The past three days (22-24 Nov) there was in the south German city of Karlsruhe near the
French border a conference organised by Wikimedia Germany and a whole group of volunteers.
The conference, WikiCon, was held for the fourth time as German language conference, with
many users from Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, but also users from Poland, Czech
Republic, Italy, and the Netherlands. I was there too and was asked to give a presentation
and tell about about bots and about Wiki Loves Monuments. The conference was held in the
buildings of the complex of the Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), with there the
rooms for presentations and talks, a university cafeteria and a hall.
The conference took three days to enable the users to travel here from longer distances to
come here. Friday was the day of arrival. In the afternoon almost everyone arrived. Those
who were early could join the excursion to the Bundesverfassungsgericht [1], an important
court in Germany. At the beginning of the evening everyone was welcomed and a buffet was
arranged. After that a Entzücklopädischer Abend (entzücken = delight), in what humor and
music where used to have a look at the going ons in Wikipedia. After a long night everyone
went to their hotel.
On the second day there were seven tracks - seven simultaneous series of presentations -
about a wide range of subjects with attention to all kinds of aspects of Wikipedia and the
things that accompany it. See for the program in German on
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiCon_2013/Programm
At noon a lunch was arranged for the attendees in the cafeteria. At the beginning of the
evening followed the ceremony of Wiki Loves Monuments in Germany. Then there was a buffet
arranged for the attendees, after which people lingered long and talked until midnight.
On the third day, there was a barcamp [2], the visitors had indicated the day before what
topics they wanted to talk about and/or give a presentation and who was interested. There
was also room for discussion on some issues. Around noon we moved to the main hall for
closure. There the motivation awards were handed out: which projects over the past year
contributed most to the development of (mainly) the German Wikipedia. Also everyone was
thanked who helped to make this conference a success.
I personally I liked the most talking to users to exchange our experiences on Wikipedia
and learn from each other, what subjects people are working on and what they encounter
working on the various projects. There is a huge overlapping with what users encounter on
the German Wikipedia compared to other wikis, but we actually know so little about each
other.
Other ingredients were big Wikipediabeanbags, Wikipedia seating cubes, wikichocolate,
wikipuzzles, free internet, nice users on an interesting conference.
Also I should mention that the KIT is active with open access as publication model.
See for images:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:WikiCon_2013
Greetings,
Romaine
From a poster there:
Many Wikipedia article on
meals have no photo yet.
What could be more natural than the court to prepare myself to photograph, and involve
them in the Wikipedia?
--
http://wikifeedme.openthesaurus.de/
[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Constitutional_Court_of_Germany
[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BarCamp