid. I had a much smaller role in 2014 than Ed and others and was fortunate to be in a position to dedicate a lot of time to it; I certainly wouldn't be in a position now to devote as much time as I did for free and without wishing to speak for Ed, I doubt he would be either even if he was willing.

If that's a problem in major developed economies, I'd imagine it would be even more of a problem in places where people have less disposable income.

Harry Mitchell http://enwp.org/User:HJ +44 (0) 7507 536 971 Skype: harry_j_mitchell

On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 4:22 PM, Edward Saperia edsaperia@gmail.com wrote:

...

Thanks for that comment, Dariusz;

Wikimania London took over two years of preparation, and occupied me full time for six months in the run up to the event. It's a massive undertaking, and in retrospect it seems deeply unfair to expect volunteers to do this.

There was a bidding process, so there was heavy pressure to minimise/understate the budget - which mostly comes at the cost of the volunteers. I think the community just has to be more realistic about what it costs to put on a 1000+ person event.

Were I to do it again I would absolutely include subsistence for the organising team in the budget. It needs professional commitment and professional skills, even with WMF staff support.

I do think that the movement deserves an annual event, and particularly that the WMF should capitalise on it more from a comms perspective. Wiki*edia is a significant entity and we should be presenting ourselves as such.

*Edward Saperia* Conference Director Wikimania London http://www.wikimanialondon.org email edsaperia@gmail.com • facebook http://www.facebook.com/edsaperia • twitter http://www.twitter.com/edsaperia • 07796955572 133-135 Bethnal Green Road, E2 7DG

...

In the same time, I've seen the following problems over the years, not directly linked to the financial cost (which in the face of our relative financial stability can be justified by the benefits, depending on how we define them):

• huge WMF staff involvement (most Wikimanias run smoothly also thanks

to countless hours put in by the staff),

• huge volunteer local organizers involvement (in fact, my observation

is that many chapters organizing WIkimanias suffer from a motivation crisis afterward).

[...]

While we can get the money (at least for now), the human involvement cost is something I would not dare to dismiss just by emphasizing the benefits of Wikimania for the movement.

[...]

Instead of discussing whether we should have a Wikimania every year or not, perhaps we should try to list and discuss the reasons why it is such a big strain? If it is clear that we can't afford it every year (because of the human cost, probably more importantly than the finances), the decision to break with the annual format will be a natural consequence of such an analysis.

[...]

Dariusz Jemielniak ("pundit", a current Trustee).

---

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---

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---

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My two cents regarding volunteers and organizing team:

Just as others, I did spend lots of time in the organization of Wikimania, mostly in recruitment, training and logistics of the Yellow Army, and in many other small things helping Ivan, Carmen and the rest of the organizing team. As we approached Wikimania I had to devote more and more time to it, way past a regular 40 hour week, often having to sleep in someone's couch because we wrapped things up at 4-5 AM. I also was lucky to have money to support myself during these months[1], but it was a coincidence; if I had to do it all again, I wouldn't be able to dedicate that much time for free.

Also, that's the easily measurable time because it was confined (mostly) to man-hours in front of a computer or running errands. The actual time invested is impossible to count, mostly because of two factors: 1) because it was also spread during the ~15 months between us winning the bid and the actual event, during weekends, in 5-minute conversations at all hours, etc; and 2) because you have to consider investing time in experienced people that will make things easier further down the road[2]. This needs stressing, because these two represent time and money that are usually not considered in budgets and preparations.

As Ivan said, many things can be avoided with good planning work and (again) enough time. In our case, we made sure the volunteers felt part of the Wikimedia Mexico team, not just an extension of it. They were invited to editathons, talks, workshops and conferences before Wikimania, which weren't part of their "official" training, but as a way of showing them what the movement is about and that they can be part of it. Most of them are still active in our chapter, but that's not just because of luck, we planned for this and were explicit to them in our intent to have them as contributors.

All of this goes to support my opinion that this should be kept "in-house" as much as possible (at least, regarding the actual volunteer team, as I cannot speak about the rest of the organization). It's true that events like Wikimania often ask a lot of their volunteer team, physically, emotionally and mentally; which opens up the risk of "scaring" people away, quitting on you on the most critical moment and forgetting about your cause. There's a lot of talk around lately about motivation, but every expert seems to agree that the most important things to consider when motivating a team are giving them a purpose, enabling self-direction and fostering a sense of mastery. Once you have at least the seedling of this environment, volunteers seem to give their metaphorical 110% for a cause they believe in, confident that their individual effort does make a difference. That's how we managed 72 hours of continuous editing in June :D

***

[1] The company I was working at had to close due to a terrible financial situation. My original plan was to either ask for extended vacation time, to negotiate a sabbatical month or two or to quit. Ultimately the decision was made for me, but the fact is that I was trying to figure out a way to work 24/7 on Wikimania one month before the actual event. In hindsight, I underestimated how much work it meant, as my full-time involvement was a full 10, maybe 12 weeks before Wikimania started.

[2] For instance, the 3rd volunteer meetup was planned and budgeted in a little over 2 hours, but that's because I've worked with that team since I was 16 making similar activities and, just like that story going around about Picasso, it took us 10 years to plan a picnic like that in such short time. Our recruitment/training process considered that the Wikipedia name may attract enthusiastic people with little to no experience, which is good to grow in numbers, but will use time in training certain skills. Finding people with previous volunteering experiences takes more time, but pays off in the long run. These two should be balanced according to every event's needs.

On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 6:12 PM, Dariusz Jemielniak darekj@alk.edu.pl wrote:

hi Ivan,

On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 6:42 PM, Ivan Martínez galaver@gmail.com wrote:

...

Darius, I think that "motivations criris afterward" must also be considered in the planning and prior call for Wikimanía volunteers and can be avoided. In Mexico we always tell to people that we did not want them just for giving the best of themselves for three days around, but we wanted to keep them with Wikimedia mission. A month ago we broke a Guinness record and 60% of attendees were Wikimania volunteers. It is a matter of long preplanning, I think.

this is awesome! I think we also lack the ability to transfer such good practices and paths to success across the movement, but this is really impressive!

dj

--

---

prof. dr hab. Dariusz Jemielniak kierownik katedry Zarządzania Międzynarodowego i grupy badawczej NeRDS Akademia Leona Koźmińskiego http://n http://www.crow.alk.edu.pl/wrds.kozminski.edu.pl

członek Akademii Młodych Uczonych Polskiej Akademii Nauk

Wyszła pierwsza na świecie etnografia Wikipedii "Common Knowledge? An Ethnography of Wikipedia" (2014, Stanford University Press) mojego autorstwa http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?id=24010

Recenzje Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml Pacific Standard: http://www.psmag.com/navigation/books-and-culture/killed-wikipedia-93777/ Motherboard: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/an-ethnography-of-wikipedia The Wikipedian: http://thewikipedian.net/2014/10/10/dariusz-jemielniak-common-knowledge

---

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A few other issues that may be worth examining:

1. Whether people who have not received a Wikimania scholarship within a certain number of years should get priority for scholarships.

2. Whether users who are from backgrounds that don't have a corresponding APG-funded affiliate that independently funds scholarships should have priority for WMF scholarships

3. What the scholarship self-reports from the past several years tell us about the benefits of Wikimania for scholarship recipients.

4. What Wikimetrics and qualitative measures tell us about Wikimania attenance for attendees as a whole and about scholarship recipients as a subgroup. For example, do we have data that demonstrates that (a) Wikimania attendees in general, and (b) scholarship recipients, were more active in the Wikimedia movement (measured quantitatively by edits and qualutatively in terms of leadership roles) after attending Wikimania for the first or second time? What can we learn from this data about the strengths and weaknesses of Wikimania as well as the current scholarship system?

Thanks, Pine

Hi all,

I don't want to take away from the huge amount of work and movement contributions that were made by the Mexico, London, and other Wikimania teams, but: it's worth noting that we could organise a Wikimania with the same number of attendees for a lot less amount of volunteer time (and also money).

~1,000+ people conferences take place quite often each year, across many different academic, non-profic and commercial communities, and there are dedicated conference venues that will just sort out everything - the venue, the internet access, hotel options, the whole lot. They are often located near to international airports, or major cities, which are easy to get to from across the globe. If we wanted to, we could go as far as saying "we're meeting at this venue, delegate fees are X per day, here is the list of nearby hotels that you can stay at, it's up to you to sort out everything else yourself" - and that would lead to a very cheap Wikimania for the WMF and the local Wikimedia organisation.

Rather than going for those options, we've preferred to keep things complicated - we chose not to use standard conference packages, instead picking specific locations and approaches for each Wikimania. We travel to out of the way locations. We bolt on different bespoke activities (such as evening events, and outreach activities) to those conferences that increase the complexity of the event. We ask volunteers to take on duties that we could ask attendees to take on instead (photographs/organising sessions, etc.). We vary the structure of each conference to include the preferences of each organising committee. We organise a scholarship process.

If we're going to do a rational cost-benefit analysis of Wikimania, including all of the options about regularity, intentions, etc., then perhaps we should also consider the basics - what's the minimum amount that's needed to hold such an event, leaving aside the optional extras? What can we keep constant between each Wikimania: can we keep the program organisation, the approach to evening events, and the add-on events the same each year (saving volunteer and staff time)? Or perhaps we should acknowledge the extra work that goes into each bespoke Wikimania, and celebrate that? Or seek an intermediate solution - sort out the venue, program, etc., and leave hotel/food options up to attendees? Or perhaps each Wikimania should keep vying for the title of the best Wikimania ever?

Thanks, Mike

On 10 Jul 2016, at 23:42, Ivan Martínez galaver@gmail.com wrote:

It's a lot of work, last week before Wikimania Mexico the coordination team slept less than 4 hours each day. But for me being honest was not a shaming time, was great. And we can have people intended to keep Wikimania annual and run similar challenges.

Harry, we had here 72 committed volunteers working without paid and we are not a major developed economy.

Darius, I think that "motivations criris afterward" must also be considered in the planning and prior call for Wikimanía volunteers and can be avoided. In Mexico we always tell to people that we did not want them just for giving the best of themselves for three days around, but we wanted to keep them with Wikimedia mission. A month ago we broke a Guinness record and 60% of attendees were Wikimania volunteers. It is a matter of long preplanning, I think.

2016-07-10 15:03 GMT-05:00 Harry Mitchell <hjmwiki@gmail.com mailto:hjmwiki@gmail.com>: Yes, London was big, and the two Wikimaniae since have been on a smaller scale, but I'm not sure a ~1,000-person conference is significantly less of a headache than a ~2,000-person conference, and actually I'd wager that Esino was more logistically complicated due to the location - for example having to arrange buses to Varenna and the airports (which were around 50 miles away). Not that that should be taken as a criticism of the Esino team - they did a fantastic job in a beautiful location and I'd love to have another 'scenic Wikimania'.

I'll let Ed tell you about what he did. I know I saw him spend a lot of time dealing with the venue and the programme and discussing finance and logistics, but I'm sure there are lots of other things. Speaking for myself: those volunteers in red shirts? That was my contribution. The volunteers on the helpdesks, running sessions, meeting and greeting, tweeting, photographing, doing odd jobs and generally making things run smoothly ... I recruited most of them*, got to know them, trained them, split them into teams, did a lot of the scheduling (easier said than done - lots of moving parts!). During the conference, they looked after the attendees, and I looked after them. And I've never worked with such an amazing group of people. It was a truly humbling experience, but it was a lot of work. At one point I was receiving something like 200 emails a day just relating to Wikimania and was having to set aside time at the start and end of the day to answer the ones that didn't require an immediate response. I also devised the scheme of reporting and emergency/contingency planning for volunteers (thankfully this wasn't necessary, but the death of a Wikimedian at that year's Wikimedia Conference was painfully fresh in our memories), and spent a lot of time trying to drum up and channel interest within the UK Wikimedian community. I'm sure there were other things, but those roles alone took up a significant amount of time - certainly in excess of 40 hours a week in the final few weeks before the conference.

*(Not wishing to take credit from anyone else; I worked closely with lots of other people on all these things, particularly Hera Hussain, and Fabian Tompsett and Chris McKenna who were at the time employed by Wikimedia UK.)

Harry Mitchell http://enwp.org/User:HJ http://enwp.org/User:HJ +44 (0) 7507 536 971 tel:%2B44%20%280%29%207507%20536%20971 Skype: harry_j_mitchell

On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 7:40 PM, Lodewijk <lodewijk@effeietsanders.org mailto:lodewijk@effeietsanders.org> wrote: Thanks Harry, Ed,

Of course London was a bit of an exceptionally big Wikimania - but did you evaluate your effort somewhere, and note what you spent your time on somewhere? Just to get an impression which components take most effort (as Dariusz suggested)?

Best, Lodewijk

2016-07-10 20:25 GMT+02:00 Harry Mitchell <hjmwiki@gmail.com mailto:hjmwiki@gmail.com>: I agree with Ed here. Organising a conference of this size is a huge undertaking to ask of volunteers. I wouldn't want to see Wikimania go down the road of being organised by a team of professional conference organisers because then it would lose the organic community feel that makes it so special, but we shouldn't rule out stipends for the local team. Otherwise we end up with the slightly odd situation of the WMF or local chapter bringing in paid staff to fill gaps left by volunteers but the volunteers still effectively working full-time unpaid. I had a much smaller role in 2014 than Ed and others and was fortunate to be in a position to dedicate a lot of time to it; I certainly wouldn't be in a position now to devote as much time as I did for free and without wishing to speak for Ed, I doubt he would be either even if he was willing.

If that's a problem in major developed economies, I'd imagine it would be even more of a problem in places where people have less disposable income.

Harry Mitchell http://enwp.org/User:HJ http://enwp.org/User:HJ +44 (0) 7507 536 971 tel:%2B44%20%280%29%207507%20536%20971 Skype: harry_j_mitchell

On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 4:22 PM, Edward Saperia <edsaperia@gmail.com mailto:edsaperia@gmail.com> wrote: Thanks for that comment, Dariusz;

Wikimania London took over two years of preparation, and occupied me full time for six months in the run up to the event. It's a massive undertaking, and in retrospect it seems deeply unfair to expect volunteers to do this.

There was a bidding process, so there was heavy pressure to minimise/understate the budget - which mostly comes at the cost of the volunteers. I think the community just has to be more realistic about what it costs to put on a 1000+ person event.

Were I to do it again I would absolutely include subsistence for the organising team in the budget. It needs professional commitment and professional skills, even with WMF staff support.

I do think that the movement deserves an annual event, and particularly that the WMF should capitalise on it more from a comms perspective. Wiki*edia is a significant entity and we should be presenting ourselves as such.

Edward Saperia Conference Director Wikimania London http://www.wikimanialondon.org/ email mailto:edsaperia@gmail.com • facebook http://www.facebook.com/edsaperia • twitter http://www.twitter.com/edsaperia • 07796955572 133-135 Bethnal Green Road, E2 7DG

In the same time, I've seen the following problems over the years, not directly linked to the financial cost (which in the face of our relative financial stability can be justified by the benefits, depending on how we define them):

• huge WMF staff involvement (most Wikimanias run smoothly also thanks to countless hours put in by the staff),
• huge volunteer local organizers involvement (in fact, my observation is that many chapters organizing WIkimanias suffer from a motivation crisis afterward).

[...]

While we can get the money (at least for now), the human involvement cost is something I would not dare to dismiss just by emphasizing the benefits of Wikimania for the movement.

[...]

Instead of discussing whether we should have a Wikimania every year or not, perhaps we should try to list and discuss the reasons why it is such a big strain? If it is clear that we can't afford it every year (because of the human cost, probably more importantly than the finances), the decision to break with the annual format will be a natural consequence of such an analysis.

[...]

Dariusz Jemielniak ("pundit", a current Trustee).

---

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-- Iván Martínez Presidente - Wikimedia México A.C. User:ProtoplasmaKid

// Mis comunicaciones respecto a Wikipedia/Wikimedia pueden tener una moratoria en su atención debido a que es un voluntariado. // Ayuda a proteger a Wikipedia, dona ahora: https://donate.wikimedia.org https://donate.wikimedia.org/_______________________________________________ Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

(re:Mike & Harry)

It's true that Wikimania does make some things that could be done easier, but as Harry says, it's part of what we (the Wikimedia community) are looking for. As noted before in other conversations, it would be way easier to set up conferences in the same few locations (say, every year in a major city in the USA) but it would be really distant from our goal of being more diverse (besides many, many other considerations). But yes, many things are being needlessly reinvented over and over again (which, in our case, was mostly out of a great deal of trust from everyone else, confident that we would be able to sort everything out; I'm sure the same has happened to other teams)

Unfortunately I couldn't assist to Esino Lario, but they had a good idea in this regard in Mexico City: I recall the 2016 team asking former Wikimania organizers for feedback. I gave my remarks on volunteer support but two major problems arose immediately with some solutions they wanted to implement/emulate:

1) Some things were either already past due for the 2016 team (11 months is sometimes not enough) or were just in time to be included in their timetable, with little to no time for adjustments; and 2) Some questions could only be vaguely answered, because the information would be available later on, or was still undecided.

So in general there's not enough communication between Wikimania organizers for things like this. Why don't we organize some sort of Brain Trust with former organizers to give opinions and advice **in a timely manner** to whoever is the current organizing team? It can be a really easy setup (maybe nothing more than a small mailing list and/or skype chat) where the current team can ask "Hey, X: you dealt with this before. How did you do it?" Any former organizer who is interested can just throw their name in the hat with his/her area of expertise and that's it. Even more, since the proposed Trust is just an advisory team (meaning that the current organizers don't necessarily have to act upon the advise in the exact described way) this communication can even become private and informal.

I think something like this is needed to improve future Wikimanias without compromising on those small things that make it a non-generic event. If we can manage a solution like this, sign me up.

On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 6:06 AM, Harry Mitchell hjmwiki@gmail.com wrote:

I don't agree with you completely, Mike (but you're probably used to that by now! ;) ) - if you buy a generic conference package you get a generic conference. What's the point of flying all the way to London, for example, for a conference on an industrial estate in Hounslow? Sure, you might be literally spitting distance from Heathrow and you're not short of options for hotels, but it doesn't have that uniqueness that makes Wikimania what it is. Likewise, the evening programme and all the ancillary stuff is as much part of Wikimania as the talks; in fact I'd argue that the social side is far more important and probably much more fertile ground for ideas than the talks themselves.

You *do* have a point, though, that we reinvent the wheel every year with a new team. I can't remember specifics, but there were several times in the buildup to 2014 that I thought "this can't be the first time a Wikimania team has had to do this". Not everything will be the same, but we should get better at sharing and learning from our experiences so that future teams aren't left wondering "how did they do this in London or Mexico or Esino?".

Harry Mitchell http://enwp.org/User:HJ +44 (0) 7507 536 971 Skype: harry_j_mitchell

On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 7:06 PM, Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net wrote:

...

Hi all,

I don't want to take away from the huge amount of work and movement contributions that were made by the Mexico, London, and other Wikimania teams, but: it's worth noting that we could organise a Wikimania with the same number of attendees for a lot less amount of volunteer time (and also money).

~1,000+ people conferences take place quite often each year, across many different academic, non-profic and commercial communities, and there are dedicated conference venues that will just sort out everything - the venue, the internet access, hotel options, the whole lot. They are often located near to international airports, or major cities, which are easy to get to from across the globe. If we wanted to, we could go as far as saying "we're meeting at this venue, delegate fees are X per day, here is the list of nearby hotels that you can stay at, it's up to you to sort out everything else yourself" - and that would lead to a very cheap Wikimania for the WMF and the local Wikimedia organisation.

Rather than going for those options, we've preferred to keep things complicated - we chose not to use standard conference packages, instead picking specific locations and approaches for each Wikimania. We travel to out of the way locations. We bolt on different bespoke activities (such as evening events, and outreach activities) to those conferences that increase the complexity of the event. We ask volunteers to take on duties that we could ask attendees to take on instead (photographs/organising sessions, etc.). We vary the structure of each conference to include the preferences of each organising committee. We organise a scholarship process.

If we're going to do a rational cost-benefit analysis of Wikimania, including all of the options about regularity, intentions, etc., then perhaps we should also consider the basics - what's the minimum amount that's needed to hold such an event, leaving aside the optional extras? What can we keep constant between each Wikimania: can we keep the program organisation, the approach to evening events, and the add-on events the same each year (saving volunteer and staff time)? Or perhaps we should acknowledge the extra work that goes into each bespoke Wikimania, and celebrate that? Or seek an intermediate solution - sort out the venue, program, etc., and leave hotel/food options up to attendees? Or perhaps each Wikimania should keep vying for the title of the best Wikimania ever?

Thanks, Mike

On 10 Jul 2016, at 23:42, Ivan Martínez galaver@gmail.com wrote:

It's a lot of work, last week before Wikimania Mexico the coordination team slept less than 4 hours each day. But for me being honest was not a shaming time, was great. And we can have people intended to keep Wikimania annual and run similar challenges.

Harry, we had here 72 committed volunteers working without paid and we are not a major developed economy.

Darius, I think that "motivations criris afterward" must also be considered in the planning and prior call for Wikimanía volunteers and can be avoided. In Mexico we always tell to people that we did not want them just for giving the best of themselves for three days around, but we wanted to keep them with Wikimedia mission. A month ago we broke a Guinness record and 60% of attendees were Wikimania volunteers. It is a matter of long preplanning, I think.

2016-07-10 15:03 GMT-05:00 Harry Mitchell hjmwiki@gmail.com:

...

Yes, London was big, and the two Wikimaniae since have been on a smaller scale, but I'm not sure a ~1,000-person conference is significantly less of a headache than a ~2,000-person conference, and actually I'd wager that Esino was more logistically complicated due to the location - for example having to arrange buses to Varenna and the airports (which were around 50 miles away). Not that that should be taken as a criticism of the Esino team

• they did a fantastic job in a beautiful location and I'd love to have

another 'scenic Wikimania'.

I'll let Ed tell you about what he did. I know I saw him spend a lot of time dealing with the venue and the programme and discussing finance and logistics, but I'm sure there are lots of other things. Speaking for myself: those volunteers in red shirts? That was my contribution. The volunteers on the helpdesks, running sessions, meeting and greeting, tweeting, photographing, doing odd jobs and generally making things run smoothly ... I recruited most of them*, got to know them, trained them, split them into teams, did a lot of the scheduling (easier said than done - lots of moving parts!). During the conference, they looked after the attendees, and I looked after them. And I've never worked with such an amazing group of people. It was a truly humbling experience, but it was a lot of work. At one point I was receiving something like 200 emails a day just relating to Wikimania and was having to set aside time at the start and end of the day to answer the ones that didn't require an immediate response. I also devised the scheme of reporting and emergency/contingency planning for volunteers (thankfully this wasn't necessary, but the death of a Wikimedian at that year's Wikimedia Conference was painfully fresh in our memories), and spent a lot of time trying to drum up and channel interest within the UK Wikimedian community. I'm sure there were other things, but those roles alone took up a significant amount of time - certainly in excess of 40 hours a week in the final few weeks before the conference.

*(Not wishing to take credit from anyone else; I worked closely with lots of other people on all these things, particularly Hera Hussain, and Fabian Tompsett and Chris McKenna who were at the time employed by Wikimedia UK.)

Harry Mitchell http://enwp.org/User:HJ +44 (0) 7507 536 971 Skype: harry_j_mitchell

On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 7:40 PM, Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org wrote:

...

Thanks Harry, Ed,

Of course London was a bit of an exceptionally big Wikimania - but did you evaluate your effort somewhere, and note what you spent your time on somewhere? Just to get an impression which components take most effort (as Dariusz suggested)?

Best, Lodewijk

2016-07-10 20:25 GMT+02:00 Harry Mitchell hjmwiki@gmail.com:

...

I agree with Ed here. Organising a conference of this size is a huge undertaking to ask of volunteers. I wouldn't want to see Wikimania go down the road of being organised by a team of professional conference organisers because then it would lose the organic community feel that makes it so special, but we shouldn't rule out stipends for the local team. Otherwise we end up with the slightly odd situation of the WMF or local chapter bringing in paid staff to fill gaps left by volunteers but the volunteers still effectively working full-time unpaid. I had a much smaller role in 2014 than Ed and others and was fortunate to be in a position to dedicate a lot of time to it; I certainly wouldn't be in a position now to devote as much time as I did for free and without wishing to speak for Ed, I doubt he would be either even if he was willing.

If that's a problem in major developed economies, I'd imagine it would be even more of a problem in places where people have less disposable income.

Harry Mitchell http://enwp.org/User:HJ +44 (0) 7507 536 971 Skype: harry_j_mitchell

On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 4:22 PM, Edward Saperia edsaperia@gmail.com wrote:

...

Thanks for that comment, Dariusz;

Wikimania London took over two years of preparation, and occupied me full time for six months in the run up to the event. It's a massive undertaking, and in retrospect it seems deeply unfair to expect volunteers to do this.

There was a bidding process, so there was heavy pressure to minimise/understate the budget - which mostly comes at the cost of the volunteers. I think the community just has to be more realistic about what it costs to put on a 1000+ person event.

Were I to do it again I would absolutely include subsistence for the organising team in the budget. It needs professional commitment and professional skills, even with WMF staff support.

I do think that the movement deserves an annual event, and particularly that the WMF should capitalise on it more from a comms perspective. Wiki*edia is a significant entity and we should be presenting ourselves as such.

*Edward Saperia* Conference Director Wikimania London http://www.wikimanialondon.org/ email edsaperia@gmail.com • facebook http://www.facebook.com/edsaperia • twitter http://www.twitter.com/edsaperia • 07796955572 133-135 Bethnal Green Road, E2 7DG

> In the same time, I've seen the following problems over the years, > not directly linked to the financial cost (which in the face of our > relative financial stability can be justified by the benefits, depending on > how we define them): > - huge WMF staff involvement (most Wikimanias run smoothly also > thanks to countless hours put in by the staff), > - huge volunteer local organizers involvement (in fact, my > observation is that many chapters organizing WIkimanias suffer from a > motivation crisis afterward). > > [...] > > While we can get the money (at least for now), the human involvement > cost is something I would not dare to dismiss just by emphasizing the > benefits of Wikimania for the movement. > > [...] > > Instead of discussing whether we should have a Wikimania every year > or not, perhaps we should try to list and discuss the reasons why it is > such a big strain? If it is clear that we can't afford it every year > (because of the human cost, probably more importantly than the finances), > the decision to break with the annual format will be a natural consequence > of such an analysis. > > [...] > > Dariusz Jemielniak ("pundit", a current Trustee). >

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-- *Iván Martínez*

*Presidente - Wikimedia México A.C.User:ProtoplasmaKid *

// Mis comunicaciones respecto a Wikipedia/Wikimedia pueden tener una moratoria en su atención debido a que es un voluntariado. // Ayuda a proteger a Wikipedia, dona ahora: https://donate.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

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Although our planning in '15 had a different structure, for me was very useful have a one-two hour recap with Ed after Wikimania 2014, because at that point he had a more clear image of what functioned and what not, and I understood his planning into several areas.

I'm agree with Nick, all these plans and models should be present into the Handbook.

2016-07-12 17:33 GMT-05:00 Nick Wilson (Quiddity) nwilson@wikimedia.org:

On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 9:57 AM, Andy Cruz y Corro andycyca@gmail.com wrote:

...

[...] So in general there's not enough communication between Wikimania

organizers

...

for things like this. Why don't we organize some sort of Brain Trust with former organizers to give opinions and advice **in a timely manner** to whoever is the current organizing team? It can be a really easy setup

(maybe

...

nothing more than a small mailing list and/or skype chat) where the

current

...

team can ask "Hey, X: you dealt with this before. How did you do it?" Any former organizer who is interested can just throw their name in the hat

with

...

his/her area of expertise and that's it. Even more, since the proposed

Trust

...

is just an advisory team (meaning that the current organizers don't necessarily have to act upon the advise in the exact described way) this communication can even become private and informal.

I think something like this is needed to improve future Wikimanias

without

...

compromising on those small things that make it a non-generic event. If

we

...

can manage a solution like this, sign me up.

Sounds like a good idea, as long as the answers that ought to be recorded for posterity are added at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_Handbook and subpages, which should be the primary set of opinions and advice and checklists.

---

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So in general there's not enough communication between Wikimania organizers for things like this. Why don't we organize some sort of Brain Trust with former organizers to give opinions and advice **in a timely manner** to whoever is the current organizing team? It can be a really easy setup (maybe nothing more than a small mailing list and/or skype chat) where the current team can ask "Hey, X: you dealt with this before. How did you do it?"

This already exists: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_Committee

On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 6:06 AM, Harry Mitchell hjmwiki@gmail.com wrote:

...

I don't agree with you completely, Mike (but you're probably used to that by now! ;) ) - if you buy a generic conference package you get a generic conference. What's the point of flying all the way to London, for example, for a conference on an industrial estate in Hounslow? Sure, you might be literally spitting distance from Heathrow and you're not short of options for hotels, but it doesn't have that uniqueness that makes Wikimania what it is. Likewise, the evening programme and all the ancillary stuff is as much part of Wikimania as the talks; in fact I'd argue that the social side is far more important and probably much more fertile ground for ideas than the talks themselves.

You *do* have a point, though, that we reinvent the wheel every year with a new team. I can't remember specifics, but there were several times in the buildup to 2014 that I thought "this can't be the first time a Wikimania team has had to do this". Not everything will be the same, but we should get better at sharing and learning from our experiences so that future teams aren't left wondering "how did they do this in London or Mexico or Esino?".

Harry Mitchell http://enwp.org/User:HJ +44 (0) 7507 536 971 Skype: harry_j_mitchell

On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 7:06 PM, Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net wrote:

...

Hi all,

I don't want to take away from the huge amount of work and movement contributions that were made by the Mexico, London, and other Wikimania teams, but: it's worth noting that we could organise a Wikimania with the same number of attendees for a lot less amount of volunteer time (and also money).

~1,000+ people conferences take place quite often each year, across many different academic, non-profic and commercial communities, and there are dedicated conference venues that will just sort out everything - the venue, the internet access, hotel options, the whole lot. They are often located near to international airports, or major cities, which are easy to get to from across the globe. If we wanted to, we could go as far as saying "we're meeting at this venue, delegate fees are X per day, here is the list of nearby hotels that you can stay at, it's up to you to sort out everything else yourself" - and that would lead to a very cheap Wikimania for the WMF and the local Wikimedia organisation.

Rather than going for those options, we've preferred to keep things complicated - we chose not to use standard conference packages, instead picking specific locations and approaches for each Wikimania. We travel to out of the way locations. We bolt on different bespoke activities (such as evening events, and outreach activities) to those conferences that increase the complexity of the event. We ask volunteers to take on duties that we could ask attendees to take on instead (photographs/organising sessions, etc.). We vary the structure of each conference to include the preferences of each organising committee. We organise a scholarship process.

If we're going to do a rational cost-benefit analysis of Wikimania, including all of the options about regularity, intentions, etc., then perhaps we should also consider the basics - what's the minimum amount that's needed to hold such an event, leaving aside the optional extras? What can we keep constant between each Wikimania: can we keep the program organisation, the approach to evening events, and the add-on events the same each year (saving volunteer and staff time)? Or perhaps we should acknowledge the extra work that goes into each bespoke Wikimania, and celebrate that? Or seek an intermediate solution - sort out the venue, program, etc., and leave hotel/food options up to attendees? Or perhaps each Wikimania should keep vying for the title of the best Wikimania ever?

Thanks, Mike

On 10 Jul 2016, at 23:42, Ivan Martínez galaver@gmail.com wrote:

It's a lot of work, last week before Wikimania Mexico the coordination team slept less than 4 hours each day. But for me being honest was not a shaming time, was great. And we can have people intended to keep Wikimania annual and run similar challenges.

Harry, we had here 72 committed volunteers working without paid and we are not a major developed economy.

Darius, I think that "motivations criris afterward" must also be considered in the planning and prior call for Wikimanía volunteers and can be avoided. In Mexico we always tell to people that we did not want them just for giving the best of themselves for three days around, but we wanted to keep them with Wikimedia mission. A month ago we broke a Guinness record and 60% of attendees were Wikimania volunteers. It is a matter of long preplanning, I think.

2016-07-10 15:03 GMT-05:00 Harry Mitchell hjmwiki@gmail.com:

...

Yes, London was big, and the two Wikimaniae since have been on a smaller scale, but I'm not sure a ~1,000-person conference is significantly less of a headache than a ~2,000-person conference, and actually I'd wager that Esino was more logistically complicated due to the location - for example having to arrange buses to Varenna and the airports (which were around 50 miles away). Not that that should be taken as a criticism of the Esino team - they did a fantastic job in a beautiful location and I'd love to have another 'scenic Wikimania'.

I'll let Ed tell you about what he did. I know I saw him spend a lot of time dealing with the venue and the programme and discussing finance and logistics, but I'm sure there are lots of other things. Speaking for myself: those volunteers in red shirts? That was my contribution. The volunteers on the helpdesks, running sessions, meeting and greeting, tweeting, photographing, doing odd jobs and generally making things run smoothly ... I recruited most of them*, got to know them, trained them, split them into teams, did a lot of the scheduling (easier said than done - lots of moving parts!). During the conference, they looked after the attendees, and I looked after them. And I've never worked with such an amazing group of people. It was a truly humbling experience, but it was a lot of work. At one point I was receiving something like 200 emails a day just relating to Wikimania and was having to set aside time at the start and end of the day to answer the ones that didn't require an immediate response. I also devised the scheme of reporting and emergency/contingency planning for volunteers (thankfully this wasn't necessary, but the death of a Wikimedian at that year's Wikimedia Conference was painfully fresh in our memories), and spent a lot of time trying to drum up and channel interest within the UK Wikimedian community. I'm sure there were other things, but those roles alone took up a significant amount of time - certainly in excess of 40 hours a week in the final few weeks before the conference.

*(Not wishing to take credit from anyone else; I worked closely with lots of other people on all these things, particularly Hera Hussain, and Fabian Tompsett and Chris McKenna who were at the time employed by Wikimedia UK.)

Harry Mitchell http://enwp.org/User:HJ +44 (0) 7507 536 971 Skype: harry_j_mitchell

On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 7:40 PM, Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org wrote:

...

Thanks Harry, Ed,

Of course London was a bit of an exceptionally big Wikimania - but did you evaluate your effort somewhere, and note what you spent your time on somewhere? Just to get an impression which components take most effort (as Dariusz suggested)?

Best, Lodewijk

2016-07-10 20:25 GMT+02:00 Harry Mitchell hjmwiki@gmail.com:

...

I agree with Ed here. Organising a conference of this size is a huge undertaking to ask of volunteers. I wouldn't want to see Wikimania go down the road of being organised by a team of professional conference organisers because then it would lose the organic community feel that makes it so special, but we shouldn't rule out stipends for the local team. Otherwise we end up with the slightly odd situation of the WMF or local chapter bringing in paid staff to fill gaps left by volunteers but the volunteers still effectively working full-time unpaid. I had a much smaller role in 2014 than Ed and others and was fortunate to be in a position to dedicate a lot of time to it; I certainly wouldn't be in a position now to devote as much time as I did for free and without wishing to speak for Ed, I doubt he would be either even if he was willing.

If that's a problem in major developed economies, I'd imagine it would be even more of a problem in places where people have less disposable income.

Harry Mitchell http://enwp.org/User:HJ +44 (0) 7507 536 971 Skype: harry_j_mitchell

On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 4:22 PM, Edward Saperia edsaperia@gmail.com wrote:

> Thanks for that comment, Dariusz; > > Wikimania London took over two years of preparation, and occupied me > full time for six months in the run up to the event. It's a massive > undertaking, and in retrospect it seems deeply unfair to expect volunteers > to do this. > > There was a bidding process, so there was heavy pressure to > minimise/understate the budget - which mostly comes at the cost of the > volunteers. I think the community just has to be more realistic about what > it costs to put on a 1000+ person event. > > Were I to do it again I would absolutely include subsistence for the > organising team in the budget. It needs professional commitment and > professional skills, even with WMF staff support. > > I do think that the movement deserves an annual event, and > particularly that the WMF should capitalise on it more from a comms > perspective. Wiki*edia is a significant entity and we should be presenting > ourselves as such. > > *Edward Saperia* > Conference Director Wikimania London > http://www.wikimanialondon.org/ > email edsaperia@gmail.com • facebook > http://www.facebook.com/edsaperia • twitter > http://www.twitter.com/edsaperia • 07796955572 > 133-135 Bethnal Green Road, E2 7DG > > >> In the same time, I've seen the following problems over the years, >> not directly linked to the financial cost (which in the face of our >> relative financial stability can be justified by the benefits, depending on >> how we define them): >> - huge WMF staff involvement (most Wikimanias run smoothly also >> thanks to countless hours put in by the staff), >> - huge volunteer local organizers involvement (in fact, my >> observation is that many chapters organizing WIkimanias suffer from a >> motivation crisis afterward). >> >> [...] >> >> While we can get the money (at least for now), the human >> involvement cost is something I would not dare to dismiss just by >> emphasizing the benefits of Wikimania for the movement. >> >> [...] >> >> Instead of discussing whether we should have a Wikimania every year >> or not, perhaps we should try to list and discuss the reasons why it is >> such a big strain? If it is clear that we can't afford it every year >> (because of the human cost, probably more importantly than the finances), >> the decision to break with the annual format will be a natural consequence >> of such an analysis. >> >> [...] >> >> Dariusz Jemielniak ("pundit", a current Trustee). >> > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimania-l mailing list > Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l > >

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*Presidente - Wikimedia México A.C.User:ProtoplasmaKid *

// Mis comunicaciones respecto a Wikipedia/Wikimedia pueden tener una moratoria en su atención debido a que es un voluntariado. // Ayuda a proteger a Wikipedia, dona ahora: https://donate.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

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Socio de Wikimedia México https://mx.wikimedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A1gina_principal.

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Well this thread turned out bigger (and much more productive) than I expected!

To my mind, Wikimania continuing to happen every year is a minor miracle, and one that's only possible with the hard work and dedication of lots of people.

However, it's a miracle that isn't without its problems. The most obvious problem to my mind is that there is a very mixed quality of actual conference programme, and without clear objectives (or at least not consistent objectives). The Wikimedia Conference, by contrast, has a much clearer alignment of the programme with a set of goals, and work happens to follow up before and after the conference.

The second problem is that the responsibilities for governance and management of the conference are really very unclear. We have the Wikimania Committee, we have the local team (and in some cases a local chapter who may or may not be working closely with the bid team), we have the Programme Committee and we have the WMF. (Actually we have the WMF at least twice, as the priorities of the WMF team involved in organising the conference don't always seem to align with those of the rest of the organisation).

In my view, the most useful thing for all these groups to do is to work out who is actually responsible for what, and document it, in public.

Chris

Volunteer are not just precious they are the essential component both during planning and during the event itself, also with that goes the desire to put that effort in. WMF Staff, Affiliate Staff and Contractors while necessary are paid its something that can be augmented as needed but not volunteers, that means also consideration of the energy within a community to host the event.

We should be expecting a real professional approach from those paid to make this happen, for the WMF to hire skill conference people to do that work, its these skilled people that ensure the processes reflect needs, improve the outcomes and critically builds on established successes. By the time Montreal opens, 2018 should be signed sealed and ready to go with 2019 being finalised, venues booked and contracts on the table.

after 10 years the basic frame work is there, there are common things and physical needs that occur every Wikimania;

- Venue capacity - 1000-2500 seat auditorium - open & close, key talks - 4 larger theatre type rooms - specific talks - 6-10 smaller rooms - discussion and minor talks - larger communal area, WikiVillage, meal area and general open space to congregate - WiFi capacity - Venue location(within City) - central with good access - close to accommodation(or good connectioning services) - Scholarships - 100-200 people - full vs partial - visa needs - City - International Airport with sufficient connections (In USA, EU rail connection) - sufficient accommodation

even the basic give away gumf (bag t shirts, usb stickers, pins, pens) are kind of consistent they just change to suit the logo. The registration is the same, media passes, speakers passes. The WMF could even go into longer term sponsorship for the event, there would also some legal and contractual issue that the WMF would be better suited to manage, WMF employees would chair/co-chair the associated committees

The locals focus on

- Theme - catering - volunteers on site - meet & greet at transport hubs - local media - local sponsorship - external activities

On 17 July 2016 at 14:31, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:

Another committee to add to Chris' list is the Scholarship Committee.

I'd be interested in knowing the number of volunteer, contractor, and WMF and affiliate staff hours that are involved in Wikimania from start to finish, and having some thoughtful consideration of ways to increase efficiency as well as effectiveness and alignment. I believe that Christophe is thinking along these lines for WMF staff time; I would suggest including affiliate staff, contractor, and volunteer time in the list of considerations. I consider volunteer time to be particularly precious.

Pine

On Jul 16, 2016 11:23, "Chris Keating" chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com wrote:

...

Well this thread turned out bigger (and much more productive) than I expected!

To my mind, Wikimania continuing to happen every year is a minor miracle, and one that's only possible with the hard work and dedication of lots of people.

However, it's a miracle that isn't without its problems. The most obvious problem to my mind is that there is a very mixed quality of actual conference programme, and without clear objectives (or at least not consistent objectives). The Wikimedia Conference, by contrast, has a much clearer alignment of the programme with a set of goals, and work happens to follow up before and after the conference.

The second problem is that the responsibilities for governance and management of the conference are really very unclear. We have the Wikimania Committee, we have the local team (and in some cases a local chapter who may or may not be working closely with the bid team), we have the Programme Committee and we have the WMF. (Actually we have the WMF at least twice, as the priorities of the WMF team involved in organising the conference don't always seem to align with those of the rest of the organisation).

In my view, the most useful thing for all these groups to do is to work out who is actually responsible for what, and document it, in public.

Chris

---

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On Sat, Jul 16, 2016 at 11:23 AM, Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com wrote:

Well this thread turned out bigger (and much more productive) than I expected!

To my mind, Wikimania continuing to happen every year is a minor miracle, and one that's only possible with the hard work and dedication of lots of people.

However, it's a miracle that isn't without its problems. The most obvious problem to my mind is that there is a very mixed quality of actual conference programme, and without clear objectives (or at least not consistent objectives). The Wikimedia Conference, by contrast, has a much clearer alignment of the programme with a set of goals, and work happens to follow up before and after the conference.

The second problem is that the responsibilities for governance and management of the conference are really very unclear. We have the Wikimania Committee, we have the local team (and in some cases a local chapter who may or may not be working closely with the bid team), we have the Programme Committee and we have the WMF. (Actually we have the WMF at least twice, as the priorities of the WMF team involved in organising the conference don't always seem to align with those of the rest of the organisation).

In my view, the most useful thing for all these groups to do is to work out who is actually responsible for what, and document it, in public.

T ​his is an excellent suggestion. It is not unclear to me how things work having been involved with coordination among the various 'players' for the past few years. The Handbook is out of date as well. So I will take an action item to start revising this and making it clearer to everyone about the structure, organization, etc for the community at large. This is especially necessary as we move forward with next steps for 2018 in the coming months (working on this with WMF and Committee so we are all in alignment about the future, and we can better enable prospective future hosts/organizers to engage with us.)

Chris

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Thanks a lot Ellie!

Ed: Yes, my suggestion was more or less what Harry described, a lot more informal than the Committee and able to answer more practical questions. After a few days of thought, this could only be a temporary group that works on a) helping the current team in their "How did previous teams achieved _____?" questions (in an informative way), and b) committing these answers to a public repository (the proposed "annual edition" of the handbook, as an annex to the handbook or whatever).

This in order to establish not only the answers, but the most common "invisible" or "unexpected" problems faced each year. Right now, the handbook doesn't address that, IMO. Ideally, in a few years we could have an interesting repository of answers, updated yearly with theoretically little effort

On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 5:58 AM, Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com wrote:

Thanks Ellie! Sounds like a very productive step!

Chris

On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 12:26 AM, Ellie Young eyoung@wikimedia.org wrote:

...

On Sat, Jul 16, 2016 at 11:23 AM, Chris Keating < chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Well this thread turned out bigger (and much more productive) than I expected!

...

To my mind, Wikimania continuing to happen every year is a minor miracle, and one that's only possible with the hard work and dedication of lots of people.

However, it's a miracle that isn't without its problems. The most obvious problem to my mind is that there is a very mixed quality of actual conference programme, and without clear objectives (or at least not consistent objectives). The Wikimedia Conference, by contrast, has a much clearer alignment of the programme with a set of goals, and work happens to follow up before and after the conference.

The second problem is that the responsibilities for governance and management of the conference are really very unclear. We have the Wikimania Committee, we have the local team (and in some cases a local chapter who may or may not be working closely with the bid team), we have the Programme Committee and we have the WMF. (Actually we have the WMF at least twice, as the priorities of the WMF team involved in organising the conference don't always seem to align with those of the rest of the organisation).

...

In my view, the most useful thing for all these groups to do is to work out who is actually responsible for what, and document it, in public.

T ​his is an excellent suggestion. It is not unclear to me how things work having been involved with coordination among the various 'players' for the past few years. The Handbook is out of date as well. So I will take an action item to start revising this and making it clearer to everyone about the structure, organization, etc for the community at large. This is especially necessary as we move forward with next steps for 2018 in the coming months (working on this with WMF and Committee so we are all in alignment about the future, and we can better enable prospective future hosts/organizers to engage with us.)

...

Chris

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I've learned along the road that often people don't ask question because they don't dare bother people, especially people they look up to sometime.

The best way to tackle that is to create a situation designed to answer those questions. I don't know in terms of timing, but from now on, the Wikimania Committee could hold a private training session for the next Wikimania Team every year at the Wikimedia Conference (or another event if there's one better in terms of timing).

That way you make sure that basic training / informations are provided to the new team, you create a working relationship between the team and the committee, etc.

Christophe

On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 1:24 AM, Edward Saperia edsaperia@gmail.com wrote:

Ed: Yes, my suggestion was more or less what Harry described, a lot more

...

informal than the Committee and able to answer more practical questions.

The committee is mostly just the previous organisers. Any way you cut it, it'll still be the same people. The committee can and does answer practical questions, but it seems the kind of people who step up to do Wikimanias don't tend to need it that much.

I expect the main issue is variable levels of commitment/ownership in the organising team.

*Edward Saperia* Founder Newspeak House http://www.nwspk.com/ email edsaperia@gmail.com • facebook http://www.facebook.com/edsaperia • twitter http://www.twitter.com/edsaperia • 07796955572 133-135 Bethnal Green Road, E2 7DG

...

On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 5:58 AM, Chris Keating < chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks Ellie! Sounds like a very productive step!

...

Chris

On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 12:26 AM, Ellie Young eyoung@wikimedia.org wrote:

...

On Sat, Jul 16, 2016 at 11:23 AM, Chris Keating < chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Well this thread turned out bigger (and much more productive) than I expected!

...

To my mind, Wikimania continuing to happen every year is a minor miracle, and one that's only possible with the hard work and dedication of lots of people.

However, it's a miracle that isn't without its problems. The most obvious problem to my mind is that there is a very mixed quality of actual conference programme, and without clear objectives (or at least not consistent objectives). The Wikimedia Conference, by contrast, has a much clearer alignment of the programme with a set of goals, and work happens to follow up before and after the conference.

The second problem is that the responsibilities for governance and management of the conference are really very unclear. We have the Wikimania Committee, we have the local team (and in some cases a local chapter who may or may not be working closely with the bid team), we have the Programme Committee and we have the WMF. (Actually we have the WMF at least twice, as the priorities of the WMF team involved in organising the conference don't always seem to align with those of the rest of the organisation).

...

In my view, the most useful thing for all these groups to do is to work out who is actually responsible for what, and document it, in public.

T ​his is an excellent suggestion. It is not unclear to me how things work having been involved with coordination among the various 'players' for the past few years. The Handbook is out of date as well. So I will take an action item to start revising this and making it clearer to everyone about the structure, organization, etc for the community at large. This is especially necessary as we move forward with next steps for 2018 in the coming months (working on this with WMF and Committee so we are all in alignment about the future, and we can better enable prospective future hosts/organizers to engage with us.)

...

Chris

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Socio de Wikimedia México https://mx.wikimedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A1gina_principal.

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I agree with you Ivan - I don't regret my decision to get involved, despite the enormous amount of time it took up. I got to work with an amazing group of people and it was one of the best experiences of my life. My point is that Wikimania happens largely because of people who are in a position to give up that much time, which isn't necessarily sustainable: there's a risk that they might suddenly not have that sort of time mid-way through the planning process, and for many people it's just not an option which leaves us with a shallower pool of potential organisers. My comment about Western economies was intended to mean that in relatively poor countries you might be even more likely to find that giving up that much time is not an option.

My point is that we shouldn't rule out financially supporting the core team - not as a salary or a reward per se, but something to help cover the costs they incur from working for free for an extended period of time. I'm not asking for me, I knew what the deal was when I got involved, but or future organisers who find that they can't hold down a job, get a healthy amount of sleep, *and* organise Wikimania.

Harry Mitchell http://enwp.org/User:HJ +44 (0) 7507 536 971 Skype: harry_j_mitchell

On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 11:42 PM, Ivan Martínez galaver@gmail.com wrote:

It's a lot of work, last week before Wikimania Mexico the coordination team slept less than 4 hours each day. But for me being honest was not a shaming time, was great. And we can have people intended to keep Wikimania annual and run similar challenges.

Harry, we had here 72 committed volunteers working without paid and we are not a major developed economy.

Darius, I think that "motivations criris afterward" must also be considered in the planning and prior call for Wikimanía volunteers and can be avoided. In Mexico we always tell to people that we did not want them just for giving the best of themselves for three days around, but we wanted to keep them with Wikimedia mission. A month ago we broke a Guinness record and 60% of attendees were Wikimania volunteers. It is a matter of long preplanning, I think.

2016-07-10 15:03 GMT-05:00 Harry Mitchell hjmwiki@gmail.com:

...

Yes, London was big, and the two Wikimaniae since have been on a smaller scale, but I'm not sure a ~1,000-person conference is significantly less of a headache than a ~2,000-person conference, and actually I'd wager that Esino was more logistically complicated due to the location - for example having to arrange buses to Varenna and the airports (which were around 50 miles away). Not that that should be taken as a criticism of the Esino team

• they did a fantastic job in a beautiful location and I'd love to have

another 'scenic Wikimania'.

I'll let Ed tell you about what he did. I know I saw him spend a lot of time dealing with the venue and the programme and discussing finance and logistics, but I'm sure there are lots of other things. Speaking for myself: those volunteers in red shirts? That was my contribution. The volunteers on the helpdesks, running sessions, meeting and greeting, tweeting, photographing, doing odd jobs and generally making things run smoothly ... I recruited most of them*, got to know them, trained them, split them into teams, did a lot of the scheduling (easier said than done - lots of moving parts!). During the conference, they looked after the attendees, and I looked after them. And I've never worked with such an amazing group of people. It was a truly humbling experience, but it was a lot of work. At one point I was receiving something like 200 emails a day just relating to Wikimania and was having to set aside time at the start and end of the day to answer the ones that didn't require an immediate response. I also devised the scheme of reporting and emergency/contingency planning for volunteers (thankfully this wasn't necessary, but the death of a Wikimedian at that year's Wikimedia Conference was painfully fresh in our memories), and spent a lot of time trying to drum up and channel interest within the UK Wikimedian community. I'm sure there were other things, but those roles alone took up a significant amount of time - certainly in excess of 40 hours a week in the final few weeks before the conference.

*(Not wishing to take credit from anyone else; I worked closely with lots of other people on all these things, particularly Hera Hussain, and Fabian Tompsett and Chris McKenna who were at the time employed by Wikimedia UK.)

Harry Mitchell http://enwp.org/User:HJ +44 (0) 7507 536 971 Skype: harry_j_mitchell

On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 7:40 PM, Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org wrote:

...

Thanks Harry, Ed,

Of course London was a bit of an exceptionally big Wikimania - but did you evaluate your effort somewhere, and note what you spent your time on somewhere? Just to get an impression which components take most effort (as Dariusz suggested)?

Best, Lodewijk

2016-07-10 20:25 GMT+02:00 Harry Mitchell hjmwiki@gmail.com:

...

I agree with Ed here. Organising a conference of this size is a huge undertaking to ask of volunteers. I wouldn't want to see Wikimania go down the road of being organised by a team of professional conference organisers because then it would lose the organic community feel that makes it so special, but we shouldn't rule out stipends for the local team. Otherwise we end up with the slightly odd situation of the WMF or local chapter bringing in paid staff to fill gaps left by volunteers but the volunteers still effectively working full-time unpaid. I had a much smaller role in 2014 than Ed and others and was fortunate to be in a position to dedicate a lot of time to it; I certainly wouldn't be in a position now to devote as much time as I did for free and without wishing to speak for Ed, I doubt he would be either even if he was willing.

If that's a problem in major developed economies, I'd imagine it would be even more of a problem in places where people have less disposable income.

Harry Mitchell http://enwp.org/User:HJ +44 (0) 7507 536 971 Skype: harry_j_mitchell

On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 4:22 PM, Edward Saperia edsaperia@gmail.com wrote:

...

Thanks for that comment, Dariusz;

Wikimania London took over two years of preparation, and occupied me full time for six months in the run up to the event. It's a massive undertaking, and in retrospect it seems deeply unfair to expect volunteers to do this.

There was a bidding process, so there was heavy pressure to minimise/understate the budget - which mostly comes at the cost of the volunteers. I think the community just has to be more realistic about what it costs to put on a 1000+ person event.

Were I to do it again I would absolutely include subsistence for the organising team in the budget. It needs professional commitment and professional skills, even with WMF staff support.

I do think that the movement deserves an annual event, and particularly that the WMF should capitalise on it more from a comms perspective. Wiki*edia is a significant entity and we should be presenting ourselves as such.

*Edward Saperia* Conference Director Wikimania London http://www.wikimanialondon.org email edsaperia@gmail.com • facebook http://www.facebook.com/edsaperia • twitter http://www.twitter.com/edsaperia • 07796955572 133-135 Bethnal Green Road, E2 7DG

...

In the same time, I've seen the following problems over the years, not directly linked to the financial cost (which in the face of our relative financial stability can be justified by the benefits, depending on how we define them):

• huge WMF staff involvement (most Wikimanias run smoothly also

thanks to countless hours put in by the staff),

• huge volunteer local organizers involvement (in fact, my

observation is that many chapters organizing WIkimanias suffer from a motivation crisis afterward).

[...]

While we can get the money (at least for now), the human involvement cost is something I would not dare to dismiss just by emphasizing the benefits of Wikimania for the movement.

[...]

Instead of discussing whether we should have a Wikimania every year or not, perhaps we should try to list and discuss the reasons why it is such a big strain? If it is clear that we can't afford it every year (because of the human cost, probably more importantly than the finances), the decision to break with the annual format will be a natural consequence of such an analysis.

[...]

Dariusz Jemielniak ("pundit", a current Trustee).

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Of course London was a bit of an exceptionally big Wikimania - but did you evaluate your effort somewhere, and note what you spent your time on somewhere? Just to get an impression which components take most effort (as Dariusz suggested)?

That's hard to do, in practice. I think I could roughly break it down into:

• Designing the event - dates, schedules, spaces, tracks, themes, site visits, branding, collateral, etc.

• Programming - session submission judging + associated communications, session & meetup scheduling, programming the keynote track, fringe events.

• Recruiting - finding and managing team leaders and deputies for 16 teams: Control Centre, Helpdesk, Digital, Volunteer Management, Programme, Venue, Exhibition, Hackathon, Video, Comms, VIPs, Content, Runners, Hospitality, Registration, & Entertainment.

But I have over ten years experience running events. I think it'd be extremely challenging to do this as a committee unless you had a team that had run large events together before.

*Edward Saperia* Founder Newspeak House http://www.nwspk.com/ email edsaperia@gmail.com • facebook http://www.facebook.com/edsaperia • twitter http://www.twitter.com/edsaperia • 07796955572 133-135 Bethnal Green Road, E2 7DG

2016-07-10 20:25 GMT+02:00 Harry Mitchell hjmwiki@gmail.com:

...

I agree with Ed here. Organising a conference of this size is a huge undertaking to ask of volunteers. I wouldn't want to see Wikimania go down the road of being organised by a team of professional conference organisers because then it would lose the organic community feel that makes it so special, but we shouldn't rule out stipends for the local team. Otherwise we end up with the slightly odd situation of the WMF or local chapter bringing in paid staff to fill gaps left by volunteers but the volunteers still effectively working full-time unpaid. I had a much smaller role in 2014 than Ed and others and was fortunate to be in a position to dedicate a lot of time to it; I certainly wouldn't be in a position now to devote as much time as I did for free and without wishing to speak for Ed, I doubt he would be either even if he was willing.

If that's a problem in major developed economies, I'd imagine it would be even more of a problem in places where people have less disposable income.

Harry Mitchell http://enwp.org/User:HJ +44 (0) 7507 536 971 Skype: harry_j_mitchell

On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 4:22 PM, Edward Saperia edsaperia@gmail.com wrote:

...

Thanks for that comment, Dariusz;

Wikimania London took over two years of preparation, and occupied me full time for six months in the run up to the event. It's a massive undertaking, and in retrospect it seems deeply unfair to expect volunteers to do this.

There was a bidding process, so there was heavy pressure to minimise/understate the budget - which mostly comes at the cost of the volunteers. I think the community just has to be more realistic about what it costs to put on a 1000+ person event.

Were I to do it again I would absolutely include subsistence for the organising team in the budget. It needs professional commitment and professional skills, even with WMF staff support.

I do think that the movement deserves an annual event, and particularly that the WMF should capitalise on it more from a comms perspective. Wiki*edia is a significant entity and we should be presenting ourselves as such.

*Edward Saperia* Conference Director Wikimania London http://www.wikimanialondon.org email edsaperia@gmail.com • facebook http://www.facebook.com/edsaperia • twitter http://www.twitter.com/edsaperia • 07796955572 133-135 Bethnal Green Road, E2 7DG

...

In the same time, I've seen the following problems over the years, not directly linked to the financial cost (which in the face of our relative financial stability can be justified by the benefits, depending on how we define them):

• huge WMF staff involvement (most Wikimanias run smoothly also thanks

to countless hours put in by the staff),

• huge volunteer local organizers involvement (in fact, my observation

is that many chapters organizing WIkimanias suffer from a motivation crisis afterward).

[...]

While we can get the money (at least for now), the human involvement cost is something I would not dare to dismiss just by emphasizing the benefits of Wikimania for the movement.

[...]

Instead of discussing whether we should have a Wikimania every year or not, perhaps we should try to list and discuss the reasons why it is such a big strain? If it is clear that we can't afford it every year (because of the human cost, probably more importantly than the finances), the decision to break with the annual format will be a natural consequence of such an analysis.

[...]

Dariusz Jemielniak ("pundit", a current Trustee).

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