On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 5:06 PM, Samuel Klein <meta.sj(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Chris & Ellie: I don't think I would include
'WMF Travel/Accomodation' or
general Wikimedia PR in the Wikimania overhead.
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.
* 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
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).
+ 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:
'wikimania direct' is quite expensive, to
be honest, and much more than
I
would have expected. However, it does include
catering, which is always
an expensive chunk...
Registration fees should at least cover the marginal cost of the event:
catering & materials per person.
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 $2,000-net-cost week-long
> conference. Many people could never attend such an event, even if it were
> free. It is a long time commitment, and is inevitably mono or bilingual.
>
> Sam
> (who loves the current Wikimanias, and thinks they should continue! but
> doesn't think they are the pinnacle of what movement-gatherings could be)
> On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 5:52 PM, Sam Klein <sjklein(a)hcs.harvard.edu>
> wrote:
>
>> That's most helpful, thank you both.
>>
>> On Wed, Feb 17, 2016 at 5:14 PM, Pharos <pharosofalexandria(a)gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks, Ellie and Chris, this historical experience should be very
>>> helpful
>>> for future discussions!
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Pharos
>>>
>>> On Wed, Feb 17, 2016 at 5:06 PM, Chris Schilling <
>>> cschilling(a)wikimedia.org>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> > Hey folks,
>>> >
>>> > Ellie has put together a summarized budget including revenue and
>>> expenses
>>> > from Wikimania 2014 in London[1] and Wikimania 2015[2], which I've
gone
>>> > ahead and posted to the summary pages of these conferences on meta.
>>> >
>>> > Thanks,
>>> >
>>> > Chris
>>> >
>>> > [1] <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2014>
>>> > [2] <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2015>
>>> >
>>> > On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 1:15 PM, Samuel Klein <meta.sj(a)gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > > Itzik writes:
>>> > >
>>> > > > If we want to talk about the cost of Wikimania it will be
great if
>>> the
>>> > > WMF and the local team will share the costs.
>>> > > >
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2014/Budget
>>> > > >
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2015/Budget
>>> > > > Maybe I missed something, but it's strange that such
discussion
>>> takes
>>> > > place without a real budget breakdown.
>>> > > > To summarize 2 huge event to "1$ 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
<polimerek(a)gmail.com>
>>> > > wrote:
>>> > >
>>> > > > 2016-02-10 6:06 GMT+01:00 Samuel Klein
<meta.sj(a)gmail.com>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
>>> > > _______________________________________________
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>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > --
>>> > Chris "Jethro" Schilling
>>> > I JethroBT (WMF) <
>>>
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:I_JethroBT_(WMF)>
>>> > Community Organizer, Wikimedia Foundation
>>> > <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home>
>>> > _______________________________________________
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> 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