On Thu, Sep 27, 2018 at 3:40 AM Chris Keating <chriskeatingwiki(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
So it seems that the main rationale for an annual
Wikimania brought up in
the 2016 meeting was that Wikimania was vital for movement governance and
accountability. Which wasn't particularly stressed in the WMF's
consultation, but I can see why that kind of issue was very fresh in
peoples' minds in 2016.
As the facilitator of the 2016 session discussing Wikimania, I don't recall
the "main rationale" of the discussion being about "governance and
accountability" and instead remember many more issues that stood out.
For example, the prominent phrases from the first part of the meeting
include the following, with most of the notes echoing these themes:
- inspiring, and connecting
- opportunity for different communities to meet
- important to use opportunity to do outreach
- empower important volunteers
Now the Wikimedia Conference / Summit looks set to
assume this role, what
is the continued rationale for having Wikimania every year?
Given the above, I think the basis of the question is not sufficiently
established.
In fact, two recent reports or decisions reinforce Wikimania's role even
more:
1. From the Community Engagement Insights 2018 Report - "Discovery of new
projects and ideas is best at Wikimania: While all conferences had a high
proportion of participants that reported discovering new projects or ideas
as the most important outcome, Wikimania had the highest proportion of them
all." - The Community Engagement Insights 2018 Report [1] [2]
2. The Wikimedia Conference (WMCON) has pivoted to become the Wikimedia
Summit. In the process, they announced "learning and capacity-building will
not be part of the program." [2] Therefore I'd argue that the onus is even
*more* on conferences like Wikimania to facilitate this.
-Andrew
[1] -
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Engagement_Insights/2018_Report#C…
[2] -
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2018-September/091062.html