I have read the numerous comments on the fact that we should be planning Wikimania well in advance, and I fully agree that choosing the city for Wikimania 2008 sometime at the end of 2006 or beginning of 2007 makes perfect sense, and we have started working on it.
Just for the record though, Wikimania 2006 was only the second edition, and I wish people would remember that when planning 2006, we did not even know whether it was going to happen at all. So please keep that in perspective. There is room for improvement, and I believe Wikimedia has done a good job in trying to keep everyting into consideration for the next editions.
On the subject of size. I am personally not in favour of an *international Wikimedia conference* (keywords international and Wikimedia) that will hold more than 500 people, ever. The reason for this were clear last year, but even clearer this year, ie. opening the conference to 1000 people makes it, in my opinion, lose the "Wikimedia" touch, by bringing many people in who have in the end nothing to do with Wikimedia. Mind you, I find the interaction with other organisations and people with different web, collaborative, knowledge experiences very fruitful and interesting, but this year showed a trend that I wish we did not facilitate too much. There were many many local (as in US) people who had but a far fetched interest in our projects, and thus did not pertain to the "Wikimedia Community" or had no intention of ever pertaining to it.
My dream is that Wikimedia got their hands on enough money in due time to provide scholarships to far away contributors wherever they may be and make sure that the core attendance of the conference is filled with Wikimedians.
Basically the real question is what do we want Wikimania to be? Is it the ultimate wiki conference? Is it the Wikimedia conference? Is it a free knowledge or access to knowledge conference? Is it an open source conference? Is it all of that? Some of that?
In my opinion, and in an ideal world, Wikimania would probably almost be booked solid before registration even happens, because we have managed to bring in all the people that count in the Wikimedia community.
I would hate to see Wikimania be taken away from the Wikimedians. I would hate for it to be so big that you would not have a clue who this or that person is, or worse, that some people would come to Wikimania and ask "what is Wikipedia?". I believe we have shown the world that we can put together interesting programs and that we should use this opportunity to make sure we provide different events, aiming at different publics. I would love to see a Wikimedia Academic Conference, or a Wikimedia Wiki Practices Conference. I would also love to see more regional Wikimedia conferences, such as the Chinese and Dutch edition this year who would bring together people who did not make it to the international conference or who need to concentrate in a language or on specific projects.
In short, I do not think that Wikimania would benefit from becoming a huge thing that everyone would attend because they happened to be in the neighborhood.
Delphine
On 8/17/06, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
On the subject of size. I am personally not in favour of an *international Wikimedia conference* (keywords international and Wikimedia) that will hold more than 500 people, ever. The reason for this were clear last year, but even clearer this year, ie. opening the conference to 1000 people makes it, in my opinion, lose the "Wikimedia" touch, by bringing many people in who have in the end nothing to do with Wikimedia.
With the number of contributers we have (heck we have well over 1000 admins across the various project) 1000 does not seem to be an illogicaly high number in future.
geni wrote:
On 8/17/06, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
On the subject of size. I am personally not in favour of an *international Wikimedia conference* (keywords international and Wikimedia) that will hold more than 500 people, ever. The reason for this were clear last year, but even clearer this year, ie. opening the conference to 1000 people makes it, in my opinion, lose the "Wikimedia" touch, by bringing many people in who have in the end nothing to do with Wikimedia.
With the number of contributers we have (heck we have well over 1000 admins across the various project) 1000 does not seem to be an illogicaly high number in future.
The barrier to entry to edit in your pajamas is far different from the barrier to entry of international travel for many, if not most, contributors or admins. We also skew heavily towards students. The difference among people from our different pockets of interest was obvious from this year's conference, and our international delegations were tiny. We must do a much better job of international visitation, scholarships, and the like.
Brad Patrick wrote:
The barrier to entry to edit in your pajamas is far different from the barrier to entry of international travel for many, if not most, contributors or admins. We also skew heavily towards students. The difference among people from our different pockets of interest was obvious from this year's conference, and our international delegations were tiny. We must do a much better job of international visitation, scholarships, and the like.
The difference among people from our different pockets of interest is the difference in their pockets. :-) Sorry, I couldn't help it. :-P
Ec
geni wrote:
On 8/17/06, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
On the subject of size. I am personally not in favour of an *international Wikimedia conference* (keywords international and Wikimedia) that will hold more than 500 people, ever. The reason for this were clear last year, but even clearer this year, ie. opening the conference to 1000 people makes it, in my opinion, lose the "Wikimedia" touch, by bringing many people in who have in the end nothing to do with Wikimedia.
With the number of contributers we have (heck we have well over 1000 admins across the various project) 1000 does not seem to be an illogicaly high number in future.
I do hope that Wikimania never gets to the size of mega-conferences like Comdex (which collpased under its own weight). Still, as has been pointed out above, the number of Wikimedia participants has grown considerably, and there are more that 250 "active" Wikimedia projects right now with signficant content. Getting even one rep from each one would be quite an undertaking at the moment.
On 8/17/06, Robert Scott Horning robert_horning@netzero.net wrote:
I do hope that Wikimania never gets to the size of mega-conferences like Comdex (which collpased under its own weight). Still, as has been pointed out above, the number of Wikimedia participants has grown considerably, and there are more that 250 "active" Wikimedia projects right now with signficant content. Getting even one rep from each one would be quite an undertaking at the moment.
It won't be easy to get solid data until after we have single sign in but I suspect that, once you exclude the biggest projects, the overlap is pretty significant. So it might not be as hard getting additional coverage as you suspect.
Delphine Ménard wrote:
I have read the numerous comments on the fact that we should be planning Wikimania well in advance, and I fully agree that choosing the city for Wikimania 2008 sometime at the end of 2006 or beginning of 2007 makes perfect sense, and we have started working on it.
Perhaps the cities who are about to make bids could indicate a preference for 2007, 2008 or even 2009. There seems to be some informal support for a three region rotation, but no-one would be so insistent as to force it upon a region that does not want it or is incapable of providing a basic infrastructure for Wikimania. By the time Wikimania 2007 rolls around it might be possible to have the 2009 list reduced to serious candidates, and the attendees in 2007 could contribute their ideas.
On the subject of size. I am personally not in favour of an *international Wikimedia conference* (keywords international and Wikimedia) that will hold more than 500 people, ever. The reason for this were clear last year, but even clearer this year, ie. opening the conference to 1000 people makes it, in my opinion, lose the "Wikimedia" touch, by bringing many people in who have in the end nothing to do with Wikimedia. Mind you, I find the interaction with other organisations and people with different web, collaborative, knowledge experiences very fruitful and interesting, but this year showed a trend that I wish we did not facilitate too much. There were many many local (as in US) people who had but a far fetched interest in our projects, and thus did not pertain to the "Wikimedia Community" or had no intention of ever pertaining to it.
These are all important factors, and although I would not want to jump to judgement about the optimum size. Perhaps a local quota of 50% might help. I found it mildly annoying to ask someone his user name, only to find out that he did not edit at all. Perhaps that might be solved with another quots, at least the very simple solution of a different name badge colour for Wikimedians and unaffiliated visitors would help.
Some have also suggested a Problem Solving Day, probably on the Thursday if we continue with the same format. This would be closed to all but Wikimedians. As I understand it this day between Hacking Days and the main conference is already used by developpers to discuss their technical problems. This day could also be used to equal advantage by other interest groups. (Thinkers' Thursday? :-) )
My dream is that Wikimedia got their hands on enough money in due time to provide scholarships to far away contributors wherever they may be and make sure that the core attendance of the conference is filled with Wikimedians.
That would be nice, as would serious help with visas.
Basically the real question is what do we want Wikimania to be? Is it the ultimate wiki conference? Is it the Wikimedia conference? Is it a free knowledge or access to knowledge conference? Is it an open source conference? Is it all of that? Some of that?
This topic could fill a conference session, and is probably the kind of thing that should be scheduled.
In my opinion, and in an ideal world, Wikimania would probably almost be booked solid before registration even happens, because we have managed to bring in all the people that count in the Wikimedia community.
Including the ones from the developed countries? As someone who travelled from the opposite coast of North America there are still personal budgetting considerations that can delay taking positive steps to register.
In short, I do not think that Wikimania would benefit from becoming a huge thing that everyone would attend because they happened to be in the neighborhood.
At least one day in the conference that is more public than the others can help. That can be the day for keynote speeches or for revealing policy initiatives that need to be publicized.
Ec
I'm personally of the opinion that Wikimania should remain very much a community event, and in fact bring it back to something closer to a retreat than anything else.
Venue is obviously a big factor, here: more people will drop in off the street for a well-publicized conference at Harvard than at a youth hostel somewhere in Europe. We were mindful of this when we chose the location for Wikimania 2006, of course, and felt that the various other benefits outweighed that drawback, but I was still disappointed to see less community interaction this year than at Wikimania 2005.
A bigger factor, however, and a somewhat controversial one, is the ability to buy conference passes for a single day only—especially the day of the conference, on-site. This year we did very well with preregistration, and actually booked over our numbers for catering and room capacity. We closed registration altogether a few days before the conference, and although I made a number of exceptions, only one of them was for a Wikimedian.
In the last two weeks before the conference, the ratio of those paying the "outsider" rate to those paying the community rate was running just under 3:1. Although I don't yet have the final numbers, total attendance was split roughly 50/50 community/outsider. (This is a point in itself.)
For community members, the ratio of full conference passes to day passes was roughly 6:1. Outside the community, that ratio is 1.4:1.
These numbers should come as no surprise to anyone. It's common sense that Wikimedians don't wait until the last minute to decide whether or not they're coming, and that they're interested in the whole conference, not just seeing Larry Lessig. I wanted to be perfectly clear that the facts actually reflect that, however.
Day passes are fine for trade expos, but this is Wikimedia—our goal should be the opposite end of the conference spectrum. This isn't to say that a Wikimedian whose circumstances suddenly change three days before the conference can't buy a pass, or that someone who can only get out of school for a day has to pay the full rate, but I don't see the single-day pass coming back next year; neither can registration continue in full force up until the day the conference opens.
I think we need to market Wikimania very differently in the future, but the way we do that depends entirely on what form it takes, whether it's split up into alternate/sub-conferences, and how. This is where Delphine's "real question" comes in, and I'm glad it's being discussed. I have my own thoughts on the matter, but I'd like to see what people's initial thoughts are first.
Austin
On 8/17/06, Austin Hair adhair@gmail.com wrote:
I'm personally of the opinion that Wikimania should remain very much a community event, and in fact bring it back to something closer to a retreat than anything else.
One of the biggest questions -- problems? opportunities? -- planning the program this year was that the question of "what Wikimania is" was and is largely unanswered (we came up with a working definition, which is reflected in the CfP; perhaps another definition was carried in by participants in Wikimania '05). One of my biggest regrets with the program this year was that there were not more community (Wikimedia)-centered presentations and events; in fact, not that many (comparatively) were submitted -- despite the advertising on the projects that we did do -- and we had to push for more. This is only one part of the community atmosphere at the conference, of course -- the lack of community space at the physical venue is an unrelated question that none of us anticipated well enough.
But don't forget that this is an inclusive and fluid community, and what counts as part of that 'community' is subject to interpretation. Is research about wikis relevant? Is a presentation by lawyers on laws that absolutely affect the continued operations of the projects? Is talking about free culture, generically, at a gathering of people who are intimately involved in the biggest free culture project in the world relevant? What about education? Reference publishing? It seems to me that to restrict the conference to a very literal set of topics revolving around Wikimedia/pedia would in turn lessen the value of the conference, and lessen the potential chance for new and great ideas to come out of it that would benefit the projects. Let's not be insular, as a community. Not everyone who has good and relevant ideas has worked their way through editing, mailing lists, Foundation business, etc. and become a Wikip/media "community member" according to some entirely vague set of criteria which seem to come down to "I recognize their username." Honestly, folks, I think it's fair to say that none of you knew who I was before I came to Wikimania the first time; I certainly wasn't a "person who counted" in the Foundation or even Wikipedia.... and for better or worse, without attending Wikimania '05 I certainly wouldn't have been as heavily involved in Wikimania '06 as I was.
If Wikimania is determined to be *simply* a social gathering -- or simply a policy-making and direction-setting gathering for the projects and the Foundation -- then that is another question, and if so, next year let's not waste time and energy inviting the Larry Lessigs of the world, since they are surely not community members in that sense (unless he actually edits, of course).
On a practical level: I agree that restricting day admissions, or having just one day that's open to day registration, is a good idea, and I agree with Austin about aiming towards a "retreat" feel. Probably having more topical preconferences besides just hacking days is also a good idea. There's been talk about something similar for social science research/wiki research; having a full day just to talk about Foundation issues in an open but not-entirely-public forum would also be useful. Finally, of course there must be more international visitors; this is a goal that no one who helped organize disagrees with, and we all would have liked to have done better. For those of you playing along at home, we did hand out a few dozen scholarships to people from all over the world -- fairly remarkable for a non-profit organization and a non-profit conference that just started real planning 9 months in advance. And I think the final count on the countries that attendees were from was just under 100? Whatever it was, next year and the years after should strive to be even more internationally diverse, whether that means linguistically, culturally, geographically, or otherwise. (Although, having the conference in a particular area does mean -- and should mean -- that more people from that area show up in that particular year; otherwise, why move the conference at all? We'll just have it in St. Pete's every year...)
What else? What *is* Wikimania? As Delphine says, 2006 was only the second conference, and there's no reason the tone of the event can't change radically for next year.
best, phoebe/brassratgirl
On 8/17/06, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
On the subject of size. I am personally not in favour of an *international Wikimedia conference* (keywords international and Wikimedia) that will hold more than 500 people, ever. The reason for this were clear last year, but even clearer this year, ie. opening the conference to 1000 people makes it, in my opinion, lose the "Wikimedia" touch, by bringing many people in who have in the end nothing to do with Wikimedia. Mind you, I find the interaction with other organisations and people with different web, collaborative, knowledge experiences very fruitful and interesting, but this year showed a trend that I wish we did not facilitate too much. There were many many local (as in US) people who had but a far fetched interest in our projects, and thus did not pertain to the "Wikimedia Community" or had no intention of ever pertaining to it.
And yet all those US people whose involvement in en.wikipedia.org is significant and who should be allowed to come to a conference, if they are interested.
The foundation has competing interests with the conference: one predominantly huge-sized project, and the whole of everything including the much smaller ones and the global picture.
If the interests of the two collide to some degree, there are solutions: split the conference into World and US conferences, dual-track the conference, etc.
Rather than artificially constraining the size of Wikimania, structural solutions and a review of the goals of the conference and foundation are in order.
On 8/17/06, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
And yet all those US people whose involvement in en.wikipedia.org is significant and who should be allowed to come to a conference, if they are interested.
The foundation has competing interests with the conference: one predominantly huge-sized project, and the whole of everything including the much smaller ones and the global picture.
If the interests of the two collide to some degree, there are solutions: split the conference into World and US conferences, dual-track the conference, etc.
I am not sure I understand you correctly, but I seem to read that you are hinting at the fact that the English Wikipedia is predominantely US contributors. If that is the case, and although I am not a contributor there myself, I believe this is forgetting the diversity of our biggest project. My take is there are enough international contributors who contribute to the English Wikipedia to never fall into a US/rest of the world kind of split, which at any rate, would seem to be an ultimate failure of Wikimedia ever pretending to any kind of international scope.
Rather than artificially constraining the size of Wikimania, structural solutions and a review of the goals of the conference and foundation are in order.
I believe this is what I have proposed.
Delphine PS. It might be that I have not exactly understood what you meant, being an Englis as Foreign language pkind of person and all. In which case, I thank you for making sure I get your point.
On 8/17/06, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
I am not sure I understand you correctly, but I seem to read that you are hinting at the fact that the English Wikipedia is predominantely US contributors. If that is the case, and although I am not a contributor there myself, I believe this is forgetting the diversity of our biggest project. My take is there are enough international contributors who contribute to the English Wikipedia to never fall into a US/rest of the world kind of split, which at any rate, would seem to be an ultimate failure of Wikimedia ever pretending to any kind of international scope.
For the record:
Contributors to enwiki: 53% US 15% GB 7% CA 4% AU 2% DE 1% NL, FR, SE, IE, NZ, JP 11% everywhere else.
This is based on geolocated IP addresses from a few months back. Note that these are based on number of EDITS, not on number of EDITORS (which is harder to evaluate). A slim majority of edits to enwiki come from the US.
I hope to talk Greg into running the same numbers for some of the other larger projects.
Kelly
On 18/08/06, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
For the record:
Contributors to enwiki: 53% US 15% GB 7% CA 4% AU 2% DE 1% NL, FR, SE, IE, NZ, JP 11% everywhere else.
This is based on geolocated IP addresses from a few months back. Note that these are based on number of EDITS, not on number of EDITORS (which is harder to evaluate). A slim majority of edits to enwiki come from the US.
The corrolary to this, incidentally, is that 50% (give or take) of all actively contributing Wikimedia accounts just now are on en.wp. I know there'll be overlap, so a more reliable (ha!) method, edit count...
A shade under half of the edits to all Wikimedia projects made in May (since the figures were handy) are on en.wp. Allowing for some US participation on other projects, that's ~ 1/4 to 1/3 of all "involvement" across all Wikimedia projects being from the US. Which seems a fair enough, if arbitrary, figure.
(It'd be interesting to see the statistics for US involvement on es.wp, the other major language wikipedia I would expect them to contribute to, if they're available.)
Hello
On 8/17/06, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
I have read the numerous comments on the fact that we should be planning Wikimania well in advance, and I fully agree that choosing the city for Wikimania 2008 sometime at the end of 2006 or beginning of 2007 makes perfect sense, and we have started working on it.
This email was sent in august 2006. We said it would be better to start planning Wikimania 2008 in advance, and before Wikimania 2007 happens. As far as I know, not much has been done yet. For the record, there are current bids, but not many seem to be serious: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2008/Bids
So, maybe "we" should think about it :) (call this email a "friendly reminder"...)
Guillaume,
Good timing on the reminder :-) 12-24 months out is a good time to plan bids. Another good idea that has been raised is defining a process so that bids are resolved once a year, more than a year in advance of Wikimania.
Some of the successful processes I've seen involve selecting a location the year before (or two years before) at the event itself -- that allows a fair number of bid evaluators to meet in person; allows the team that has just finished the event to debrief and directly pass on ideas and advice to a future team; and passes on momentum from a successful bid through an international audience once it is announced.
SJ
On 6/6/07, Guillaume Paumier guillom.pom@gmail.com wrote:
Hello
On 8/17/06, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
I have read the numerous comments on the fact that we should be planning Wikimania well in advance, and I fully agree that choosing the city for Wikimania 2008 sometime at the end of 2006 or beginning of 2007 makes perfect sense, and we have started working on it.
This email was sent in august 2006. We said it would be better to start planning Wikimania 2008 in advance, and before Wikimania 2007 happens. As far as I know, not much has been done yet. For the record, there are current bids, but not many seem to be serious: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2008/Bids
So, maybe "we" should think about it :) (call this email a "friendly reminder"...)
-- Guillaume Paumier [[m:User:guillom]] "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined." Henry David Thoreau _______________________________________________ Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
These were the kinds of points that were being made in the days following Wikimania 2006. The current year Wikimania can provide great apprenticeship for the local core that will be running the following year's event. Being able to promote Wikimania 2008 in Taipei so that we will be leaving that event with a positive feeling that we will be meeting next year in Xxxx can only be an advantage.
Ec
Samuel Klein wrote:
Guillaume,
Good timing on the reminder :-) 12-24 months out is a good time to plan bids. Another good idea that has been raised is defining a process so that bids are resolved once a year, more than a year in advance of Wikimania.
Some of the successful processes I've seen involve selecting a location the year before (or two years before) at the event itself -- that allows a fair number of bid evaluators to meet in person; allows the team that has just finished the event to debrief and directly pass on ideas and advice to a future team; and passes on momentum from a successful bid through an international audience once it is announced.
SJ
On 6/6/07, Guillaume Paumier guillom.pom@gmail.com wrote:
Hello
On 8/17/06, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
I have read the numerous comments on the fact that we should be planning Wikimania well in advance, and I fully agree that choosing the city for Wikimania 2008 sometime at the end of 2006 or beginning of 2007 makes perfect sense, and we have started working on it.
This email was sent in august 2006. We said it would be better to start planning Wikimania 2008 in advance, and before Wikimania 2007 happens. As far as I know, not much has been done yet. For the record, there are current bids, but not many seem to be serious: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2008/Bids
So, maybe "we" should think about it :) (call this email a "friendly reminder"...)
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org