On 10 October 2014 14:58, Lodewijk <lodewijk(a)effeietsanders.org> wrote:
If you're interested in discussing the future of
Wikimania, perhaps it
makes sense to do that on the dedicated list? Just a wild thought.
Thanks for the thought. Itzik's general question was posted to
Wikimedia-l, so answering it here makes sense. No doubt most readers
of wikimedia-l are like myself and do not normally follow wikimania-l.
Governance and transparency issues for Wikimania are of more general
interest than a readership of "Wikimania attendees, presenters, and
fans", particularly when as a community of volunteers we have chosen
to let a WMF employee make community decisions for us (such as
appointing the Jury that has our full authority for deciding where
Wikimania will be held, along with the political and financial
implications of support contracts and investing significant money in a
chosen country).
Wikimania has become a big business with significant press attention
and associated significant risks. It benefits from having many
volunteers in our movement asking questions and ensuring that the main
body of unpaid volunteers are happy that it is directed by volunteers
and focused on our community, rather than the interests of partners,
other commerical rationales or indeed the interests of the WMF which
is not exactly the same as the interests of the wider Wikimedia
community/beneficiaries.
As an unpaid volunteer at Wikimania in London, I was very interested
in talking to other unpaid volunteers, some of whom were taking part
because they wanted to gain experience in event management for their
CVs but with no prior understanding of what Wikimania projects
actually were. I think that's okay, we welcome this sort of support,
but how these varied interests should be managed to meet our shared
open knowledge ethics and values is something to continue to ponder as
our movement continues to grow, particularly if measured by how many
tens of millions of dollars are donated to us each year -- which seems
to be the critical measure of success used by the WMF and the
international press.
Fae
--
faewik(a)gmail.com
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae