students and middle-class participants for whom $1500 in travel, food and lodging plus 5 days away from work, family, or school amounts to a significant or impossible sacrifice. Perhaps someone could tell us the statistics for how many people have attended Wikimania each year who were not WMF employees, FDC or WMF Board members, scholarship recipients, or financially sponsored by WMF affiliates or WEF. Of those people who pay 100% of their own costs plus the cost of admission tickets, my guess is that many live within a day's travel time by train, car, or bus. I would hypothesize that thematic conferences also have a low percentage of people who pay 100% of their own costs, but that regional conferences which have lower travel costs for the average attendee receive modestly higher percentages of unsubsidized attendance. It seems to me that WMF finacial support for conferences, including regional and thematic conferences, will continue to be the norm. Whether $1 million is appropriate for Wikimania and whether a more modest budget would be appropriate and feasable are different questions that merit careful reflection. Pine

Hoi, Pine with all due respect, the USA is not the problem and English Wikipedia has been overly subsidised, given way too much attention. Indeed having more people from the USA attend Wikimania is not a good value proposition. The USA and Britain is overrepresented as it is. Thanks, GerardM On 10 February 2016 at 10:13, Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> wrote:

"We also do not have a strong chapter system" This has always puzzled me, because I am a firm believer in the chapter system, despite its faults and limitations. Isn't it time to address this for the more active areas of the USA? On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 10:43 AM, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Wikimedians, The "chapter system" in the US and North America is a work in progress. In addition to the two full regional chapters (New York City - where I am, and Washington, DC), there are also usergroups for the New England, Cascadia/Northwest, and North Carolina Triangle regions, with other groups still in the process of formation. There is a historical difference from the large-budget Western European chapters and the US situation, which has been more grassroots and never participated in things like fundraiser payment-sharing, and the funding for WMF HQ in San Francisco indeed shouldn't be conflated with funding of US volunteer-based activities. If anyone else is interested in organizing regionally in any part of the US / North America, feel free to get in touch; Wikimedia NYC and others would be very glad to help you :) Thanks, Pharos On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 11:15 AM, Robert Fernandez <wikigamaliel(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Hoi, There is only one argument that I cannot refute about American money. It is American money that gets us the bulk of our funding. The one obvious reason is that the fund-raising is targeting the USA. When money is spend, it is spend predominantly in the USA and targeted for Wikipedia and English Wikipedia at that. Arguably the WMF is a global organisation and spending is best allocated based on where people live. When money is targeted on where we grow, we would not spend as much on the needs of Wikipedia. We would recognise the importance of projects like Wikisource and finally give it some attention. It would benefit particularly benefit India. When the model they have adopted is introduced elsewhere, it will make many, many more books available. THAT would have a real impact educationally speaking. Given the small size of many communities, it is important that they benefit from the things we already have but the thing that is so easily forgotten is the road to get there. That road is not a universal given and it is dominated by the road English WIkipedia has taken. What I find is that people are happy where we are at. Never mind the nay sayers. You mention chapters and we have good chapters in Europe. Sadly their impact on Wikipedia is neglible because they are "not part of the community" and what they do is largely fringe. Really English and Wikipedia is over served. IMHO the law of diminishing returns applies. Thanks, GerardM On 10 February 2016 at 16:43, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Béria L, Yes, I was heartened to see that the formula had changed in 2015. But the complexity of the algorithm made it hard to discern what the eventual impact and numbers were for US-based editors. If you have good stats on this, I’d appreciate a pointer. Again, I agree that Wikimania should have massive outreach goal with the bulk of the scholarships should be used to recruit new key members to our community and evangelizing the mission outside the US. When I was based in Asia, I was a big advocate for Wikimania being a way to engage new language groups. However, I wanted to push back against the oft-heard refrain that the US is “overly subsidized” when in fact most metrics show this is not the case. Thanks! -Andrew On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 11:27 AM, Béria Lima <berialima(a)gmail.com> wrote:

It's all very well to assume that certain demographics are wealthy. But it is simply a stereotype. Wikipedians I know personally from the "privileged" demographics vary from those who are well off through to those who are saddled with substantial debt and zero income. But really the question is, given the funds available, and the benefits that accrue, why there should be such a limited WMF spend on Wikimania (and/or other gatherings). It is one of the few discretionary spends that we know from stories like Doc James' has a huge impact. On 10/02/2016 16:27, Béria Lima wrote:

Hey folks, Ellie has put together a summarized budget including revenue and expenses from Wikimania 2014 in London[1] and Wikimania 2015[2], which I've gone ahead and posted to the summary pages of these conferences on meta. Thanks, Chris [1] <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2014> [2] <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2015> On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 1:15 PM, Samuel Klein &lt;meta.sj(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: -- Chris "Jethro" Schilling I JethroBT (WMF) <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:I_JethroBT_(WMF)> Community Organizer, Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home>

That's most helpful, thank you both. On Wed, Feb 17, 2016 at 5:14 PM, Pharos &lt;pharosofalexandria(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: -- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266

The first thing that happens when you split up something like Wikimania in multiple events is you multiple the cost of WMF attendance because they need to deliver the same messages multiple times, an alternative decision to restrict who goes where you run into the issue of regions being treated differently or even getting a different message. Add to that the BoT would need to also attend multiple events in some form and other committees will still need to meet somewhere as well as have a presence at each event. So what happens do we then say well since it'll be divisive to attend only some of the meetings WMF and BoT dont attend any that makes them more isolated from the wider community than they already are. Wkikmania may be expensive exercise and draw on a lot of resources but going smaller wont logically create combined cheaper outcomes. On 19 February 2016 at 07:19, Lodewijk &lt;lodewijk(a)effeietsanders.org&gt; wrote: -- GN. President Wikimedia Australia WMAU: http://www.wikimedia.org.au/wiki/User:Gnangarra Photo Gallery: http://gnangarra.redbubble.com

On 2016-02-18 7:18 PM, Risker wrote: That is true, and availability of venues etc would be greatly increased. The flipside, however, is that those months are not ones where *availability* for travel are high. Most schools/universities are in session, and employed participants (those most likely to have disposable income to travel) are generally less able to take time off they those months fall outside the general "summer vacation" period [at least in the Northern Hemisphere]. It's not clear to me that a cheaper event fewer people are able to attend is preferable. -- Marc

Hi Ellie, with donations, i was referring to the item on the linked financial report. Does it indeed include sponsorships? Lodewijk On Fri, Feb 19, 2016 at 6:00 PM, Ellie Young &lt;eyoung(a)wikimedia.org&gt; wrote:

Chris & Ellie: I don't think I would include 'WMF Travel/Accomodation' or general Wikimedia PR in the Wikimania overhead. * Staff have a budget for travel to events of all kinds; the Board has a budget for its meetings wherever they are held; and similarly the few committees that meet in person have a budget for those meetings. * The fact that these things happen to take place at Wikimania is, if anything, a slight cost savings: some of the logistics of scheduling and finding venues can be shared, it allows coordinating press events, &c. Lodewijk, I agree: we should be able to find ways to limit direct expenses, and increase sponsorships. We could also increase the number of people who benefit from scholarships, or are otherwise able to attend. Focusing on direct expenses from recent Wikimanias: * 2014 budget: $250K revenue + a $150K WMF grant. Actual: $280K revenue, needed $320K from WMF to cover direct expenses * 2015 budget: $150K revenue + a $300K WMF grant. Actual: $100K revenue, needed $380K from WMF to cover direct expenses * 2016 budget: $290K? revenue + a $250K WMF grant. Itzik, what were the equivalent budgets for Haifa? From the post-mortem on Meta it looks like a $280K budget, and a $100K WMF grant. This included paying for the event coordinator, which is now budgeted separately. That was for the finest event one could hope for. Lodewijk writes: Registration fees should at least cover the marginal cost of the event: catering & materials per person. for The greater part of money spent on attending Wikimania is the out-of-pocket cost of flights and hotels. The cost of this for non-local attendees is 10-50x the cost of registration. Running many simultaneous local events has a greater total budget, if you look only at the budgets of the organizers; but a much lower cost per person. There are many more options for free venues and low-cost lodging when you're not scrambling to fit 1000 people in a small region of a city. And a smaller fraction of money spent goes towards jet fuel. For this reason, the same pool of scholarship funds would go farther. Finally, I don't think we should oversell the current Wikimania as a universal connector. I too want there to be a community thing that builds interpersonal connections and is accessible to every community member at low cost. But that thing cannot be a $2,000-net-cost week-long conference. Many people could never attend such an event, even if it were free. It is a long time commitment, and is inevitably mono or bilingual. Sam (who loves the current Wikimanias, and thinks they should continue! but doesn't think they are the pinnacle of what movement-gatherings could be) On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 5:52 PM, Sam Klein &lt;sjklein(a)hcs.harvard.edu&gt; wrote: -- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266

On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 5:06 PM, Samuel Klein &lt;meta.sj(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: It usually isn't but this was prepared in response to people in earlier threads wanting to know the total WMF cost for Wikimania. When I get the detailed breakout for Wikimania direct expenses done, I will reformat/note this. I think the Esino Lario team is projecting about $100K in other sources of revenue (but this will be updated I'm sure since the information on the bid is preliminary). I could pitch that to WMF when we set fees/budget for future Wikimania's.... > > > looking at these figures, I can agree that it should be possible to do it > for > > less, I'm less certain though whether the proposed splitting up would > > significantly reduce the total costs for everything that is included > here. > > The greater part of money spent on attending Wikimania is the > out-of-pocket cost of flights and hotels. The cost of this for non-local > attendees is 10-50x the cost of registration. Running many simultaneous > local events has a greater total budget, if you look only at the budgets of > the organizers; but a much lower cost per person. There are many more > options for free venues and low-cost lodging when you're not scrambling to > fit 1000 people in a small region of a city. And a smaller fraction of > money spent goes towards jet fuel. > > For this reason, the same pool of scholarship funds would go farther. > > Finally, I don't think we should oversell the current Wikimania as a > universal connector. I too want there to be a community thing that > builds interpersonal connections and is accessible to every community > member at low cost. But that thing cannot be a $2,000-net-cost week-long > conference. Many people could never attend such an event, even if it were > free. It is a long time commitment, and is inevitably mono or bilingual. > > Sam > (who loves the current Wikimanias, and thinks they should continue! but > doesn't think they are the pinnacle of what movement-gatherings could be) > On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 5:52 PM, Sam Klein &lt;sjklein(a)hcs.harvard.edu&gt; > wrote: > >> That's most helpful, thank you both. >> >> On Wed, Feb 17, 2016 at 5:14 PM, Pharos &lt;pharosofalexandria(a)gmail.com&gt; >> wrote: >> >>> Thanks, Ellie and Chris, this historical experience should be very >>> helpful >>> for future discussions! >>> >>> Best, >>> Pharos >>> >>> On Wed, Feb 17, 2016 at 5:06 PM, Chris Schilling < >>> cschilling(a)wikimedia.org&gt; >>> wrote: >>> >>> > Hey folks, >>> > >>> > Ellie has put together a summarized budget including revenue and >>> expenses >>> > from Wikimania 2014 in London[1] and Wikimania 2015[2], which I've gone >>> > ahead and posted to the summary pages of these conferences on meta. >>> > >>> > Thanks, >>> > >>> > Chris >>> > >>> > [1] <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2014> >>> > [2] <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2015> >>> > >>> > On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 1:15 PM, Samuel Klein &lt;meta.sj(a)gmail.com&gt; >>> wrote: >>> > >>> > > Itzik writes: >>> > > >>> > > > If we want to talk about the cost of Wikimania it will be great if >>> the >>> > > WMF and the local team will share the costs. >>> > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2014/Budget >>> > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2015/Budget >>> > > > Maybe I missed something, but it's strange that such discussion >>> takes >>> > > place without a real budget breakdown. >>> > > > To summarize 2 huge event to "1$ million USD" does not make sense. >>> > > >>> > > Agreed 1million%. It would be important to see a rough cost >>> breakdown, & >>> > > compare that to the best-budgeted Wikimanias. >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 9:52 AM, Tomasz Ganicz &lt;polimerek(a)gmail.com&gt; >>> > > wrote: >>> > > >>> > > > 2016-02-10 6:06 GMT+01:00 Samuel Klein &lt;meta.sj(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: >>> > > > >>> > > > > FUDCons >>> > > > >>> > > > Also it is hard to compare Wikimanias with FUDCons as it is >>> > > > a) much smaller (usually bo more than 200 attendees) >>> > > > b) divided by regions - for example in 2015 there were 3 FUDCons >>> > > > (Argentina, India, Spain) and 2 Flocks (NY and Kraków) - so they >>> are >>> > > > rather like our Iberecop or CEE meetings than the global >>> conferences. >>> > > > >>> > > >>> > > Thanks. Similar to regional events perhaps, not Wikimania. Still >>> worth >>> > > comparing budgets perhaps, if available. >>> > > >>> > > But I was wondering about the trend over time: whether extensive >>> funding >>> > > during the RedHat days made the events less useful, in the years >>> after >>> > that >>> > > funding was reduced. >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > > And also Fedora developers have many potential sources of external >>> > > funding >>> > > > - mainly from IT companies which uses free software and want to >>> apply >>> > for >>> > > > their specific needs and for whom they quite often work. >>> > > > >>> > > >>> > > True. But attendees to GLAM or education conferences also tend to >>> have >>> > > many potential sources of funding - mainly from archives or >>> educational >>> > or >>> > > technical companies who curate knowledge or develop education tools. >>> And >>> > we >>> > > have IT industry partners who are similarly willing to support >>> > Wikimanias. >>> > > Not entirely dissimilar. >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > > But anyway, Fedora offers scholarships for attendees, see: >>> > > > >>> > > >>> > > Yes, wiki conferences should as well - that part of conference >>> funding is >>> > > important. Even early Wikimanias with almost no WMF support had >>> > > significant scholarship pools. >>> > > >>> > > S >>> > > _______________________________________________ >>> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: >>> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines >>> > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org >>> > > Unsubscribe: >>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, >>> > > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> >>> > > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > -- >>> > Chris "Jethro" Schilling >>> > I JethroBT (WMF) < >>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:I_JethroBT_(WMF)> >>> > Community Organizer, Wikimedia Foundation >>> > <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home> >>> > _______________________________________________ >>> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: >>> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines >>> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org >>> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, >>> > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> >>> > >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: >>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines >>> New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org >>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, >>> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266 >> -- > Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266 > -- Ellie Young Events Manager Wikimedia Foundation eyoung(a)wikimedia.org c. 510 701 8649

An experiment I'd be more than willing to think about, is to have a 'real wikimania' every two years, and a more 'light edition' the other year (with less aimed attendance, less WMF participation, maybe less subsidised, a cheaper location, more like a wikicamp). But, to look at that in a proper way, we have to know a bit more details, and that requires a good discussion, rather than a one-off survey. Lodewijk On Fri, Feb 19, 2016 at 6:48 PM, Gerard Meijssen &lt;gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

On Fri, Feb 19, 2016 at 3:06 AM, Samuel Klein &lt;meta.sj(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Yes, in Haifa we got $100K from the WMF (and $100K for scholarships handled by the WMF). The total event costs were $270K. The majority of the budget was raised by scholarships. Ellie - "Project management from WMF" means you?

Rather, we should spend more, possibly several times as much. We need much wider participation, both for Wikimania and for regional conferences, and the only practical way to achieve that is to pay full expenses for all regular participants who want to attend. It should not be an elite event. The WMF is running a considerable surplus, and we should spend 5 or 10 % of it on interpersonal live access to each other. On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 6:02 PM, John Mark Vandenberg &lt;jayvdb(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: -- David Goodman DGG at the enWP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DGG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG