All:
Based on a number of the posts in this thread, I think a few points are
worth underscoring.
1. The Wikimania Jury (historical -- and for what it's worth, I was a
member) and Wikimania Committee (present) have never had a strong mandate.
Its recommendations have generally been accepted by the Wikimedia community
and the Wikimedia Foundation.
2. While it's possible the Wikimania Committee made what it *originally
intended* to be a final and binding decision, there is nothing preventing
the committee from revisiting its decision.
3. As evident in Siko's post, the WMF does not yet regard the Montreal
decision as final, and does not expect to reach such a decision before the
end of 2015.
Siko's message aligns with the long-published timeline for venue
selection.[1]
For comparison, past decisions have been made as late as March or April.
There is still A LOT of time to make a final decision.
I'd suggest that anybody deeply dissatisfied with either the process or
proposed decision of the Wikimania Committee simply devote their efforts to
supporting an alternative bid (Perth, Manila, or elsewhere; the original
timeline still allows plenty of time for even *submitting* a bid). The
Wikimedia Foundation has a good deal of influence over legitimizing the
choice of a private group.
[1]
In short, there is no emergency here; rather, there's lots of opportunity
to come up with alternative venue options and alternative process proposals.
-Pete
[[User:Peteforsyth]]
On Mon, Oct 5, 2015 at 10:48 PM, Carlos M. Colina <maorx(a)wikimedia.org.ve>
wrote:
Hi Siko
El 06/10/2015 a las 01:11 a.m., Siko Bouterse escribió:
Hi folks,
Just letting you know that I’m reading the recent Wikimania-focused
mailing
list threads with interest, as the Community Resources team is now
on-point
for funding and coordinating WMF’s involvement in Wikimania.
A couple of first thoughts to share:
1. WMF has learned from past Wikimanias that we need to do our
due-diligence on venue etc before the host team and location is announced.
One reason for this is that we have a limited budget for Wikimania, and
doing a site visit before the host is finalized helps us ensure that we’re
able to support the costs of the event in a given location. Ellie Young is
headed to Montreal in 2 weeks and based on what she learns from that
visit,
we’re aiming to give the steering committee what they need to confirm
selection before the end of 2015.
Seriously? But the committee seems to have already taken a decision as
early as August, with the e-announcement mail scheduled to be sent sometime
in October
///
/Wikimania Committee meeting/
2015-08-21, 16:00 UTC / 09:00 PDT
DECISION: Committee happy to endorse Montréal as a great choice for
2017. /
/
/
/Venue//////: wikimedia-l, wikimania-l/
/Audience////: Prospective Wikimania attendees, and other interested
Wikimedians/
/What//////: Announce 2017 venue/
/When//////: ~ October 2015/
/From//////: James F. as Chair, o/b/o the Wikimania Committee/
/Subject////: //Wikimania 2017 to be held in Montréal in Canada/
/All,/
/I am delighted to announce on behalf of the Wikimania Committee
that Wikimania, the annual Wikimedia community conference, will be
held for 2017 in Montréal in Canada; congratulations. /
That said, we recognize that
communications around this haven’t gone as
planned,
Sort of.
and we are looking into
improvements…(see thought 2)
2. We, too, would like to see the movement building towards a shared
vision
of Wikimania! It is great to see so many people, in true Wikimedian-style,
thinking about big-picture questions of participation, representation, and
content at Wikimania. Knowing that mailing list discussions have their
limits, here’s how my team is thinking about collecting feedback more
systematically for this going forward:
We’ll be launching a community consultation in November to help build
towards more shared vision and process improvements for Wikimania 2018 -
2021. Two key inputs we’ve been thinking about using to launch that
conversation are 1) responses from the survey of last Wikimania’s
attendees
and 2) the steering committee’s recommendation for host selection going
forward.
We’re still regrouping from the latest Resources Consultation, and will
begin planning for a Wikimania Consultation next week, so after that we’ll
be able to share more information about what this consultation will look
like and the exact timeline. Meanwhile, suggestions and open questions
that
you’d like to see resolved via this consultation are most welcome in this
thread. My hope is that a consultation will help broaden participation in
these conversations and get us from input to action.
The problem here is that even if the reasoning for deciding behind closed
doors the host for Wikimania 2017 was 100% valid, the way it was done,
planning everything as early as August and planning when to release
information to the people to make it seem transparent (as the WMF expects
from all wikimedians), the way how it was handled lacked ethics and the way
the WMF seems to react ("yeah well, we think we screwed it, let's move
forward") happens again and again, and the movement receives always the
same poor excuses.
Warm regards,
Siko
--
"*Jülüjain wane mmakat* ein kapülain tü alijunakalirua jee wayuukanairua
junain ekerolaa alümüin supüshuwayale etijaanaka. Ayatashi waya junain."
Carlos M. Colina
Socio, A.C. Wikimedia Venezuela | RIF J-40129321-2 |
www.wikimedia.org.ve
<http://wikimedia.org.ve>
Chair, Wikimedia Foundation Affiliations Committee
Phone: +972-52-4869915
Twitter: @maor_x
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