I am thinking about making Wikimania 2011 as awesome as possible and here's a little something that bothered me.
Wikimania 2010 was my first. It was a lot of fun to meet Wikimedians from around the world. I also think that a lot of new ideas were born thanks to the personal meetings in Gdansk, at least some of which may grow to successful projects. Maybe it will be smarter use of machine translation, maybe outreach to underprivileged languages, maybe accessibility improvements. Maybe other things.
But all of the above are nice dreams about the future. Is there any proven experience from the past that demonstrates why personal meetings between Wikimedians are not just fun for them, but actually beneficial to the Wikimedia community, the Internet, the Humanity? Can anyone here give me solid examples of successful projects that were born thanks to past Wikimanias?
I am sure that they exist and that i use their fruits every day without realizing it.
On 31 July 2010 16:21, Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il wrote:
But all of the above are nice dreams about the future. Is there any proven experience from the past that demonstrates why personal meetings between Wikimedians are not just fun for them, but actually beneficial to the Wikimedia community, the Internet, the Humanity? Can anyone here give me solid examples of successful projects that were born thanks to past Wikimanias?
Most of the chapters.
- d.
2010/7/31 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
On 31 July 2010 16:21, Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il wrote:
But all of the above are nice dreams about the future. Is there any proven experience from the past that demonstrates why personal meetings between Wikimedians are not just fun for them, but actually beneficial to the Wikimedia community, the Internet, the Humanity? Can anyone here give me solid examples of successful projects that were born thanks to past Wikimanias?
Most of the chapters.
OK, but how exactly? Why did people have to fly to another continent to start a chapter in their own country? Did they use Wikimania as an opportunity to talk to the people who started the pioneering chapters (Germany, France, Italy) and learned from them how to start them? Anything else?
On 31 July 2010 16:32, Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il wrote:
OK, but how exactly? Why did people have to fly to another continent to start a chapter in their own country? Did they use Wikimania as an opportunity to talk to the people who started the pioneering chapters (Germany, France, Italy) and learned from them how to start them? Anything else?
You said "personal meetings between Wikimedians", not specifically Wikimania. Do you mean only Wikimania, or do you mean personal meetings in general?
- d.
On 31 July 2010 16:35, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
You said "personal meetings between Wikimedians", not specifically Wikimania. Do you mean only Wikimania, or do you mean personal meetings in general?
Ah, you were answering the first of the two questions in the text you quoted. I withdraw my questions to you, then.
2010/7/31 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
On 31 July 2010 16:32, Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il wrote:
OK, but how exactly? Why did people have to fly to another continent to start a chapter in their own country? Did they use Wikimania as an opportunity to talk to the people who started the pioneering chapters (Germany, France, Italy) and learned from them how to start them? Anything else?
You said "personal meetings between Wikimedians", not specifically Wikimania. Do you mean only Wikimania, or do you mean personal meetings in general?
Other examples are welcome, too, but i refer mostly to Wikimania, since my focus now is organizing one.
By "Wikimania" i mean "a general worldwide meeting of Wikimedia project editors, developers, WMF staff and other interested parties".
The advantages of local community meetings are rather obvious; i participated in many and organized one. Hacking days are also great, of course, but they are not general like Wikimania. It is also much easier and cheaper to organize such meetings, though.
No-one needs to convince me that Wikimania is great. It is. But examples of past - 2009 and earlier - experiences that grew into successful projects will help us define a better rationale and motivation for having a Wikimania and to make the next ones even better.
On 31 July 2010 16:27, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 31 July 2010 16:21, Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il wrote:
But all of the above are nice dreams about the future. Is there any proven experience from the past that demonstrates why personal meetings between Wikimedians are not just fun for them, but actually beneficial to the Wikimedia community, the Internet, the Humanity? Can anyone here give me solid examples of successful projects that were born thanks to past Wikimanias?
Most of the chapters.
Are you sure? Don't chapters come out of local meetups more than Wikimanias? Three chapters pre-date the first Wikimania and one was founded a week after (so I don't think Wikimania can take credit for that). Can you give some examples of chapters you know were founded as a result of a Wikimania? I can imagine some people being inspired to form chapters after meeting people from other chapters, but I don't know any definite examples of it actually happening.
On Sat, Jul 31, 2010 at 5:34 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 31 July 2010 16:27, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 31 July 2010 16:21, Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il wrote:
But all of the above are nice dreams about the future. Is there any proven experience from the past that demonstrates why personal meetings between Wikimedians are not just fun for them, but actually beneficial to the Wikimedia community, the Internet, the Humanity? Can anyone here give me solid examples of successful projects that were born thanks to past Wikimanias?
Most of the chapters.
Are you sure? Don't chapters come out of local meetups more than Wikimanias? Three chapters pre-date the first Wikimania and one was founded a week after (so I don't think Wikimania can take credit for that). Can you give some examples of chapters you know were founded as a result of a Wikimania? I can imagine some people being inspired to form chapters after meeting people from other chapters, but I don't know any definite examples of it actually happening.
Israel, to name just one.
Not to call them out, but I remember sitting at the chapters meeting at Wikimania 2006 and hearing out some rather vocal arguments against a Wikimedia chapter in Israel. (Seriously, I think we were almost at fisticuffs.) We had extensive discussions during and after the conference, and clarified a lot of misunderstandings.
A few months later, an exploratory committee was founded to investigate creating an Israeli organization, which resulted in what's now one of our most successful chapters.
We get a few chapters a year out of Wikimania, not because locals can't meet with each other by themselves, but because a personal connection is made with other people involved with chapters and they see what it's all about. I know that I, personally, spend a few hours a day during Wikimania talking about nothing but chapters.
To answer the original post, many projects have resulted from random talks at dinners during Wikimania, five-minute chats between sessions, and people just getting to know each other. I wish I could take the time to make a more complete list—I think it would be great if other people would weigh in on this thread, though.
Austin
On 31 July 2010 18:15, Austin Hair adhair@gmail.com wrote:
To answer the original post, many projects have resulted from random talks at dinners during Wikimania, five-minute chats between sessions, and people just getting to know each other. I wish I could take the time to make a more complete list—I think it would be great if other people would weigh in on this thread, though.
Yes. Basically: Wikimedians meeting each other in person is an excellent way to generate unexpected good things happening. Wikimania in particular gets the greatest variety of Wikimedians meeting and generating unexpected good things. It seems in practice to be powerful enough for people to keep wanting to put in the effort.
- d.
2010/7/31 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
On 31 July 2010 16:27, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 31 July 2010 16:21, Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il wrote:
But all of the above are nice dreams about the future. Is there any proven experience from the past that demonstrates why personal meetings between Wikimedians are not just fun for them, but actually beneficial to the Wikimedia community, the Internet, the Humanity? Can anyone here give me solid examples of successful projects that were born thanks to past Wikimanias?
Most of the chapters.
Are you sure? Don't chapters come out of local meetups more than Wikimanias? Three chapters pre-date the first Wikimania and one was founded a week after (so I don't think Wikimania can take credit for that). Can you give some examples of chapters you know were founded as a result of a Wikimania? I can imagine some people being inspired to form chapters after meeting people from other chapters, but I don't know any definite examples of it actually happening.
In 2006 Wikimania in Boston there was a brief, informal meetup of chapter committee, existing chapters boards members and people thinikg to establish their own chapters. I don't know if it was the results of only this meeting but several weeks/months after this meeting Wikimedia Israel, Wikimedia Taiwan and Wikimedia Netherlands were established mainly by people who attended this meeting.
See us 4 years younger:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimedia_chapters_meetup_Wikiman...
Tomasz Ganicz wrote:
In 2006 Wikimania in Boston there was a brief, informal meetup of chapter committee, existing chapters boards members and people thinikg to establish their own chapters. I don't know if it was the results of only this meeting but several weeks/months after this meeting Wikimedia Israel, Wikimedia Taiwan and Wikimedia Netherlands were established mainly by people who attended this meeting.
IIRC there was also provision for chapters people to get together on the day after the Frankfurt Wikimania ended in 2005.
Ray
On Sat, Jul 31, 2010 at 11:21 AM, Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il wrote:
But all of the above are nice dreams about the future. Is there any proven experience from the past that demonstrates why personal meetings between Wikimedians are not just fun for them, but actually beneficial to the Wikimedia community, the Internet, the Humanity?
Well, the board has real life meetings and, like David, most of the chapters do. :-)
There's also been "WMCON" where a bunch of board members, developers, and chapter members had meetings in the same place at the same time, which seems to have been very beneficial, because they've had two-in-a-row. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMCON
There was also a fundraising summit hosted by Wikimedia UK http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/2010_Fundraising_Summit, which Thomas could tell us more about.
Can anyone here give me solid examples of successful projects that were born thanks to past Wikimanias?
Something obvious is hacking days, which hopefully Brion could tell us more about. :-) Pages about previous hacking days:
* http://wikimania2005.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hacking_Days&oldid=7240 * http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hacking_days * http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hacking_days * http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hacking_Days
On 31 July 2010 16:37, Casey Brown lists@caseybrown.org wrote:
There was also a fundraising summit hosted by Wikimedia UK http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/2010_Fundraising_Summit, which Thomas could tell us more about.
Indeed. For people involved in chapters, there are lots of in-person meetings and they are very useful. The Fundraising Summit enabled us to discuss fundraising in much more depth and breadth than we could ever have done online (face-to-face discussions are much quicker than online discussions - one major advantage is that you know when someone else is speaking and also when they are about to speak, neither of which you know with most online media). That is very different from the kind of meetings most people have at Wikimanias though (which are ad hoc meetings over coffee with no agenda). Of course, chapter people have more formal meetings at Wikimanias, but we aren't typical of Wikimedians.
2010/7/31 Casey Brown lists@caseybrown.org:
On Sat, Jul 31, 2010 at 11:21 AM, Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il wrote:
But all of the above are nice dreams about the future. Is there any proven experience from the past that demonstrates why personal meetings between Wikimedians are not just fun for them, but actually beneficial to the Wikimedia community, the Internet, the Humanity?
There was also a fundraising summit hosted by Wikimedia UK http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/2010_Fundraising_Summit, which Thomas could tell us more about.
Thank you very much for this link!
Even though it's not Wikimania, it is very relevant and helpful.
On Sat, 31 Jul 2010 18:21:25 +0300, "Amir E. Aharoni" amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il wrote:
But all of the above are nice dreams about the future. Is there any proven experience from the past that demonstrates why personal meetings between Wikimedians are not just fun for them, but actually beneficial to the Wikimedia community, the Internet, the Humanity? Can anyone here give me solid examples of successful projects that were born thanks to past Wikimanias?
Well, it is just more efficient to discuss ideas in person. For instance, if one wants to propose a new project or a new innovation, submitting a Meta proposal will most probably lead to nowhere and even if it does not it may takes years of discussions, especially if trolls are involved. Having first a closed-circle discussion to make a reasonable proposal is much more efficient, and having it in person is a good investment of time.
On the other hand, I am very sceptical about Wikimania. I am possibly the only organizer who actually did not attend in 2010, and one of the reasons is that whereas it could be beneficial to discuss problems which interest me, for instance, strategy, I was not looking forward to going there just to make appointments with people whose first priority is to make appointments with somebody else etc. I know this pretty well from my experience as a scientist and a participant of scientific conferences: On a rather small meeting, say 50 participants, one can freely discuss with whowever he/she wants, including big shots, whereas on events which are more oriented to public relations, as for instance an annual meeting of American Physical Society (5000 participants) chances to discuss smth reasonable without having a pre-appointment are close to zero.
Cheers Yaroslav
On 7/31/10 5:21 PM, Amir E. Aharoni wrote:
I am thinking about making Wikimania 2011 as awesome as possible and here's a little something that bothered me.
Wikimania 2010 was my first. It was a lot of fun to meet Wikimedians from around the world. I also think that a lot of new ideas were born thanks to the personal meetings in Gdansk, at least some of which may grow to successful projects. Maybe it will be smarter use of machine translation, maybe outreach to underprivileged languages, maybe accessibility improvements. Maybe other things.
But all of the above are nice dreams about the future. Is there any proven experience from the past that demonstrates why personal meetings between Wikimedians are not just fun for them, but actually beneficial to the Wikimedia community, the Internet, the Humanity? Can anyone here give me solid examples of successful projects that were born thanks to past Wikimanias?
Children...
I know that for a fact :) Delphine met Arne whilst going to Germany to prepare first Wikimania ever. Look now: two children. Our future :)
Ant
On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 09:58, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
On 7/31/10 5:21 PM, Amir E. Aharoni wrote:
I am thinking about making Wikimania 2011 as awesome as possible and here's a little something that bothered me.
Wikimania 2010 was my first. It was a lot of fun to meet Wikimedians from around the world. I also think that a lot of new ideas were born thanks to the personal meetings in Gdansk, at least some of which may grow to successful projects. Maybe it will be smarter use of machine translation, maybe outreach to underprivileged languages, maybe accessibility improvements. Maybe other things.
But all of the above are nice dreams about the future. Is there any proven experience from the past that demonstrates why personal meetings between Wikimedians are not just fun for them, but actually beneficial to the Wikimedia community, the Internet, the Humanity? Can anyone here give me solid examples of successful projects that were born thanks to past Wikimanias?
Children...
I know that for a fact :) Delphine met Arne whilst going to Germany to prepare first Wikimania ever. Look now: two children. Our future :)
* A fix for a missing patrolling feature for the Dutch wikipedia in 2005, Frankfurt; mainly because I met people who 'figuratively' held my hands while figuring out how to fix the last part.
* for years, wikimania gave me the energy to do things again
henna
Florence Devouard wrote:
On 7/31/10 5:21 PM, Amir E. Aharoni wrote:
But all of the above are nice dreams about the future. Is there any proven experience from the past that demonstrates why personal meetings between Wikimedians are not just fun for them, but actually beneficial to the Wikimedia community, the Internet, the Humanity? Can anyone here give me solid examples of successful projects that were born thanks to past Wikimanias?
Children...
I know that for a fact :) Delphine met Arne whilst going to Germany to prepare first Wikimania ever. Look now: two children. Our future :)
Angela & Tim are also due to produce any day.
The most important benefits are the intangible ones in an expanding circle of trust. When you have met someone at Wikimania you are more likely to respect his approach to the problems we encounter.
Ray
This has been an interesting thread to follow, there should be one non-Wikimania, because it does matter. I've met several Wikimedians at the couple meet-ups I've been to with whom on-wiki I had many disagreements with. Meeting face to face clears that air with the human contact. James Forrester is the champion of meetups for good reason. I met him in D.C., far from where I live, while he was in for less than 24 hours, far from where he lives. I butt heads with MZMcBride many times, but I slept on his couch. It's not just about localization for chapters; the opportunity to travel and meet those whom you've known online for a very long time or only by the periphery is a great experience.
On Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 2:09 AM, Keegan Peterzell keegan.wiki@gmail.comwrote:
This has been an interesting thread to follow, there should be one non-Wikimania, because it does matter. I've met several Wikimedians at the couple meet-ups I've been to with whom on-wiki I had many disagreements with. Meeting face to face clears that air with the human contact. James Forrester is the champion of meetups for good reason. I met him in D.C., far from where I live, while he was in for less than 24 hours, far from where he lives. I butt heads with MZMcBride many times, but I slept on his couch. It's not just about localization for chapters; the opportunity to travel and meet those whom you've known online for a very long time or only by the periphery is a great experience.
-- ~Keegan
This is exactly right. I can not even begin to explain the impact that meetups have had on my view of the projects as a whole especially for those I've met but for everyone else too. Even very infrequent personal and social contact can be hugely rewarding I think both for the contributers and the projects as a whole. I've always felt we should do more both in person and online when possible (IRC or Voicechat for example). I've toyed with the thought of trying to get the WMF to install a mumble server for people to talk on ;) or just setting one up myself I do think the impact that social interaction has on trust/creativity and general cooperation is hugely under appreciated by a lot of people on wiki (and off for that matter).
James Alexander james.alexander@rochester.edu jamesofur@gmail.com
Agreed. A good example; on the English Wikipedia, I'm a massive law nerd with 40-something legal GAs and FAs to my name. I'd never even have studied the subject if it wasn't for a group of Wikipedians, some of whom have later helped me with or collaborated on articles. The importance of social interaction cannot be understated, and it's why I have no truck with some of the more severe "OMG WIKIPEDIA IS NOT MYSPACE" people. People come here to build a collaborative encyclopaedia, yes, not to socially interact - but the key word there is "collaborative". Social contact is inevitable and incredibly helpful to us as a community; hells, it's what *makes us* a community and not just a hundred thousand people who independently agree that Wikipedia is nifty.
On Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 7:50 AM, James Alexander jamesofur@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 2:09 AM, Keegan Peterzell <keegan.wiki@gmail.com
wrote:
This has been an interesting thread to follow, there should be one non-Wikimania, because it does matter. I've met several Wikimedians at
the
couple meet-ups I've been to with whom on-wiki I had many disagreements with. Meeting face to face clears that air with the human contact.
James
Forrester is the champion of meetups for good reason. I met him in D.C., far from where I live, while he was in for less than 24 hours, far from where he lives. I butt heads with MZMcBride many times, but I slept on
his
couch. It's not just about localization for chapters; the opportunity to travel and meet those whom you've known online for a very long time or
only
by the periphery is a great experience.
-- ~Keegan
This is exactly right. I can not even begin to explain the impact that meetups have had on my view of the projects as a whole especially for those I've met but for everyone else too. Even very infrequent personal and social contact can be hugely rewarding I think both for the contributers and the projects as a whole. I've always felt we should do more both in person and online when possible (IRC or Voicechat for example). I've toyed with the thought of trying to get the WMF to install a mumble server for people to talk on ;) or just setting one up myself I do think the impact that social interaction has on trust/creativity and general cooperation is hugely under appreciated by a lot of people on wiki (and off for that matter).
James Alexander james.alexander@rochester.edu jamesofur@gmail.com _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Oliver Keyes wrote:
Agreed. A good example; on the English Wikipedia, I'm a massive law nerd with 40-something legal GAs and FAs to my name. I'd never even have studied the subject if it wasn't for a group of Wikipedians, some of whom have later helped me with or collaborated on articles. The importance of social interaction cannot be understated, and it's why I have no truck with some of the more severe "OMG WIKIPEDIA IS NOT MYSPACE" people. People come here to build a collaborative encyclopaedia, yes, not to socially interact - but the key word there is "collaborative". Social contact is inevitable and incredibly helpful to us as a community; hells, it's what *makes us* a community and not just a hundred thousand people who independently agree that Wikipedia is nifty.
One of the more annoying of the anti-social species is the kind that becomes annoyed when talk page comments wander a little off topic, and claim that this is contrary to the talk page's single purpose of improving what's in article space. The improvement to the article from these off topic comments may be somewhat oblique, but it can improve one's understanding of the topic and of the person commenting.
Ray
OMG I MET ROBERT I LUV HIM SO is disruptive. "Does anyone know where he was educated? It isn't listed" is potentially helpful. And so on.
On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 1:44 AM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Oliver Keyes wrote:
Agreed. A good example; on the English Wikipedia, I'm a massive law nerd with 40-something legal GAs and FAs to my name. I'd never even have
studied
the subject if it wasn't for a group of Wikipedians, some of whom have
later
helped me with or collaborated on articles. The importance of social interaction cannot be understated, and it's why I have no truck with some
of
the more severe "OMG WIKIPEDIA IS NOT MYSPACE" people. People come here
to
build a collaborative encyclopaedia, yes, not to socially interact - but
the
key word there is "collaborative". Social contact is inevitable and incredibly helpful to us as a community; hells, it's what *makes us* a community and not just a hundred thousand people who independently agree that Wikipedia is nifty.
One of the more annoying of the anti-social species is the kind that becomes annoyed when talk page comments wander a little off topic, and claim that this is contrary to the talk page's single purpose of improving what's in article space. The improvement to the article from these off topic comments may be somewhat oblique, but it can improve one's understanding of the topic and of the person commenting.
Ray
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