[Wikimania-l] Thanks for all the fish... and lessons learned

[Delphine Ménard]

I'll add my thanks to the chorus. It was an amazing Wikimania.

Having participated in the organisation of quite a few Wikimanias, and
since Itzik asked somewhere for "critics" so that they can do better
next time, here are a few things that come to mind. I'd urge everyone
to answer this thread to keep things in one place so that the team
from next year can benefit from those.

* Badges: badges should be recognizable at a glance. Especially for
press. But also for organizers, speakers etc.. By the time I arrived,
everyone had a different lanyard, some had written badges, other
printed... complicated. Make more badges than you will ever need (a
safe assumption is to print about at least twice the number of badges
you think you'll need). Choose colors that people can recognize at a
glance. Especially for the press (I'll never stress that enough).

* Food: the food was so excellent it's not even funny (wow the
hummus). But I've seen _lots_ of people looking for the vegetarian
food without ever knowing which it was. So: Label food. Name of the
food, principal ingredients (some are allergic to say... bell pepper,
can't have milk etc.), vegetarian, kosher, whatever is of importance,
make it clear.

* Moderation in the sessions: Have a _seasoned_ moderator in each
room. Someone whose only job it is to cut short presentations that are
too long, who can moderate discussions/questions if there is a need.
Someone nasty ;).

That's about it for the main things I've seen, the rest was just great. :)

Cheers,

Delphine

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@notafish

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