Re: what is the purpose of wikimania?
I think the central purpose of Wikimania is to bring wikimedians together and thereby enable things to happen.
We are a decentralised movement with a thousand Wikis, hundreds of languages and a global community.
There are huge opportunities for wikimedians to share experiences across those thousand different wikis, and Wikimania is one opportunity to create links across languages and projects.
In a nearly fifteen year old organisation that in many ways is very decentralised there is a big risk that different parts of the movement will drift ever further apart and the organisation could fragment. Wikimania is an investment in preventing that, and in getting links that cut across the gaps between projects. It isn't the only thing we can or should do to build links across projects. But in my view we should be doing more to build links across our barriers of language and culture. For example have we done an audit of the larger wiki communities against the wikimania attendees to see which communities of any size have not had anyone attend wikimania?
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On 11 November 2015 at 13:50, Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com wrote:
uuh - i am not sure if one should open that can of worms. what is the
purpose of wikimania? is it to raise money? for sure not. there are more intelligent ways to do that. is wikimania a business, i.e. the organizer want to get as much money out of the conference as possible? for sure not. there are other conference topics which are more promising.
If there is interest by participants to chip in on scholarships for others to attend, I'm not sure providing an outlet for that interest means opening any cans, full of worms or other critters. It's an efficient matching of donor interest to funding needed.
Quite! I can certainly see there being people (probably some Wikimedians) who would be interested in making a donation to help others (certainly Wikimedians) to get to Wikimania. Much more interested than they are in giving to WMF's general funds to pay for cups of coffee for developers. Of course, this might result in very few donations and not be worth the effort, but you don't know until you've tried it.
By contrast I'd guess that very few banner-campaign donors are interested in Wikimania at all.
Chris
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On Wed, Nov 11, 2015 at 10:55 AM, WereSpielChequers < werespielchequers@gmail.com> wrote:
Re: what is the purpose of wikimania?
I think the central purpose of Wikimania is to bring wikimedians together and thereby enable things to happen.
We are a decentralised movement with a thousand Wikis, hundreds of languages and a global community.
There are huge opportunities for wikimedians to share experiences across those thousand different wikis, and Wikimania is one opportunity to create links across languages and projects.
In a nearly fifteen year old organisation that in many ways is very decentralised there is a big risk that different parts of the movement will drift ever further apart and the organisation could fragment. Wikimania is an investment in preventing that, and in getting links that cut across the gaps between projects. It isn't the only thing we can or should do to build links across projects. But in my view we should be doing more to build links across our barriers of language and culture. For example have we done an audit of the larger wiki communities against the wikimania attendees to see which communities of any size have not had anyone attend wikimania?
No we haven't to my knowledge. From what I have seen in the past two Wikimanias where we do have attendance data, the larger wiki communities were well represented when the conference was in London, but not in Mexico City. By and large almost every community does have someone representing and this is mainly due to scholarship programs.
Ellie
On 11 November 2015 at 13:50, Chris Keating <chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com> wrote: > uuh - i am not sure if one should open that can of worms. what is the >>> purpose of wikimania? is it to raise money? for sure not. there are >>> more intelligent ways to do that. is wikimania a business, i.e. the >>> organizer want to get as much money out of the conference as possible? >>> for sure not. there are other conference topics which are more >>> promising. >> >> >> If there is interest by participants to chip in on scholarships for >> others to attend, I'm not sure providing an outlet for that interest means >> opening any cans, full of worms or other critters. It's an efficient >> matching of donor interest to funding needed. >> > > Quite! I can certainly see there being people (probably some Wikimedians) > who would be interested in making a donation to help others (certainly > Wikimedians) to get to Wikimania. Much more interested than they are in > giving to WMF's general funds to pay for cups of coffee for developers. Of > course, this might result in very few donations and not be worth the > effort, but you don't know until you've tried it. > > By contrast I'd guess that very few banner-campaign donors are interested > in Wikimania at all. > > Chris > > >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimania-l mailing list > Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l > > _______________________________________________ Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
Thanks Ellie,
Yes the scholarship program has done a lot for diversity here.
I think it might be worth doing such a mapping exercise and maybe making an extra approach for communities that stand out as not having attended a recent Wikimania. Of course accidents of geography and visa policy will mean that some wikimanias are easier for some parts of the community than others. But I would feel reassured if I knew that all our fifty largest communities had had at least one member attend one of the last three wikimanias, and or the half dozen largest communities that haven't had anyone attend the last three wikimanias would get a special invite next year.
On 12 November 2015 at 15:51, Ellie Young eyoung@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Wed, Nov 11, 2015 at 10:55 AM, WereSpielChequers < werespielchequers@gmail.com> wrote:
Re: what is the purpose of wikimania?
I think the central purpose of Wikimania is to bring wikimedians together and thereby enable things to happen.
We are a decentralised movement with a thousand Wikis, hundreds of languages and a global community.
There are huge opportunities for wikimedians to share experiences across those thousand different wikis, and Wikimania is one opportunity to create links across languages and projects.
In a nearly fifteen year old organisation that in many ways is very decentralised there is a big risk that different parts of the movement will drift ever further apart and the organisation could fragment. Wikimania is an investment in preventing that, and in getting links that cut across the gaps between projects. It isn't the only thing we can or should do to build links across projects. But in my view we should be doing more to build links across our barriers of language and culture. For example have we done an audit of the larger wiki communities against the wikimania attendees to see which communities of any size have not had anyone attend wikimania?
No we haven't to my knowledge. From what I have seen in the past two Wikimanias where we do have attendance data, the larger wiki communities were well represented when the conference was in London, but not in Mexico City. By and large almost every community does have someone representing and this is mainly due to scholarship programs.
Ellie
On 11 November 2015 at 13:50, Chris Keating <chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com> wrote: > uuh - i am not sure if one should open that can of worms. what is the >>> purpose of wikimania? is it to raise money? for sure not. there are >>> more intelligent ways to do that. is wikimania a business, i.e. the >>> organizer want to get as much money out of the conference as possible? >>> for sure not. there are other conference topics which are more >>> promising. >> >> >> If there is interest by participants to chip in on scholarships for >> others to attend, I'm not sure providing an outlet for that interest means >> opening any cans, full of worms or other critters. It's an efficient >> matching of donor interest to funding needed. >> > > Quite! I can certainly see there being people (probably some > Wikimedians) who would be interested in making a donation to help others > (certainly Wikimedians) to get to Wikimania. Much more interested than they > are in giving to WMF's general funds to pay for cups of coffee for > developers. Of course, this might result in very few donations and not be > worth the effort, but you don't know until you've tried it. > > By contrast I'd guess that very few banner-campaign donors are > interested in Wikimania at all. > > Chris > > >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimania-l mailing list > Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l > > _______________________________________________ Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l-- Ellie Young Events Manager Wikimedia Foundation eyoung@wikimedia.org c. 510 701 8649
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