I'll add my thanks to the chorus. It was an amazing Wikimania.
Having participated in the organisation of quite a few Wikimanias, and since Itzik asked somewhere for "critics" so that they can do better next time, here are a few things that come to mind. I'd urge everyone to answer this thread to keep things in one place so that the team from next year can benefit from those.
* Badges: badges should be recognizable at a glance. Especially for press. But also for organizers, speakers etc.. By the time I arrived, everyone had a different lanyard, some had written badges, other printed... complicated. Make more badges than you will ever need (a safe assumption is to print about at least twice the number of badges you think you'll need). Choose colors that people can recognize at a glance. Especially for the press (I'll never stress that enough).
* Food: the food was so excellent it's not even funny (wow the hummus). But I've seen _lots_ of people looking for the vegetarian food without ever knowing which it was. So: Label food. Name of the food, principal ingredients (some are allergic to say... bell pepper, can't have milk etc.), vegetarian, kosher, whatever is of importance, make it clear.
* Moderation in the sessions: Have a _seasoned_ moderator in each room. Someone whose only job it is to cut short presentations that are too long, who can moderate discussions/questions if there is a need. Someone nasty ;).
That's about it for the main things I've seen, the rest was just great. :)
Cheers,
Delphine
2011/8/9 Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com:
- Badges: badges should be recognizable at a glance. Especially for
press. But also for organizers, speakers etc.. By the time I arrived, everyone had a different lanyard, some had written badges, other printed... complicated. Make more badges than you will ever need (a safe assumption is to print about at least twice the number of badges you think you'll need). Choose colors that people can recognize at a glance. Especially for the press (I'll never stress that enough).
+1. Also: * make the badges double-sided. I asked at least 5 people to flip their badges so I could read them, and about half the people I know had come up with some way to clip the badge to their lanyard or clothes to prevent it from flipping over to the blank back side * for some reason, the role/occupation/whatever field (e.g. 'developer', 'designer', 'WMF employee', ...) was not printed on any of the WMF employees' badges, which led to people using magic markers to write "WMF" on their badges. I think it's a good idea to make WMF staff clearly visible (badge colors, per Delphine); in Buenos Aires, WMF staff had "Staff" badges, but they were the same badges worn by the conference staff (i.e. organization), so that wasn't necessarily too useful either
Badge-related praise that I read on a private mailing list and totally agree with: putting the small schedule booklet inside the badges was genius and extremely useful. It's one of those little things that I never missed before I realized how great it was, and that I will now be expecting at every conference I ever attend :)
Another, relatively minor, point of criticism: the shuttle schedules as communicated were incomplete. The most important bits (morning shuttle times, i.e. what time do I have to wake up to catch the shuttle) were there, but the schedules for shuttles leaving in the afternoon and evening (shuttles back to the hotels/dorms from the venue, and shuttles to/from the parties) were missing from the booklet and the web site more often than not. Personally, I think that ideally, shuttles shouldn't be necessary (if you need them, that means the host city is more spread out than I like it to be (Gdansk was perfect in terms of everything being close together); a party at a good location that's a bit far away is a good exception, but hotels/dorms shouldn't be >1km away), but if you're hosting a future Wikimania and do need them, please make sure to document their schedules very well.
Roan Kattouw (Catrope)
I'm not sure if this is covered by Delphine's suggestion, but the ability to recognize staffers is helpful - I knew quite some of them so had little trouble, but I saw others looking harder for them. Giving staffers a special symbol/color on their badge or giving them a different color T-shirt might be helpful. I never realized how many there were until they finally were all on stage.
Lodewijk
2011/8/9 Roan Kattouw roan.kattouw@gmail.com
2011/8/9 Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com:
- Badges: badges should be recognizable at a glance. Especially for
press. But also for organizers, speakers etc.. By the time I arrived, everyone had a different lanyard, some had written badges, other printed... complicated. Make more badges than you will ever need (a safe assumption is to print about at least twice the number of badges you think you'll need). Choose colors that people can recognize at a glance. Especially for the press (I'll never stress that enough).
+1. Also:
- make the badges double-sided. I asked at least 5 people to flip
their badges so I could read them, and about half the people I know had come up with some way to clip the badge to their lanyard or clothes to prevent it from flipping over to the blank back side
- for some reason, the role/occupation/whatever field (e.g.
'developer', 'designer', 'WMF employee', ...) was not printed on any of the WMF employees' badges, which led to people using magic markers to write "WMF" on their badges. I think it's a good idea to make WMF staff clearly visible (badge colors, per Delphine); in Buenos Aires, WMF staff had "Staff" badges, but they were the same badges worn by the conference staff (i.e. organization), so that wasn't necessarily too useful either
Badge-related praise that I read on a private mailing list and totally agree with: putting the small schedule booklet inside the badges was genius and extremely useful. It's one of those little things that I never missed before I realized how great it was, and that I will now be expecting at every conference I ever attend :)
Another, relatively minor, point of criticism: the shuttle schedules as communicated were incomplete. The most important bits (morning shuttle times, i.e. what time do I have to wake up to catch the shuttle) were there, but the schedules for shuttles leaving in the afternoon and evening (shuttles back to the hotels/dorms from the venue, and shuttles to/from the parties) were missing from the booklet and the web site more often than not. Personally, I think that ideally, shuttles shouldn't be necessary (if you need them, that means the host city is more spread out than I like it to be (Gdansk was perfect in terms of everything being close together); a party at a good location that's a bit far away is a good exception, but hotels/dorms shouldn't be >1km away), but if you're hosting a future Wikimania and do need them, please make sure to document their schedules very well.
Roan Kattouw (Catrope)
Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 3:44 PM, Roan Kattouw roan.kattouw@gmail.com wrote:
Badge-related praise that I read on a private mailing list and totally agree with: putting the small schedule booklet inside the badges was genius and extremely useful. It's one of those little things that I never missed before I realized how great it was, and that I will now be expecting at every conference I ever attend :)
+1 million. But on the schedule on line (probably too much for the booklet), put the name of the presenter. Sometimes people have heard about a great presentation X would make, but have no clue what it's called and never make it to the presentation.
Delphine
Thanks all for your feedback! it really great to hear your notes...
Just one thing:
- for some reason, the role/occupation/whatever field (e.g.
'developer', 'designer', 'WMF employee', ...) was not printed on any of the WMF employees' badges, which led to people using magic markers to write "WMF" on their badges. I think it's a good idea to make WMF staff clearly visible (badge colors, per Delphine); in Buenos Aires, WMF staff had "Staff" badges, but they were the same badges worn by the conference staff (i.e. organization), so that wasn't necessarily too useful either
Everyone during the registration process had the option to select which lines and titles will be printed on his badge. We didn't want to print things that people not asked (as some people even select not to print their personal name). For our perspective, WMF staff are also part of the community, and it's for them (or the foundation) to decide which titles will be printed
Itzik
On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 11:20 PM, Itzik Edri itzik@infra.co.il wrote:
Everyone during the registration process had the option to select which lines and titles will be printed on his badge. We didn't want to print things that people not asked (as some people even select not to print their personal name). For our perspective, WMF staff are also part of the community, and it's for them (or the foundation) to decide which titles will be printed
I know, and I do believe I filled out that field. I don't remember what I put there myself, but I find it hard to believe that every single WMF staff member left that field blank.
Roan
Personally, I found it a nice experience to not have all those titles thrown into my face every time I saw a badge. But then I know most of the people already, so maybe I'm not a fair person to consider there :)
Lodewijk
2011/8/10 Roan Kattouw roan.kattouw@gmail.com
On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 11:20 PM, Itzik Edri itzik@infra.co.il wrote:
Everyone during the registration process had the option to select which lines and titles will be printed on his badge. We didn't want to print things that people not asked (as some people even select not to print
their
personal name). For our perspective, WMF staff are also part of the community, and it's for them (or the foundation) to decide which
titles
will be printed
I know, and I do believe I filled out that field. I don't remember what I put there myself, but I find it hard to believe that every single WMF staff member left that field blank.
Roan
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As someone who prefers to have their firstname and username printed along with their home wiki, but didn't want my fullname printed I'm happy that aspect of the badge worked - it wasn't an option in Gdansk.
With such a high proportion of us presenting I'm not sure that printing the word Presenter is important. But a larger font would have helped. As for the idea of printing on both sides of the badge, that would be good, but you'd need it to be on both halves of a folded over badge so that all the miniguides, tshirt tickets and beach party gubbins could be put between the two halves rather than obscuring things.
Generally I think that the moderation was more effective at keeping people to time than previous years - I only witnessed one incident of a presenter being annoyed because he was third and much of his time had been taken by the two previous slots overruning. But our approach could be far more interactive, we are all used to interaction rather than being passive recipients of information. Yet at Wikimania many speakers who are given a twenty minute slot drop the time for questions and try to cram everything into twenty minutes, rather than working out what they can say in ten minutes and giving the audience ten minutes to ask questions/ refute their argument.
WereSpielChequers
Or just your photos are plenty of Commons. :D
User name and home wiki are musts in my opinion, WMF staff are preferable (and separated from the organizing team) since even during the conference some topics raised up and there would be many people who wanted to talk w/ staffers but not known who were whom - not every people joined Berlinerkonferenz and [[wmf:Staff]] doesn't provide us every single staffer photos. In addition, it sometimes may be a bit tough to distinguish Mr. A from Mr.B if those two comes from the one same ethnic group. Conclusion: clear printing names and if possible affiliation is beneficial. Not for only for us wikimaniacs but also for the people got so an interested to come and see who Wikimedians would be - The lesser you've got involved into the community, the more clues might help.
Also, even if an option, I prefer to see a latenized name along in their original script. Either printed or handwriting. In other words in East Asia the local may often be referred in their original names, specially they are active in that area. I suppose same may happen in other linguistic group dominating areas, but I might be wrong.
Sorry for sounding my saying is too much corner picking, but I'd just love to write down before things flow from my mind.
Cheers,
On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 7:40 AM, Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org wrote:
Personally, I found it a nice experience to not have all those titles thrown into my face every time I saw a badge. But then I know most of the people already, so maybe I'm not a fair person to consider there :) Lodewijk
2011/8/10 Roan Kattouw roan.kattouw@gmail.com
On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 11:20 PM, Itzik Edri itzik@infra.co.il wrote:
Everyone during the registration process had the option to select which lines and titles will be printed on his badge. We didn't want to print things that people not asked (as some people even select not to print their personal name). For our perspective, WMF staff are also part of the community, and it's for them (or the foundation) to decide which titles will be printed
I know, and I do believe I filled out that field. I don't remember what I put there myself, but I find it hard to believe that every single WMF staff member left that field blank.
Roan
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2011/8/10 KIZU Naoko aphaia@gmail.com:
Also, even if an option, I prefer to see a latenized name along in their original script. Either printed or handwriting. In other words in East Asia the local may often be referred in their original names, specially they are active in that area. I suppose same may happen in other linguistic group dominating areas, but I might be wrong.
That's a good point. I spoke to one Israeli Wikimedian over lunch that only had his name in Hebrew script on his badge, which was no use to me. A transliteration into the Latin alphabet would have been very helpful.
IPA would do better than "English" approximations usually do :)
Viatcheslav
11.08.2011, 02:00, "Thomas Dalton" thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
2011/8/10 KIZU Naoko aphaia@gmail.com:
Also, even if an option, I prefer to see a latenized name along in their original script. Either printed or handwriting. In other words in East Asia the local may often be referred in their original names, specially they are active in that area. I suppose same may happen in other linguistic group dominating areas, but I might be wrong.
That's a good point. I spoke to one Israeli Wikimedian over lunch that only had his name in Hebrew script on his badge, which was no use to me. A transliteration into the Latin alphabet would have been very helpful.
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2011/8/10 Иванов Вячеслав v.ivanov@amikeco.ru:
IPA would do better than "English" approximations usually do :)
Only for people that know IPA - and know it for the phonemes used in that language, too. I can muddle through most of the IPA symbols used in English (since I've read so many Wikipedia articles that use it), but I get lost very quickly when trying to understand the pronunciations for foreign words.
As Tom said, it works for IPA savvy, but I'm afraid every Wikipedia has a full set of articles on every IPA symbols. Considering the fact most of states regulates the name of passport holder is printed in Latin alphabet, transcription in Latin scripts may work more practically than IPA in regard of international characteristics of the event.
Showing local names is nice, and sometimes I did so with my hand writing, on the other hand as discussed earlier on foundation-l, we need to encourage participants to use both each local language and a certain lingua franca in our global community, and the latter is, at this moment and for Wikimania particularly, transliteration in latin script I assume.
2011/8/11 Иванов Вячеслав v.ivanov@amikeco.ru:
IPA would do better than "English" approximations usually do :)
Viatcheslav
11.08.2011, 02:00, "Thomas Dalton" thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
2011/8/10 KIZU Naoko aphaia@gmail.com:
Also, even if an option, I prefer to see a latenized name along in their original script. Either printed or handwriting. In other words in East Asia the local may often be referred in their original names, specially they are active in that area. I suppose same may happen in other linguistic group dominating areas, but I might be wrong.
That's a good point. I spoke to one Israeli Wikimedian over lunch that only had his name in Hebrew script on his badge, which was no use to me. A transliteration into the Latin alphabet would have been very helpful.
Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
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Latin script may be so bewildering you know. Reading a Hungarian or a Polish name in Latin may require knowing the orthography rules of those languages; and for reading an English name one may need to ask the bearer for the pronunciation :) And probably just IPA would be easier, though, yes, awkward too.
Viatcheslav (the official latin scrypt form, of which „t“ reminds about the earlier tradition of French latinization).
12.08.2011, 01:28, "KIZU Naoko" aphaia@gmail.com:
As Tom said, it works for IPA savvy, but I'm afraid every Wikipedia has a full set of articles on every IPA symbols. Considering the fact most of states regulates the name of passport holder is printed in Latin alphabet, transcription in Latin scripts may work more practically than IPA in regard of international characteristics of the event.
Showing local names is nice, and sometimes I did so with my hand writing, on the other hand as discussed earlier on foundation-l, we need to encourage participants to use both each local language and a certain lingua franca in our global community, and the latter is, at this moment and for Wikimania particularly, transliteration in latin script I assume.
2011/8/11 Иванов Вячеслав v.ivanov@amikeco.ru:
IPA would do better than "English" approximations usually do :)
Viatcheslav
11.08.2011, 02:00, "Thomas Dalton" thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
2011/8/10 KIZU Naoko aphaia@gmail.com:
Also, even if an option, I prefer to see a latenized name along in their original script. Either printed or handwriting. In other words in East Asia the local may often be referred in their original names, specially they are active in that area. I suppose same may happen in other linguistic group dominating areas, but I might be wrong.
That's a good point. I spoke to one Israeli Wikimedian over lunch that only had his name in Hebrew script on his badge, which was no use to me. A transliteration into the Latin alphabet would have been very helpful.
_______________________________________________ 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
-- KIZU Naoko / 木津尚子 member of Wikimedians in Kansai / 関西ウィキメディアユーザ会 http://kansai.wikimedia.jp
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On 12 August 2011 01:10, Иванов Вячеслав v.ivanov@amikeco.ru wrote:
Latin script may be so bewildering you know. Reading a Hungarian or a Polish name in Latin may require knowing the orthography rules of those languages; and for reading an English name one may need to ask the bearer for the pronunciation :) And probably just IPA would be easier, though, yes, awkward too.
For someone that knows IPA, IPA is definitely best. I don't think anyone will argue with that. For everyone else, though, the Latin alphabet at least gives us a fighting chance of getting close to the right pronunciation. You can always ask "did I say that right?" and get corrected. I would ask someone their name and, because it's an unfamiliar name to me, I would struggle to make out exactly what they said. If I could see it written down and hear it said, I could probably get it right.
The other big problem with having names in IPA is that it requires attendees to know their name in IPA in order to put it on the name badge in the first place. That means it's only going to work when both the person whose name it is and the person reading it know IPA. That's going to be a pretty small proportion of pairings.
On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 00:15, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 12 August 2011 01:10, Иванов Вячеслав v.ivanov@amikeco.ru wrote:
Latin script may be so bewildering you know. Reading a Hungarian or a Polish name in Latin may require knowing the orthography rules of those languages; and for reading an English name one may need to ask the bearer for the pronunciation :) And probably just IPA would be easier, though, yes, awkward too.
For someone that knows IPA, IPA is definitely best. I don't think anyone will argue with that. For everyone else, though, the Latin alphabet at least gives us a fighting chance of getting close to the right pronunciation. You can always ask "did I say that right?" and get corrected. I would ask someone their name and, because it's an unfamiliar name to me, I would struggle to make out exactly what they said. If I could see it written down and hear it said, I could probably get it right.
The other big problem with having names in IPA is that it requires attendees to know their name in IPA in order to put it on the name badge in the first place. That means it's only going to work when both the person whose name it is and the person reading it know IPA. That's going to be a pretty small proportion of pairings.
Other way is to put cheap chips on the participants' badges with spoken name and ability to take the information with [the most of] smartphones.
Some English transcription (not transliteration!) approximation (like [1]) of the names inside of the parentheses should work well, too. That's "IPA for those who don't know IPA". It is useful to have, for example, "Tomash" for Polish "Tomasz" and Hungarian "Tomas".
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pronunciation_respelling_key
QR codes are a good lown-cost idea too, as some Wikimaniacs have implemented their own this year. On Aug 12, 2011 11:33 AM, "Milos Rancic" millosh@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 00:15, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com
wrote:
On 12 August 2011 01:10, Иванов Вячеслав v.ivanov@amikeco.ru wrote:
Latin script may be so bewildering you know. Reading a Hungarian or a Polish name in Latin may require knowing the
orthography rules of those languages; and for reading an English name one may need to ask the bearer for the pronunciation :) And probably just IPA would be easier, though, yes, awkward too.
For someone that knows IPA, IPA is definitely best. I don't think anyone will argue with that. For everyone else, though, the Latin alphabet at least gives us a fighting chance of getting close to the right pronunciation. You can always ask "did I say that right?" and get corrected. I would ask someone their name and, because it's an unfamiliar name to me, I would struggle to make out exactly what they said. If I could see it written down and hear it said, I could probably get it right.
The other big problem with having names in IPA is that it requires attendees to know their name in IPA in order to put it on the name badge in the first place. That means it's only going to work when both the person whose name it is and the person reading it know IPA. That's going to be a pretty small proportion of pairings.
Other way is to put cheap chips on the participants' badges with spoken name and ability to take the information with [the most of] smartphones.
Some English transcription (not transliteration!) approximation (like [1]) of the names inside of the parentheses should work well, too. That's "IPA for those who don't know IPA". It is useful to have, for example, "Tomash" for Polish "Tomasz" and Hungarian "Tomas".
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pronunciation_respelling_key
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Not sure if QR codes are so globally popular, that said, at the pre-conf welcoming party some of us got a QR code seal on our label, and some participants didn't know what it was.
On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 11:15 AM, Deryck Chan deryckchan@gmail.com wrote:
QR codes are a good lown-cost idea too, as some Wikimaniacs have implemented their own this year.
On Aug 12, 2011 11:33 AM, "Milos Rancic" millosh@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 00:15, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 12 August 2011 01:10, Иванов Вячеслав v.ivanov@amikeco.ru wrote:
Latin script may be so bewildering you know. Reading a Hungarian or a Polish name in Latin may require knowing the orthography rules of those languages; and for reading an English name one may need to ask the bearer for the pronunciation :) And probably just IPA would be easier, though, yes, awkward too.
For someone that knows IPA, IPA is definitely best. I don't think anyone will argue with that. For everyone else, though, the Latin alphabet at least gives us a fighting chance of getting close to the right pronunciation. You can always ask "did I say that right?" and get corrected. I would ask someone their name and, because it's an unfamiliar name to me, I would struggle to make out exactly what they said. If I could see it written down and hear it said, I could probably get it right.
The other big problem with having names in IPA is that it requires attendees to know their name in IPA in order to put it on the name badge in the first place. That means it's only going to work when both the person whose name it is and the person reading it know IPA. That's going to be a pretty small proportion of pairings.
Other way is to put cheap chips on the participants' badges with spoken name and ability to take the information with [the most of] smartphones.
Some English transcription (not transliteration!) approximation (like [1]) of the names inside of the parentheses should work well, too. That's "IPA for those who don't know IPA". It is useful to have, for example, "Tomash" for Polish "Tomasz" and Hungarian "Tomas".
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pronunciation_respelling_key
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On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 5:26 AM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 00:15, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 12 August 2011 01:10, Иванов Вячеслав v.ivanov@amikeco.ru wrote:
Latin script may be so bewildering you know. Reading a Hungarian or a Polish name in Latin may require knowing the
orthography rules of those languages; and for reading an English name one may need to ask the bearer for the pronunciation :) And probably just IPA would be easier, though, yes, awkward too.
For someone that knows IPA, IPA is definitely best. I don't think anyone will argue with that. For everyone else, though, the Latin alphabet at least gives us a fighting chance of getting close to the right pronunciation. You can always ask "did I say that right?" and get corrected. I would ask someone their name and, because it's an unfamiliar name to me, I would struggle to make out exactly what they said. If I could see it written down and hear it said, I could probably get it right.
The other big problem with having names in IPA is that it requires attendees to know their name in IPA in order to put it on the name badge in the first place. That means it's only going to work when both the person whose name it is and the person reading it know IPA. That's going to be a pretty small proportion of pairings.
They could rely on the [[<X> phonology]] Wikipedia articles to produce the
proper IPA transcription for their name. For some languages, this is quite easy just based on the spelling, with other languages it is more difficult.
One should note though, especially with vowels, that phonemic transcriptions are language dependent. The Polish /ɔ/ sound is closer and more back then the sound /ɔ/ of Hungarian (sometimes transcribed as /ɒ/), and more open compared to the RP /ɔ/.*
As for the intricacies of Latin tranliteration, you might have noticed that longer streets in Israel tend to have slightly differing English names on the streets (sometimes even parts of the streets), Google Maps and guidebooks.**
Best regards, Bence
* Based on the vowel charts of Wikipedia; individual realisations might vary all over in any of the languages. ** I tried OSM on my phone, but all I got was little squares in place of street names...
Other way is to put cheap chips on the participants' badges with
spoken name and ability to take the information with [the most of] smartphones.
Some English transcription (not transliteration!) approximation (like [1]) of the names inside of the parentheses should work well, too. That's "IPA for those who don't know IPA". It is useful to have, for example, "Tomash" for Polish "Tomasz" and Hungarian "Tomas".
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pronunciation_respelling_key
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On 08/09/11 9:40 PM, Lodewijk wrote:
Personally, I found it a nice experience to not have all those titles thrown into my face every time I saw a badge. But then I know most of the people already, so maybe I'm not a fair person to consider there :)
I would have preferred to not have the "@wikiwhatever extension. Since SUL that has become less important. Being longer, it also makes it harder to focus on reading the name. I do remember seeing a few where it made the name so long that it overflowed the edges of the label.
+1 about the mini-guide.
Ray
On 15 August 2011 11:04, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I would have preferred to not have the "@wikiwhatever extension. Since SUL that has become less important. Being longer, it also makes it harder to focus on reading the name. I do remember seeing a few where it made the name so long that it overflowed the edges of the label.
Not all accounts are unified and I need this to find the few sisterprojects editors. :-D I'm very proud of my @it.wikiquote :-p and @meta.wikimedia always deserved some praise. @mediawiki.wikimedia was indeed a bit tricky, though (and we could also use the usual abbreviations like it.quote).
Nemo
On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 11:26, Nemo nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
On 15 August 2011 11:04, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I would have preferred to not have the "@wikiwhatever extension. Since SUL that has become less important. Being longer, it also makes it harder to focus on reading the name. I do remember seeing a few where it made the name so long that it overflowed the edges of the label.
Not all accounts are unified and I need this to find the few sisterprojects editors. :-D I'm very proud of my @it.wikiquote :-p and @meta.wikimedia always deserved some praise. @mediawiki.wikimedia was indeed a bit tricky, though (and we could also use the usual abbreviations like it.quote).
There's no need to take of the project part itself, but it doesn't need the seem visual importance as the name/nick.
Finne
I don't know what proportion of accounts are unified, but I thought it was quite high.
Would it be practical to print username for SUL accounts with an option of listing the projects where you are most active? Then only Wikimania editors with nonunified accounts would need the "@wikiwhatever extension.
WereSpielChequers
On 15 August 2011 10:26, Nemo nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
On 15 August 2011 11:04, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I would have preferred to not have the "@wikiwhatever extension. Since SUL that has become less important. Being longer, it also makes it harder to focus on reading the name. I do remember seeing a few where it made the name so long that it overflowed the edges of the label.
Not all accounts are unified and I need this to find the few sisterprojects editors. :-D I'm very proud of my @it.wikiquote :-p and @meta.wikimedia always deserved some praise. @mediawiki.wikimedia was indeed a bit tricky, though (and we could also use the usual abbreviations like it.quote).
Nemo
Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
On 08/15/11 10:12 AM, WereSpielChequers wrote:
I don't know what proportion of accounts are unified, but I thought it was quite high.
Would it be practical to print username for SUL accounts with an option of listing the projects where you are most active? Then only Wikimania editors with nonunified accounts would need the "@wikiwhatever extension.
To simplify, what goes on an ID tag would become a three-part question about real names, user names, and project identity.
Ray
Thanks for the input. I have started changing / enhancing the Wikimania Handbook accordingly.
Maybe some of you didn't know it already but it is extremely helpful. We have started this last year after Wikimania in Gdansk and it is already quite big:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/Handbook
/Manuel
2011/8/9 Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com:
- Food: the food was so excellent it's not even funny (wow the
hummus).
Yesh!
But I've seen _lots_ of people looking for the vegetarian food without ever knowing which it was. So: Label food. Name of the food, principal ingredients (some are allergic to say... bell pepper, can't have milk etc.), vegetarian, kosher, whatever is of importance, make it clear.
You are right. We made sure that there would be enough vegetarian and vegan food in all meals, including hot main courses. On the way we taught the catering staff what veganism is, so vegans can be happy about this educational success :)
Nevertheless, a significant number of vegetarian people had hard time finding their meals. I thought about labeling it, because discerning the ingredients is not always easy, especially in a foreign country. Unfortunately, it slipped my mind at the last minute.
Recommendation to all future Wikimania organizers: Just ask the catering company for detailed labels on the food. Don't just ask, put it in the contract. They know the info, they have the staff and it should be their job.
-- Amir
On 08/09/2011 03:26 PM, Delphine Ménard wrote:
Having participated in the organisation of quite a few Wikimanias, and since Itzik asked somewhere for "critics" so that they can do better next time, here are a few things that come to mind. I'd urge everyone to answer this thread to keep things in one place so that the team from next year can benefit from those. […]
Just a quick general reminder: If you send feedback to the mailing list, please also add it on http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Feedback
Also, if you notice something crucial is missing in the Wikimania handbook, add it: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/Handbook
Regards, Tobias
2011/8/9 Delphine Ménard
- Moderation in the sessions: Have a _seasoned_ moderator in each
room. Someone whose only job it is to cut short presentations that are too long, who can moderate discussions/questions if there is a need. Someone nasty ;).
I agree, I heard about a couple of problems because of the lack of such a moderator. I'd add to his tasks (or the tasks of whoever else from the staff stays in the room all the time) to grab a copy of each presentation slides, to be uploaded to Commons or wikimaniawiki if the license is not suitable for some reason. Presenters quite often don't know how to upload to our wikis, or how to convert the files in the right format, or they just forget it.
On 9 August 2011 16:44, church.of.emacs.ml wrote:
Just a quick general reminder: If you send feedback to the mailing list, please also add it on http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Feedback
Also, if you notice something crucial is missing in the Wikimania handbook, add it: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/Handbook
+1
Nemo
Corner picking from Haifa (yet)
On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 6:00 PM, Nemo nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
2011/8/9 Delphine Ménard
- Moderation in the sessions: Have a _seasoned_ moderator in each
room. Someone whose only job it is to cut short presentations that are too long, who can moderate discussions/questions if there is a need. Someone nasty ;).
I agree, I heard about a couple of problems because of the lack of such a moderator. I'd add to his tasks (or the tasks of whoever else from the staff stays in the room all the time) to grab a copy of each presentation slides, to be uploaded to Commons or wikimaniawiki if the license is not suitable for some reason. Presenters quite often don't know how to upload to our wikis, or how to convert the files in the right format, or they just forget it.
+1 I'd love to add that moderators however are not necessarily chosen from the organizing team. Many Wikimaniacs have offered this kind of help and will: it's anyway just a time keeping, no difficult task at all, specially if the moderators are not required to introduce speakers' bios. For the future organizers: if you find no enough moderators until the conference, just fetch some early comers before the date and ask them. It has worked for years. You will be able just to remind someone who you've known on that they'd sure love to moderate so-and-so a track :D
BTW the small handbook within the badge was including nice. I hope it becomes our new tradition. :) There were some typos though, if it had been errata somewhere, either online or in venue, it had been nicer.
On 9 August 2011 16:44, church.of.emacs.ml wrote:
Just a quick general reminder: If you send feedback to the mailing list, please also add it on http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Feedback
Also, if you notice something crucial is missing in the Wikimania handbook, add it: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/Handbook
+1 Nemo _______________________________________________ Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
Here's a thought. I stayed at what the conference called the Senate dorms, yet I see nothing on campus that indicates that it was called that. Yes, the term "Senate Dorms" does appear at the bus stop, and there is a Senate House nearby, but the dorms themselves aren't labeled as such, nor is that name on any of the direction signs or maps as far as I could tell. This hasn't caused much real trouble but it did prove to be somewhat confusing.
Sent from my iPad
On Aug 9, 2011, at 9:07 PM, KIZU Naoko aphaia@gmail.com wrote:
Corner picking from Haifa (yet)
On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 6:00 PM, Nemo nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
2011/8/9 Delphine Ménard
- Moderation in the sessions: Have a _seasoned_ moderator in each
room. Someone whose only job it is to cut short presentations that are too long, who can moderate discussions/questions if there is a need. Someone nasty ;).
I agree, I heard about a couple of problems because of the lack of such a moderator. I'd add to his tasks (or the tasks of whoever else from the staff stays in the room all the time) to grab a copy of each presentation slides, to be uploaded to Commons or wikimaniawiki if the license is not suitable for some reason. Presenters quite often don't know how to upload to our wikis, or how to convert the files in the right format, or they just forget it.
+1 I'd love to add that moderators however are not necessarily chosen from the organizing team. Many Wikimaniacs have offered this kind of help and will: it's anyway just a time keeping, no difficult task at all, specially if the moderators are not required to introduce speakers' bios. For the future organizers: if you find no enough moderators until the conference, just fetch some early comers before the date and ask them. It has worked for years. You will be able just to remind someone who you've known on that they'd sure love to moderate so-and-so a track :D
BTW the small handbook within the badge was including nice. I hope it becomes our new tradition. :) There were some typos though, if it had been errata somewhere, either online or in venue, it had been nicer.
On 9 August 2011 16:44, church.of.emacs.ml wrote:
Just a quick general reminder: If you send feedback to the mailing list, please also add it on http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Feedback
Also, if you notice something crucial is missing in the Wikimania handbook, add it: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/Handbook
+1 Nemo _______________________________________________ Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
-- KIZU Naoko / 木津尚子 member of Wikimedians in Kansai / 関西ウィキメディアユーザ会 http://kansai.wikimedia.jp
Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
James Hare, 09/08/2011 20:15:
Here's a thought. I stayed at what the conference called the Senate dorms, yet I see nothing on campus that indicates that it was called that. Yes, the term "Senate Dorms" does appear at the bus stop, and there is a Senate House nearby, but the dorms themselves aren't labeled as such, nor is that name on any of the direction signs or maps as far as I could tell. This hasn't caused much real trouble but it did prove to be somewhat confusing.
This seems part of the general lack of signs (especially latin script ones) in Israel, though.
Nemo
On 09.08.2011 15:26, Delphine Ménard wrote:
- Food: the food was so excellent it's not even funny (wow the
hummus). But I've seen _lots_ of people looking for the vegetarian food without ever knowing which it was. So: Label food. Name of the food, principal ingredients (some are allergic to say... bell pepper, can't have milk etc.), vegetarian, kosher, whatever is of importance, make it clear.
let me add my few ¢ about the catering: I agree that the food was excellent, thanks for that! However, the folks who were passing out the food were clearly not up to the task. They couldn't answer any questions about the food, and it took them quite a while to pass it out. It would have worked better if people had just served themselves, especially if the food was clearly labeled.
As to drinks: please have more water in the rooms. And everywhere, really. Water seemed to be in short supply throughout the conference. And the coffee was pretty bad... oh, well :)
Don't take me the wrong way - the catering was really good. But there's always something that wasn't perfect, so that#s what I'm picking on :)
A big thanks and kudos to the Wikimania team!
-- daniel
On 08/09/11 2:29 PM, Daniel Kinzler wrote:
On 09.08.2011 15:26, Delphine Ménard wrote:
- Food: the food was so excellent it's not even funny (wow the
hummus). But I've seen _lots_ of people looking for the vegetarian food without ever knowing which it was. So: Label food. Name of the food, principal ingredients (some are allergic to say... bell pepper, can't have milk etc.), vegetarian, kosher, whatever is of importance, make it clear.
let me add my few ¢ about the catering: I agree that the food was excellent, thanks for that! However, the folks who were passing out the food were clearly not up to the task. They couldn't answer any questions about the food, and it took them quite a while to pass it out. It would have worked better if people had just served themselves, especially if the food was clearly labeled.
I agree. And I would add one more point. Since food was being distributed at two different stations making one vegetarian and the other carnivore with large-letter overhead signs to that effect would have more easily gotten people to the right line.
Ray
wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org