Il 13/ago/2014 21:02 "Andrew Lih" andrew@andrewlih.com ha scritto:

In the "Future of Wikimania" session this year, I also reiterated my hope

for a "newbie" or "maker" pavilion in future conferences, where the emphasis would be teaching new skills to each other. Why not have hardware such as book scanning, flatbed scanning, filmmaking and other tools for folks to quickly collaborate.

^ this.

-- Luca "Sannita" Martinelli https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utente:Sannita

On 13 aug. 2014, at 21:20, Kartik Mistry kartik.mistry@gmail.com wrote:

On Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 5:18 PM, Matthias Süßen info@pixelfehler.de wrote:

...

-Creating a bot for dummies

There was nice session on pywikibot (by Martin? I forgot). I started with my crazy bot (and had to stop it too ;))

You probably mean the talk from Maarten Dammers.

Regards,

André

Interesting! I love all suggestions and comments coming up.

Thanks Matthais.

- Enock On Aug 13, 2014 7:51 PM, "Amir Ladsgroup" ladsgroup@gmail.com wrote:

On 8/14/14, Andre Koopal andre@molens.org wrote:

...

On 13 aug. 2014, at 21:20, Kartik Mistry kartik.mistry@gmail.com

wrote:

...

...

On Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 5:18 PM, Matthias Süßen info@pixelfehler.de wrote:

...

-Creating a bot for dummies

There was nice session on pywikibot (by Martin? I forgot). I started with my crazy bot (and had to stop it too ;))

You probably mean the talk from Maarten Dammers.

Yes It was talk from Maarten Dammers and always there is a workshop for newbies in to start a bot (Me and Kunal had it in Wikimania 2013)

...

Regards,

André

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-- Amir

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Even thou the movement grows and gets older, it also needs to renew. It has to attract new users to continue growing as rapidly it has in the past and it has to set up new ideas on how it can be pushed forward for the new ones to even have something to work on. As such, more emphasis for new users might be a good idea.

I'd like to add, that even the existing users often have a lot they may find good to learn. Is it getting better at photography, finding out new tools they may use, learning to solve difficult situations etc.

Wikimania 2014 was a good one, but there is always something that can be done in a better way (or at least differently). Therefor I welcome the discussion started by Matthias as it may lead us to even better programs. Ones where everyone feel there isn't a thing to add or to take away.

I myself are playing with an idea to set up a Wikimania 2016 bid for Tallinn (pre-conference) and Tartu (as the site for main conference) as I see it as a good way to promote Wikipedia and to get new people into our community. Estonia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonia, one of the most tech-savvy countries out there, may just be a very good place to organize something like this. But we'll see.

So I have been thinking about it for a while and I personally see that Wikimania should be more about getting up new ideas and increasing international cooperation. The ideas and cooperation can only be brought to life by strong local communities and with more of thous small meetings.

Sending one or two persons to some faraway land may not help with that as much we would like to think. So I'd like to set up an idea of making Wikimania smaller locally and bigger globally. There could be lot of local meetings at the time of the Wikimania, where local wikipedians themselves could take part of the show on real time (or with a small delay depending on time zone) and have a discussion on what their own community needs the most.

If you want to create something big, you need to get more people behind your idea. If only you have the chance to see and interact with it, then it may not be enough. Getting more people together and getting them to know each other may be just what we need to build a stronger community of wikimedians.

We have the technology to make Wikimania even bigger and to bring it closer to people. Why not to use it? Maybe we could test it out in 2016?

With regards, Ivo Kruusamägi

2014-08-13 22:29 GMT+03:00 Manuel Schneider manuel.schneider@wikimedia.ch:

Hi Matthias,

good points. I think it would be really cool if we could accommodate all features in one big conference. My personal experience is a bit different, though.

Last year I wrote a mail summarising some of my thoughts on this (in german): http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/vereinat-l/2013-March/001464.html

We do have several events on different levels and with different goals already in place.

• local events

** meet-up ** working meetings (Wiki Takes ...)

• regional events

** WikiCon ** Workshops

• international events

** Wikimania ** Wikimedia Conference aka. "Chapters Meeting"

not all meet-up regulars in the target area of WikiCon has visited it. Not all WikiCon participants are interested in Wikimania.

WikiCon has much more "workshop character" on a high level: good talks, working groups, racking brains together, energizing each other, exchange ideas, start new projects etc...

Wikimania has been like this in the start but with an ever growing community with many organizations in the Wikiversum and international diversity it has become much more strategical and political. I do not want to miss Wikimania but it is not a "working meeting" anymore ("working" as in "creating content") in contrast to a WikiCon. The most interesting part of Wikimania are all the ad-hoc meetings which happen in the hallways, at lunch etc. Apart from this it's the exchange of several groups, like tech meet-ups, chapters meetings etc. A Wikimania is a marathon of meetings and sessions. I can only make it to a hand full of sessions in a Wikimania because of all these other ad-hoc meetings.

There has been a discussion following on Wikimania reports who should attend a Wikimania and what the use for the local community is.

My thoughts on this (in the same mail linked above) where that there are two main participant groups for Wikimania:

• first-timers who mostly benefit personally from attending Wikimania -

like learning about the international movement, make new contacts, better understand what our movement is (especially those who have only worked in their local language project before and don't know anything else - opening their eyes)

• representatives who have certain tasks and goals for their

participation in Wikimania

Regards,

Manuel

Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens Lausanne, +41 (21) 34066-22 - www.wikimedia.ch

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I fully agree with Manuel. As a clarification:

* I don't see a Wikimania as a place for newbies or a thing I'd recommend them to visit. It is more of a site where to talk about engaging new users and educating long time contributors on the stuff that may not be known in their community. That "new"-user stuff doesn't meant the event itself must be for newcomers. ;) * Indeed, Wikimania should concentrate on a well done fewer things and for bringing the international community together. There doesn't have to be 1000+ participants for that (maybe even 500-700 max). In that sense, less is more. This is what I meant under "smaller locally and bigger globally". * When the event will take place in many locations around the globe (that is one bigger Wikimania and a lot of local meetings around it), then all of thous smaller local events may have their own goals. More events will lead to more human interactions and to lot more impact. Each location may still focus on what it needs the most. * Each of thous local events can serve as a bridge to bring new people in. Only for the organizing part it will be bringing in a little bit different set of people (but in the Estonia, thous are currently the ones we need the most, and that is why I am interested of setting up a bid).

Ivo

2014-08-13 23:45 GMT+03:00 Manuel Schneider manuel.schneider@wikimedia.ch:

Hi Ivo et. al.,

Am 13.08.2014 22:28, schrieb Ivo Kruusamägi:

...

Even thou the movement grows and gets older, it also needs to renew. It has to attract new users to continue growing as rapidly it has in the past and it has to set up new ideas on how it can be pushed forward for the new ones to even have something to work on. As such, more emphasis for new users might be a good idea.

[...]

...

We have the technology to make Wikimania even bigger and to bring it closer to people. Why not to use it? Maybe we could test it out in 2016?

I agree with your ideas but have a different perspective:

1. to bring in new community members etc. we need a more sustainable

approach. A Wikimania can only have a local influence on this, not a global. Newbies need a local community, a group where they can become a team member of, which carry them through their hurdles.

Therefore I am confident that a local WikiCon is the right and better place for this. It is smaller, more familiar, the newbies will find people from their area which will be around later.

2. I think that making Wikimania bigger and bigger is not the right

approach. Concentrate on a few things and do them right. Like local conferences can focus on their community and their work inside the projects, Wikimania should focus on strategy and bringing the international community together. Since several years attending Wikimania is a very exhaustive endeavor.

I would never recommend a newbie to attend Wikimania in order to become part of the movement. It is a good way for newbies who have already started working on our projects (and thus have their local friends inside the movements) to learn more and look beyond the places they currently work, though.

So, conclusion is that we shouldn't overload Wikimania and rather have more local conferences which have different measures of success - bringing new people into the project and help existing community to do actual content work. (been there, done that already)

/Manuel

Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens Lausanne, +41 (21) 34066-22 - www.wikimedia.ch

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Do we had many first timers? Does Wikimania really has an outreach effect? I was always a bit sceptical about it. Actually we could rather usually see the effect of burn-out of local volunteers after Wikimania, but maybe it pays back in the longer time perspective. Have never seen any reports about outreach effects of Wikimanias so we can only have general impression about it. The very good thing with Barbicane was that the access to venue was completely open to the public, so the people visiting exhibitions could easily mix with regular attendants and had free access to the chapters village. Among others - our, Polish booth was visited by numerous Poles living in London, which hopefully will have some outreach effect. I think this idea - to organise Wikimanias is open, vibrant public spaces is worth repeating.

The suggested groups of wikimedians is also not a completely seperate from each other (which is good actually)... Many hackers are also very active contributors, so called "representatives" are also usually contributors. There is also a group of GLAM-related people which are hard to define to which group they belong, some of them are just "representatives", some are active editors mainly, and some also hackers, but they have many in common due to the interest in cooperation with GLAMs.

So, that divisions are not that obvious...

2014-08-13 23:15 GMT+02:00 David Cuenca dacuetu@gmail.com:

I think the Wikimania this year was well organized, the talks were diverse and the timing was swift, but I agree with Manuel that there seems to be different groups with diverging goals.

Perhaps it would make sense to think of Wikimania as an outreach event for people that are not in the movement, and put contributors in a separate event (as now happens with tech and representatives). That way we would have:

• Wikimania: first timers, outreach, showcase, invited speakers
• Wikicontributors (?): to discuss collaboration, build consensus, learn,

and share more advanced knowledge

• Hackathons: for advanced tech contributors
• WikiCon: for representatives

Some coordination discussions need a long time, and it is not very wise to put it all together in the same event, because everyone is rushing from one talk to the next without getting any in-depth knowledge. And some other would have been more productive if instead we would have focused on teaching how certain tools work before having the discussion... specially regarding sister projects (wikidata, wikisource, wikibooks, etc), that after so many years some contributors don't know very well what they are about because nobody cared to explain it to them and walk them through the edition basics.

In Amical Wikimedia we have planned to organize an internal conference so each editor can show others the projects they are working with, how to use the tools, etc. I think it could be worth thinking of this as potential international event too.

Cheers, Micru

On Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 9:29 PM, Manuel Schneider manuel.schneider@wikimedia.ch wrote:

...

Hi Matthias,

good points. I think it would be really cool if we could accommodate all features in one big conference. My personal experience is a bit different, though.

Last year I wrote a mail summarising some of my thoughts on this (in german): http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/vereinat-l/2013-March/001464.html

We do have several events on different levels and with different goals already in place.

• local events

** meet-up ** working meetings (Wiki Takes ...)

• regional events

** WikiCon ** Workshops

• international events

** Wikimania ** Wikimedia Conference aka. "Chapters Meeting"

not all meet-up regulars in the target area of WikiCon has visited it. Not all WikiCon participants are interested in Wikimania.

WikiCon has much more "workshop character" on a high level: good talks, working groups, racking brains together, energizing each other, exchange ideas, start new projects etc...

Wikimania has been like this in the start but with an ever growing community with many organizations in the Wikiversum and international diversity it has become much more strategical and political. I do not want to miss Wikimania but it is not a "working meeting" anymore ("working" as in "creating content") in contrast to a WikiCon. The most interesting part of Wikimania are all the ad-hoc meetings which happen in the hallways, at lunch etc. Apart from this it's the exchange of several groups, like tech meet-ups, chapters meetings etc. A Wikimania is a marathon of meetings and sessions. I can only make it to a hand full of sessions in a Wikimania because of all these other ad-hoc meetings.

There has been a discussion following on Wikimania reports who should attend a Wikimania and what the use for the local community is.

My thoughts on this (in the same mail linked above) where that there are two main participant groups for Wikimania:

• first-timers who mostly benefit personally from attending Wikimania -

like learning about the international movement, make new contacts, better understand what our movement is (especially those who have only worked in their local language project before and don't know anything else - opening their eyes)

• representatives who have certain tasks and goals for their

participation in Wikimania

Regards,

Manuel

Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens Lausanne, +41 (21) 34066-22 - www.wikimedia.ch

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-- Etiamsi omnes, ego non

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