User:Whiteghost.ink/Wikimania report

WIKIMANIA 2012 Report

Receiving the WM-Au scholarship made it possible for me to attend Wikimania 2012 and so I would like to express my appreciation for it. As written in my application, I tried to learn as much as I could while I was there, in particular about Gender Gap and GLAM as well as from Chapters whose experiences might be applicable here.I also contributed where I could during the conference sessions and met people with whom I had been working online.

Gender Gap

On the days before Wikimania, (July 10–11) I attended the invitation-only event Ada Camp[1], where I met Australian Mary Gardiner, co-founder of the Ada Initiative and also keynote speaker at Wikimania. During the conference, my article on Jessie Ackermann[2], appeared (as planned) as a DYK. I attended the Wikimania WikiWomen’s lunch and engaged in the discussion afterwards about running such an event for an increasingly large number of participants.[3]

GLAM

There were many sessions and people involved in GLAM, among them, the panel of National GLAM coordinators,[4] and the debate about legal aspects of fair use, were informative. The QRpedia workshop showed the Australian example (my own) of a QRpedia code in use.

People

Some wiki people I sought out and/or had helpful discussions with:

• Australian Wikimedians: Chuq, Graham87, Gnangarra, Juttavd, Werdna
• WMF staff: Sue Gardner (about leadership); User:ASengupta (about global projects); James Forrester (about technology developments)
• User: Peteforsyth (about community involvement)
• User Hannibal (about policies and manuals)[5]
• User: Rock drum (about This Month in GLAM)
• User: PigsontheWing (about QRpedia coding)
• User: Wadewitz (about academic articles)
• User: Johnbod (about art articles);
• User: Beat Easterman (about older Wikimedians, following up from Haifa presentation)
• User: Adrienne Alix (Director of Wikimedia France)
• User: Trizek (French Wikimedian and former Wikipedian-in-residence)
• User: Antaya (French Canadian, about “Wikipedia takes” events, and also Chapters, especially about the comparability of the Canadian situation – large land mass, small number of Wikimedians).
• User: Jon Davies (about GLAM in the UK).

Chapter development

I was invited to attend the meeting of Francophone Wikipedians, where improving intra-Chapter communication was a major topic.

Fundraising

I participated in an extensive interview with Victor Grigas on behalf of the WMF Fund Raising Team.

Wikimania planning

Following recent discussions among members of Wm-Au, I was particularly interested to learn what resources are required for organising a Wikimania. So I followed this up with User:Deror Avi (General Manager and member of the local team for the Haifa 2011 Wikimania and adviser to Wikimania 2012), who provided the following figures on what is needed:

People: Four core team members are necessary, as well as a hired event manager, 20 part time volunteers, and 80 on site volunteers.

Time (effort): the programme team (4 members) worked about a total of 100 hours each. Sorting out the lecture schedule needed about 40 hours for each of them.

Time (duration):

• First three months - about 4 hours a week (* 4)
• Next three months - about 6 - 8 hours a week (*4)
• Next three months - about 2 hours a day (* 4)
• Next month - about 3 hours a day (*4)
• Next Month - about 4 hours a day (* 4)
• Last two weeks - full time job (*4)
• During the conference it is a full-time job for 20 people, and 24 hours a day for (*4).

Skill development

One of the more unusual experiences the conference gave me was being invited to be a bouncer for the GLAM Night Out. This task required several hours of surprisingly concentrated effort. The role was a "first" for me and although I believe I improved as the evening passed (and the congregated excluded people increased in number and clamourousness), I do not think this is a career that I will pursue in the future.