Today's meeting was definitely progressive and the idea of compiling a
handbook (or guide, or whatever) to Wikimania is fruitful..but, I just
thought:
Enthusiasm and good intentions could turn into a problem (or a crisis) if
they are not accompanied by experience, or at least know-how. All teams want
a conference, but they don't necessairly understand what does that take.
(catalyst) in making things go on track, poking volunteers, and
reporting to
the foundation. She knew what a conference is...and what wikimedians want.
If someone could take the role of Delphine back, maybe on part time or per
task basis, then I think that could help.
A book is good; but how do we make sure the content is practically
implemented?
Moushira
On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 1:48 AM, <susanpgardner(a)gmail.com> wrote:
A couple of fast thoughts:
* I think it's debatable whether it's board-level or not. It's board-level
in the sense that it's "not staff-level" -- meaning it's mainly a
community
responsibility rather than a staff responsibility. But to the extent that
part of the role of the committee would be to ask the staff for help if
Wikimania is floundering, that is probably not a board-level issue. For
example, I can't imagine the board making a resolution asking me to
intervene to offer more support if one year Wikimania were floundering.
That just doesn't feel like a governance issue.
* Which leads me to point two, which is that from my perspective, I
actually do want someone to flag to me if Wikimania is floundering, and to
ask me officially to have the staff get involved. Wikimania in Gdansk this
year has had some problems, and I have felt awkward about how to best
resolve them, given that (again) it's a community-led event, not a staff-led
event. But I don't think the board should need to involve itself in that,
because again, I think it's not a governance issue.
* Those aren't super-significant issues from my perspective though. Upshot
from my perspective: I think that there's lots of good energy and thinking
happening on this, and it feels like people are pretty aligned in feeling we
want some form of oversight/guidance/something, in place supporting
excellent Wikimanias every year. Which is great. Does someone want to
organize a meeting about this for Gdansk? I'm hoping Phoebe will attend,
and Casey and SJ, and whoever else is interested. I will be happy to put it
in my schedule, and I think James would probably be interested too. (James
Owen, not Forrester. I actually don't know if James Forrester is coming this
year, although now that I think of it, maybe he is one of the
train-travelling people?)
Thanks,
Sue
-----Original Message-----
From: phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki(a)gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2010 13:28:37
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Cc: Wikimania general list \(open subscription\)<
wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Floating a notion: permanent Wikimania
committee?
On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 12:06 PM, Sue Gardner <sgardner(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
Hi folks,
For several years now, people have occasionally floated the notion
that there should be a permanent Wikimania oversight committee –
basically, a group of people responsible for giving some coaching and
guidance and oversight to the local planning team each year. Over the
years, support has been offered each year by people like Phoebe, James
Forrester, Delphine (Delphine both in her staff role and as a
volunteer) and SJ … but there has never (AFAIK) been a formal
oversight committee. I think there probably should be.
Hello Sue and all,
Good timing -- we just had a long conversation about this in the
#wikimedia open meeting this afternoon. There were quite a few
participants, including several past wikimania organizers.
Quick summary of that discussion:
* there is definite interest in an ongoing Wikimania (oversight,
governance, guidance) (body, committee, group) (we talked for quite a
while about those various names and their different connotations)
* there are a few potential roles that people see for such a group:
** 1) collecting and writing better documentation about the
conference, including best practices for organization and what has
happened in the past
** 2) answering questions from Wikimania organizers about past
practices, helping coordinate who to ask about various aspects
** 3) providing oversight to the overall wikimania process -- for
instance making sure that a bid jury is called and the bids are
submitted in time (like elections)
** 4) providing oversight/governance as the conference progresses --
for instance, getting regular reports about the conference. Along with
this, the org team would have someone to report to if, say, a venue
burns down or some other catastrophe happens.
These ideas are roughly in order of how much controversy they
generated among discussion participants. I think we all pretty much
agreed that we need better conference documentation, and a loose
community group of past organizers and interested participants can
provide such documentation. Here's a start:
Conference handbook:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/Handbook
-- let's write the big book of Wikimania
Conference checklist:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/checklist -- make sure you
have everything you need
Conference community:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/community -- a start at a
community group, w/ interested participants.
We discussed however that for any oversight/governance functions we
might need a more formalized structure and perhaps a formal mandate.
This seemed like a Board-level issue to several people (including me).
We also discussed that there's not a good process for proposing and
forming community committees that would interact with the Foundation
on various issues.
What do you all think?
best,
Phoebe
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