[Wikimedia-l] Wikimania

[Yaroslav M. Blanter]

On 30.04.2013 13:23, Katie Chan wrote:
> On 30/04/2013 11:49, Yaroslav M. Blanter wrote:
>> My personal experience after being an active program committee member 
>> on the 2010 Wikimania Organizing Committee was that my activity there 
>> (and I believe in the end of the day we did a good job - for example, 
>> we managed to accept all submissions with a very few exceptions) was 
>> only appreciated by my fellow organizers. I have not heard any good 
>> words from anybody else, a lot of bad words were coming from all kind 
>> of corners, and nobody in 2011, 2012, 2013, or, for that matter, in 
>> 2014 ever contacted me asking whether I would have any interest to do 
>> this job again. In 2011, someone duly revoked my Wikimania wiki 
>> administrator flag saying smth like "not needed anymore", and nobody 
>> cared to thank me or even to inform me of that. I obviously decided 
>> afterwards that there are other, less painful ways I can be do my 
>> community service, and lost all interest in Wikimania organization.
> 
> I would just like to point out that there's no Program Committee for
> 2014 as the jury decision on host haven't even been made yet, and for
> 2013 there were an open invitation for people to volunteer to serve on
> the Programmes Commitee and Scholarship Committee -
> <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimania-l/2012-October/004375.html>.
> Yes, as a movement in general we need to get better at showing
> apperication for others hard work, but let's not generalise.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> KTC

As I said, this is my personal experience, and not a generalization. I 
unsubscribed from wikimania-l I believe in 2010, and now I will not do 
it again even if personally approached. I am fine with doing community 
service, but I am not really fine with being insulted for doing 
community service because people do not care to figure out who is doing 
what and insult the first person who approaches them.

Cheers
Yaroslav