That's an interesting thought, and I would be curious to know if it had ever been
explored by the Foundation.
However, there's a limited amount one person based remotely can do. As Richard says,
somebody in San Francisco isn't much use to a team in London. There are things that
they could do, like offer advice, and maybe build a network of contacts at embassies ,
maybe even help with coordination of efforts, but that's a part-time job for a few
months, not a permanent full time job.
What would be useful would be having someone with relevant experience on the ground who
was paid to help deliver Wikimania, but that would be impractical, expensive, and possibly
not much more use. Certainly in the UK, we've assembled a brilliant team, and some us
have quite considerable experience organising events (though nothing quite on the scale of
Wikimania), and we have the support of an excellent chapter, many of whose trustees are
themselves experienced in events organising, with a core group of staff for whom I have
the utmost respect, and whom I suspect will be invaluable in helping us prepare the London
2014 bid.
I suspect what Wikimania lacks is a permanent knowledge base that's there year on
year. Perhaps employing a member of one Wikimania's organising committee to support
the next year's might solve that. But it might not, and the next step is to have
Wikimania organised by a permanent group of Foundation staff, and I don't think that
would be good for Wikimania or for the Foundation.
Harry Mitchell
http://enwp.org/User:HJ
Phone: 024 7698 0977
Skype: harry_j_mitchell
________________________________
From: Theo10011 <de10011(a)gmail.com>
To: Wikimania general list (open subscription) <wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, 5 July 2012, 12:45
Subject: Re: [Wikimania-l] visa denied ... what to do?
On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 4:16 PM, Richard Symonds <richard.symonds(a)wikimedia.org.uk>
wrote:
I suspect that there may be pushback from the community about it being "taken
over" by the WMF, if it were run by staff. There's also the issue with other
countries - if we hold Wikimania in London, the WMF would not really be able to help, as
they'd have no contacts and would be running the whole event at a year's notice,
which isn't very long at all in conference terms.
The UK chapter has an events organiser who handled all our scholarships this year. People
had their hotels, hostels, and flights booked for them, and she sent out the details to
everyone. Having a WMF person in charge of some of the process would be very useful, but
having the WMF run the entire event may not be an ideal solution.
Personally, I'd like to see a core WMF events team who help all major events
(Wikimania-sized), but liaise with volunteers on them. Very difficult to do in practice,
but better than the current system of unsupported volunteers running a conference. James
Hare is doing a wonderful job, but running a conference AND being a student is a very,
very difficult thing to do, and I fear we'll start to burn out valuable volunteers if
we're not careful - or adversely impact their studies.
I'd also like to see Wikimania moved to a two-year-in-advance system, rather than a
one-year-in-advance as we have now. One year is not enough time to plan a conference.
I never suggested a take-over.
The problem is majority of the framework, or lack thereof, has remained the same years
after the first Wikimania. Every year someone from the community, most commonly James,
takes a lead to announce a jury, and wikipedians with no experience organizing
international events, bid, the jury picks and they are on their own from that
point onward. Every year, there are more or less the same problems with
visas, accommodations. And every year a discussion ensues after the event with the
suggestion of adding a gap year or de-emphasizing Wikimania for local event. I don't
think a two-year-in-advance system will change anything, as long as its the same
embassies, the same visas, and the same issues. One year is plenty of time, most countries
don't permit visa application more than 3 months before the departure date, many
venues don't allow booking 2 year in advance, same for caterers and hotels. Whatever
quote you receive that far in advance is likely to
change months before the actual event.
In the mean time, Wikimanias have become larger and larger with more people from more
countries attending. There are issues that need professional help at this point, even
partly would help. At the end of the year, we don't have to throw away the know-how
acquired, and then start fresh the next year. I never suggested WMF should organize the
event, the organizing team should, but that is all they should be expected to do -
organize the event in their city, the rest of the administrative tasks before the event
should be shared by someone more experienced.
Certain administrative tasks, things like bulk-bookings, paper-work, visa issues can be
handled centrally. They can even generate a lot of cost-savings in the process if done
right. This doesn't mean de-emphasizing or taking away anything from the ground team,
but facilitating them, giving them options, or taking care of the tasks they don't
want, so they can focus on the actual event itself, not the pre-event arrangements.
I'm not even talking about an events team, just a single person to begin with.
Regards
Theo
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