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Travelogue

Wikimedia Conference 2015

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By Pine
May 2015
Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun
1 2 3
4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17
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25 26 27 28 29 30 31
  • Schedule:
  • May 13 (half a day): Pre-conference introductory topics: data, tracking resources, tools and designing a SMART proposal.
  • May 14 (full day): Pre-conference applied workshops: Reporting and Storytelling, Designing an Annual Plan, Wikimetrics, Survey Design, Program Toolkits
  • May 15-17: Main WMCON sessions
  • Number of participants: 165 including WMF employees
(Click for list of participants)
  • Staff, contractors and volunteers from WMDE:
  • 3 event staff: Daniela, Alice, and Wenke
  • 2 program staff: Nicole (WMDE Advisor to the ED for International Relations) and Cornelius (WMCON Program and Engagement Coordinator)
  • 2 facilitators: Anna Lena and Andreas
  • 3 food service "special agents"
  • 3 volunteers who took notes in the conference sessions: Robin, Leon and Martin
  • 1 volunteer who led tours of Berlin and Potsdam: Martin
  • Number of countries represented: 53
  • Number of affiliates: 39 chapters, 1 thematic organization, and 17 user groups
  • Budget: $119,412 (actual cost to be published when the grant report is final)
  • Main themes: Organization and Structures; Communities and Programmatic Work

This year, the Wikimedia Conference was held in Berlin, Germany. We were hosted by Wikimedia Deutschland ("WMDE"), which is the national chapter for Germany and is the largest Wikimedia chapter in the world with approximately 20,000 members. "Pre-conference" days were May 13–14 and the primary conference days were May 15–17, 2015.

Tips for how to read this document:

  • The presentations and documents that are linked from this report have "(PDF)" at the end of their captions. Click the thumbnail images to see the multi-page PDF files.
  • You can use MediaViewer to see a slideshow of the images in this report. The slideshow will skip the PDFs.
  • If you would like to skip reading about my personal background and information about my travel to Germany, then jump to the Evening of Tuesday, May 12 section.
  • If you would like to skip reading about the conference sessions and their presentations so you can get to a detailed analysis and summary of the conference as a whole, then jump to the Analysis; follow-up topics and actions section.
  • And if you have only a few seconds, then you can jump to a Summary of the most significant developments and topics at the conference.

My background




I attended the conference as the delegate for Cascadia Wikimedians User Group, which is the regional affiliate for Oregon State, Washington State, and (informally) the province of British Columbia in Canada. Our geography, economy and culture are interwoven with our seaports, our access to the Pacific Ocean, and our industries like information technology, aerospace, film, health care, and university education. Our arts cultures include a mix of grunge music, anime conventions, film festivals, and symphony orchestras. Students in our schools frequently speak English as a second language; common first languages other than English are Spanish, Russian, Vietnamese, Somali, Ukrainian, and Chinese. The name "Cascadia" is derived from the Cascade Range, a series of mountains that extend from British Columbia to northern California.

Cascadia Wikimedia User Group was formed in 2014 amidst much struggle with Wikimedia Foundation processes, and we're still struggling today. This left at least some of us feeling that WMF support for growth-oriented affiliates is guarded, reluctant, and a low priority for them. As I will explain later in this report, my perceptions changed during the course of the conference, especially when I heard Lila's presentation. I hope that the Wikimedia Foundation's thoughts about their support of affiliates are also evolving with the information and feedback that they heard at the conference.

Evening of Tuesday, May 12

After dropping off my luggage at the hotel, I went to visit the Wikimedia Deutschland office. I discovered accidentally that the FDC was already hard at work.

Later that night, I went to dinner with a couple of Wikimedians from India. On our way back, we encountered Risker and Matanya from the FDC, who were tired after reading through many pages of grant requests. The sky started to pour rain, and we made a dash to the hotel.

  • Members of the FDC annually recommend to the WMF Board how to allocate up to $6 million in unrestricted grants
    Members of the FDC annually recommend to the WMF Board how to allocate up to $6 million in unrestricted grants
  • FDC members, WMF staff, and WMF Board liaisons
    FDC members, WMF staff, and WMF Board liaisons

Wednesday, May 13: Pre-conference day 1; tour with DerHexer; FDC meeting day 2

Pre-conference day 1

There was some confusion prior to the conference about who exactly was signed up for this pre-conference day, and attendance was limited to 30 participants. The sessions were led by WMF Learning and Evaluation as well as Christof Pins and Manuel Merz from WMDE's Partnerships and Development (ZEN) team. I was already familiar with much of the material, so I skipped this pre-conference day in favor of DerHexer's tour.

Hopes and fears written by participants in the workshop. I share many of them! "Drowning in paperwork" and volunteer burnout were mentioned by multiple conference participants as fears and/or current problems. Common hopes were for more or better evaluation tools, and that information learned from the conference would improve the effectiveness of participants' affiliates.
  • Data Sources presentation (PDF)
    Data Sources presentation (PDF)
  • Notice that the avalanche of documentation had already started on pre-conference day 1.
    Notice that the avalanche of documentation had already started on pre-conference day 1.
  • Packa from the Czech Republic took this photo of the workshop dinner
    Packa from the Czech Republic took this photo of the workshop dinner
  • A graph showing self-evaluations by pre-conference workshop participants at the end of the workshop
    A graph showing self-evaluations by pre-conference workshop participants at the end of the workshop

Here is the list of hopes and fears from the participants:

Hopes

  1. That people will learn a useful tool they can share with their communities.
  2. Improve the process of the chapter through the tools.
  3. Clear route to professionalization.
  4. Find the best practice to identify the problem and find the best solution.
  5. Evaluation provides us with information to improve our activities.
  6. Become wiser and more confident about evaluation and learning topics as to be more able to incite passion in others.
  7. Understand others in doing their projects and programs more and more.
  8. Evaluation seen as a tool to help expand Wikimedia programs.
  9. Be a master in new tools!
  10. We are doing workshops and online publicity to create awareness so that we can engage more people in our movement.
  11. To learn something I don’t know in Wikimetrics.
  12. Inclusive growths.
  13. WMF Learning and Evaluation takes inputs and makes more tools for data collection and analysis.
  14. How to have structured activities and easy way to follow up.
  15. Leaving with constructive ideas.
  16. Increase the quality and the impact of our activities.
  17. Inclusive.
  18. To learn wikimetrics
  19. The Grants & Evaluation team will bridge information gap.
  20. Small achievements will lead us to bigger goals.

Fears

  1. Wisdom and Data vs process (could also be wisdom and vs data/process; wisdom vs data and process)
  2. Not many people want to do volunteers work, so we have a lack of volunteers.
  3. Missing the diversity of Wikimedia Universe
  4. Not understand everything
  5. Burning out
  6. Prioritize quantity to quality. Bytes are not the only measure.
  7. Tools and metrics
  8. Reports and evaluation could take much time and effort. Volunteers want to avoid them.
  9. Scaring budding volunteers by reporting / paperwork.
  10. While implementing learnings from the workshop, I will make things even worse evaluation-wise in the chapter.
  11. Drowning in paper work.
  12. Not getting everything successful will discourage us.
  13. New idea which will take much time and effort to bring to life but won’t be as useful to others.
  14. That people will be overwhelmed by the concepts and tools (+1)
  15. Evaluation seen as “the bad and the ugly”, pointing out what doesn’t work.
  16. Find useful info from countless resources / reports.
  17. Tools are not successful
  18. That grants and evaluation may fail to support new and innovative grants.
  19. What happens when we do not achieve our goals?

You can read more about the pre-conference workshop in the WMF Learning and Evaluation newsletter.

Potsdam tour

While many people were in the pre-conference or in meetings with the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC), I enjoyed a day on a tour of Potsdam led by DerHexer with fellow conference participants Benoit Rochon of Wikimedia Canada, and the amazingly multilingual whiteghost.ink of Wikimedia Australia who learns languages for fun. The tour was a good way to experience German culture and a nice way to spend time while recovering from jet lag. Below are some photos of locations that we visited during the tour.

After a fun day, I went briefly to the Wikimedia Deutschland offices for a dinner snack, then went back to the hotel and spent several hours catching up on email before going to bed.

Thursday, May 14: Pre-conference day 2; Affcom meeting starts

After another breakfast at the hotel, the avalanche of workshops and meetings began for me. Here's the schedule for Pre-conference day 2:

Start time Room A1 Room A2 Room A3 Room E Room D Room B
09:00 Evaluation Workshop
Eat & Greet		 AffCom Meeting
09:30 Evaluation Workshop
Designing a SMART proposal
10:00
10:30 Evaluation Clinic
Get technical support 		Evaluation Workshop
Wikimetrics
(10:45 start)
11:00
11:30
12:00 EDs' Meeting
(paid staff only)
12:30
13:00 Evaluation Clinic
Get technical support 		Evaluation Workshop
Survey Design
13:30 Wikidata

Editathon

14:00
Start time Room A1 Room A2 Room A3 Room E Room D Room B
14:30 Evaluation Workshop
Reporting & Storytelling 		Wikidata

Editathon

Evaluation Clinic
Get technical support 		EDs' Meeting
(paid staff only) 		AffCom Meeting
15:00 Evaluation Workshop
Program Toolkits
Focus on Education
(5:15 start)
15:30
16:00
16:30 Evaluation Workshop
Key Take aways and Next Steps
17:00
17:30
18:00 Dinner Snack at WMDE Office
19:00
20:00
21:00
22:00
23:00

In the morning I attended the session about designing SMART annual plans, and the session about Wikimetrics.

I chose to attend the Wikidata editathon for my first afternoon session. I was impressed by the complexity of Wikidata and the skill of the WMDE development team. I left the session early so that I could attend Maria Cruz's storytelling workshop.

  • Alex's presentation about designing SMART proposals and annual plans (PDF)
    Alex's presentation about designing SMART proposals and annual plans (PDF)
  • Notes from the annual plan session
    Notes from the annual plan session
  • Edward's presentation about Wikimetrics (PDF)
    Edward's presentation about Wikimetrics (PDF)
  • Presentation by Jaime about designing effective survey questions (PDF)
    Presentation by Jaime about designing effective survey questions (PDF)
  • Education Toolkit presentation by Kacie (PDF)
    Education Toolkit presentation by Kacie (PDF)
  • Education Program Extension presentation by Anna Koval (PDF)
    Education Program Extension presentation by Anna Koval (PDF)
  • Welcome to Wikidata
    Welcome to Wikidata
  • Take-aways from the Thursday pre-conference sessions
    Take-aways from the Thursday pre-conference sessions
  • Wikimedia Deutschland staff in the WMDE office
    Wikimedia Deutschland staff in the WMDE office
  • Dinner snack at the WMDE office
    Dinner snack at the WMDE office

Affiliations Committee (Affcom) meetings

I wasn't present, but here are two photos from Affcom's first day of meetings:

Friday, May 15: Conference day 1

Here's the schedule:

Start time Room A Room E Room D
08:30 Walk-in, registration, coffee
09:00
09:30 Welcome & Introduction
10:00 1 Warm up
10:30
11:00 36 What could local organisations
bring to the movement? 		3 Introduction for Newcomers
11:30
12:00
12:30
13:00 Lunch
13:30
Start time Room A Room E Room D
14:00 14 Regional Cooperation 37 Collective Impact
14:30
15:00 22 Independent
Fundraising
Experiences
15:30
16:00 Break
16:15 7 Board Governance 18 Learn about the FDC 12 Lightning Talks
16:30
17:00
17:15
17:30 Wrap-up
18:00 Get-together and
dinner snack at
Wikimedia Deutschland's office 		Social meet-ups Fest / Learning Pattern Hack
at the conference venue

(room D)

18:30
19:00
19:30
20:00
Open end


The first "real" day of the conference felt like a continuation of the day before, but with more options.

Warm up

Warm up! Official session notes are here.

What could local organisations bring to the movement?

In the morning I attended "What could local organisations bring to the movement?" in which participants gathered in groups and brainstormed ideas about a series of topics: Community support, Diversification, Partnerships, Advocating, and Fundraising. This was fun and informative. I recommend reading the official notes from the session, which are here.

  • A related item is Wikimedia France's guide for local groups (PDF)
    A related item is Wikimedia France's guide for local groups (PDF)

Regional cooperation

In the afternoon, I first attended "Regional cooperation". This session featured presentations from Iberocoop and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Official notes from the session are here.

See also the learning pattern "Regional action plan".

  • Iberocoop slides (PDF)
    Iberocoop slides (PDF)
  • CEE slides (PDF)
    CEE slides (PDF)

Collective impact

  • I like the Collective Impact slides, although I didn't attend the session (PDF)
    I like the Collective Impact slides, although I didn't attend the session (PDF)
  • Official session notes are here.
    Official session notes are here.

Independent Fundraising Experiences

Some participants attended the "Independent Fundraising Experiences" conference session. The fundraising presentation slides remind me of a Wikimedia Blog post called "Fundraising made in Germany: lessons learned by Wikimedia Deutschland". Also see the learning patterns "A successful crowdfunding operation" and "Donations segmentation". It appears from the official notes that this session mostly focused on approaching grantmakers instead of broad annual fundraiser campaigns like WMF runs. The official session notes are here.

  • Presentation about independent fundraising experiences (PDF)
    Presentation about independent fundraising experiences (PDF)
  • Donations to WMDE have increased every year since 2010
    Donations to WMDE have increased every year since 2010
  • Number of donations per payment channel since 2011
    Number of donations per payment channel since 2011

Board Governance

Next, I attended the session on board governance. I heard some very interesting suggestions from well-established chapters about recruiting people who have the right mindset of public service to be on affiliate boards, and encouraging people who have incompatible objectives to go elsewhere. For example, Wikimedia France is willing to give impressive-sounding titles to people who lead volunteer projects, which can encourage some people to pursue prestige in ways other than being on the board. Wikimedia Nederland made great efforts to diversify its board, including seeking outside female candidates to run for election. I came away with the personal impression that people who are considerate, service-minded, and reliable are sometimes more desirable as board members than people who may have impressive resumes but big egos. It might be interesting to foster some discussion on Meta about the best qualities for board members and how to recruit diverse people with those qualities; I imagine that no one person will have every quality that makes him or her an ideal board member, so there might also be some discussion about good mixes of qualities among the board members.

See also the learning patterns "Board handbook − a shared vision of the board role in an evolving organisation" and "Governance Codex". On the Internet I found two resources that I think might interest Wikimedia affilates: "How to Be a Great Nonprofit Board Member" by the United States National Council of Nonprofits (PDF), and "Recruiting and Retaining Good Board Members" by the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits.

Official notes from the session are here.

Lightning talks

While I was unable to attend the lightning talks because I was in the board governance workshop, I heard that many of the lightning talks were good. Official session notes are here.

Here is the signup roster:

  1. Our Wikipedias need better photos: collaborations beyond Wiki Loves Monuments. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 13:22, 5 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  2. WikiMedi a wikimedian (affiliates) collaboration around the Mediterranean Sea: Helping and sharing experiences. --Dyolf77 (talk) 15:00, 5 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  3. 100wikidays or "how many hours of sleep does one really need?" --Lord Bumbury (talk) 18:57, 10 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Train the Trainer Train, Trainer and Drained 😁 Lahariyaniyathi (talk) 14:08, 14 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Wikimedia Global Circle: Finding your chapter/group's global twin! (Also, planning global Latin American Art editathon(s) for October 2015!)--Pharos (talk) 14:14, 14 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Wikidata Challenges. The Menu Challenge (demo)and the Visualization Challenge. Jan Ainali (WMSE) (talk) 06:58, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  7. European Science Photo Competition 2015 --Kaarel Vaidla (WM EE) (talk) 07:19, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Engaging locally with thematic organizations, e.g. Wiki Project Med, or WikiProjects. -- Daniel Mietchen (talk) 11:29, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Wikipedia Education Program: Creating quality content and increasing diversity one learner at a time for almost a decade. <3 Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 11:37, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  10. video campaigns for brand building and outreach - Ravi from Wikimedia India
  11. All are invited to participate in Wiki Loves Pride, an annual campaign to improve LGBT-related content at Wikipedia and across all Wikimedia projects. Take pictures at pride events, improve articles related to LGBT culture and history, LGBT Expedition at Wikivoyage, etc. Identifying as LGBT+ is NOT required, all are welcome! -Another Believer (talk) 12:58, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Also, check out Wikimedia genealogy project! -Another Believer (talk) 13:00, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  12. Wikisource. Aubrey (talk) 15:40, 14 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  13. #repte500mil: 500,000 articles Challenge in Catalan Wikipedia --Davidpar (talk) 14:21, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  14. Project to create spherical panoramas of important monuments --User:Kadellar 14:44 15 May 2015


Other photos and presentations

Below are some photos and presentations from other sessions during the day:

  • A gong signaled the end of sessions or lunch
    A gong signaled the end of sessions or lunch
  • Conference facilitators Anna Lena and Andreas kept us on time and in good humor
    Conference facilitators Anna Lena and Andreas kept us on time and in good humor
  • Introduction presentation for newcomers to the Wikimedia movement (PDF). Official session notes are here.
    Introduction presentation for newcomers to the Wikimedia movement (PDF). Official session notes are here.
  • Public meeting with Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC). Official session notes are here.
    Public meeting with Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC). Official session notes are here.
  • FDC election results were announced during dinner.
    FDC election results were announced during dinner.
  • It looks like Jake supports the Wikipedia Library and WikiProject Medicine!
    It looks like Jake supports the Wikipedia Library and WikiProject Medicine!

Evening meetups

Finally, it was time for the evening events. There were regional and language meetups, and a "fail-fest" session where people could discuss their failures and what they learned in a safe space.

  • Learning patterns were frequently mentioned at the Wikimedia Conference. These patterns help people to pair problems with solutions that other affiliates and individual Wikimedians can reuse and edit.
    Learning patterns were frequently mentioned at the Wikimedia Conference. These patterns help people to pair problems with solutions that other affiliates and individual Wikimedians can reuse and edit.

The regional and language meetups were popular. One participant was disappointed that he could only attend a single group meeting because he considers these types of meetings to be the most important kinds of events at Wikimedia conferences.

The meetups included:

  • Communications happy hour with Katherine and Juliet from WMF
  • Francophones meetup led by Benoit from Wikimedia Canada
  • East and SouthEast Asia meetup led by Liang from Wikimedia Taiwan
  • African meetup led by Theresa from Wikimedia South Africa
  • WMCEE meetup led by Kaarel from Wikimedia Eesti
  • U.S. and Canada meetup led by me (Pine from Cascadia Wikimedians User Group)
  • Wiki Remembers Flanders Fields (WW1 1914-18) led by Derek from Wikimedia Belgium
  • WikiFranca logo
    WikiFranca logo
  • East and Southeast Asia meetup
    East and Southeast Asia meetup
  • Central and eastern Europeans
    Central and eastern Europeans
  • Africa meetup
    Africa meetup
  • While it's not on the program list, Iberocoop apparently also had a meetup!
    While it's not on the program list, Iberocoop apparently also had a meetup!
Derek from Wikimedia Belgium is organizing a world-wide editing campaign called "Wiki Remembers Flanders Fields". According to an English Wikipedia article, "Flanders (and Belgium as a whole) saw some of the greatest loss of life on the Western Front of the First World War... the poppies that sprang up from the battlefield afterwards, later immortalised in the Canadian poem "In Flanders Fields"... have become a symbol for lives lost in war."

Saturday, May 16: Conference day 2

Here's the schedule:

Start time Room A Room E Room D
09:00 Walk-in, coffee
09:30 Welcome
10:00 8 Quality Matters 15 AffCom 10 Volunteers Supporters Network
etherpad notes
10:30
11:00 Group photo
11:15 24 Meet the WMF
Board of Trustees 		6 Organizational
effectiveness
etherpad notes 		32 Reporting &
Storytelling
11:30
12:00
12:15 34 Community Capacity
Development Framework
12:30
13:15 Lunch
13:30
Start time Room A Room E Room D
14:15 25 Software Engineering:
Decentralized innovation
for our movement 		9 Wiki Loves Photo Contests 30 Global Metrics Tutorial
14:30
15:00 2 Lila's talk
15:15
15:45
16:15
16:30 Break
16:45 5 Reflection on
Lila's talk
(open for everyone) 		29 Leveraging volunteers
through programs
17:00
17:30 Wrap-up
18:00
18:30
19:00 Party at HomeBase Lounge
19:30
20:00
Open end

Quality matters - How to support learning and improvement in Wikimedia organizations

I started my morning with attending the Quality Matters session. We talked about Quality management for Wikimedia affiliates.


Volunteer Supporters Network

I would have liked to attend the Volunteer Supporters Network session. Here are some Etherpad notes.

Many Wikimedia organizations have their own programs or initiatives dedicated to volunteer/community support as well as their respective people in charge of this key activity. Whereas other fields of action such as Education and GLAM have a longer tradition of systematic international exchange, the project of a global volunteer supporters network got going at the Volunteer Support Pre-conference at Wikimania 2014 in London.

We want to exchange our expertise and experiences as well as to collaborate on common issues and tasks by
  • Establishing and maintaining communication channels for volunteer supporters from Wikimedia organisations (mailing list, this hub page)
  • Holding meetings/workshops in the context of international Wikimedia events – ongoing in the middle of 2015
  • Creating and sharing resources for volunteer support – by the end of 2015.

The long-term impact we want to achieve is to improve the working conditions for volunteers in Wikimedia projects (online and offline), to increase diversity and to enhance the spirit of global cooperation and innovation.

Official notes from the session are here.


Affiliations Committee (Affcom) public Q&A

I wasn't at this session. Official notes are here. It looks like there were several questions about the recognition process for user groups.

Public meeting with the Affiliations Committee


Group photo

Then it was time for the group photo. We were a happy group!


Reporting and Storytelling

I liked Maria's presentation in which we talked about how to blend quantitative data with explanations about the significance of the data. Official notes from the session are here.

Storytelling strategies presentation (PDF)

Community Capacity Development Framework

Next, I attended a session with Asaf and Sati called "Community Capacity Development Framework". I liked this session as well. WMF is proactively reaching out to communities to ask what we have and what we need. Official notes from the session are here.

Community Capacity Development Framework presentation (PDF)

Organizational Effectiveness tool

Winifred presented a tool that helps affiliates to score themselves on various measures of organizational effectiveness. I was in other sessions while this presentation happened. The tool appears to be designed for affiliates that are relatively mature. I wish that a similar tool existed for newer affiliates that need help with growing our volunteer bases, growing our content contribution programs, obtaining appropriate legal protection and advice, and obtaining and managing financial resources for the first time.

Official notes from the session are here.

Presentation about WMF's organizational effectiveness self-evaluation tool (PDF)

Wiki Loves Photo Contests, and Global Metrics Tutorial

I tried to attend the Wiki Loves Photo Contests session and the Global Metrics tutorial.

I particularly appreciated slide 10 from the global metrics presentation because it shows that WMF understands that there are metrics other than global metrics that are important. However, I would disagree that there are "no good or bad results". (PDF)

I arrived late to the "Wiki Loves Photo Contests" session which might explain why I had some difficulty following the presentation. I was aware that there was disagreement expressed on Wikimedia-l about WMF's evaluation of photo contests, which I was told by a couple of conference participants was done by WMF without a thorough understanding of the objectives of the contests, which meant that WMF evaluated the contests using incorrect or incomplete measures of effectiveness.

Wikimedia Ukraine posted in the Wikimedia Blog about their difficulties in obtaining government records about culturally significant sites. One state authority was so assertive about withholding the information that Wikimedia Ukraine filed a lawsuit against the authority, which was successful. The judge ordered the release of the records and voided a portion of a local statute that conflicted with Ukraine's Access to Public Information law. Creating lists of cultural heritage sites can be an important part of a Wiki Loves Monuments campaign because Wikimedians need to know which sites need documentation and photographs on Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia.

Official notes from the "Wiki Loves" Photo Contests session are here.

The first place photo in Wiki Loves Monuments 2014: Holy Mountains Monastery, Sviatohirsk, Ukraine.
Photo by Brizhnichenko
  • Wiki Loves Everything presentation from Wikimedia Poland (PDF)
    Wiki Loves Everything presentation from Wikimedia Poland (PDF)
  • Wiki Loves X presentation from Wikimedia Ukraine (PDF)
    Wiki Loves X presentation from Wikimedia Ukraine (PDF)

Lila's talk

Following this session was Lila's talk. The room was packed, and it seemed like everyone wanted to get a photo of Lila. Her presentation had a much more supportive tone for affiliates than I was anticipating. I had expected more emphasis on accountability and evaluation. The atmosphere in the room suggested that the presentation was well received by the audience. Official notes from the session are here.

Lila's presentation (PDF)


  • The room was packed for Lila's talk
    The room was packed for Lila's talk
  • "Better partnerships. Better practices. Better tools."
    "Better partnerships. Better practices. Better tools."
  • "Organizations can do what individuals cannot do alone."
    "Organizations can do what individuals cannot do alone."
  • Lila announced that in the third quarter of WMF's fiscal year, it would launch a community consultation about WMF grants programs.
    Lila announced that in the third quarter of WMF's fiscal year, it would launch a community consultation about WMF grants programs.
  • The crowd put Luis on the spot. On his agenda for this year is development of a portal to make finding resources easier.
    The crowd put Luis on the spot. On his agenda for this year is development of a portal to make finding resources easier.

Leveraging volunteers through programs

Finally, I attended the "Leveraging volunteers through programs" session. Some of us agreed during the session that the current WMF global metrics could be expanded to include more measures of success, such as organizational partnerships or content that has passed quality reviews. Official notes from the session are here.

A slide from the "Leveraging volunteers through programs" session particularly interested me because it showed a high percentage of volunteers retained through writing contests. Cascadia Wikimedians intends to investigate which kinds of writing contests would be most effective for editor retention. (PDF)

Other photos and presentations from the day

  • There were a lot of spontaneous conversations throughout the conference venue. It was great to share experiences and meet Wikimedians from all over the world.
    There were a lot of spontaneous conversations throughout the conference venue. It was great to share experiences and meet Wikimedians from all over the world.
  • WMF trustee SJ does a balancing act during the "Meet the WMF Board of Trustees" session. Official session notes are here. It looks like participants discussed some topics that are similar to those from the Board Governance session.
    WMF trustee SJ does a balancing act during the "Meet the WMF Board of Trustees" session. Official session notes are here. It looks like participants discussed some topics that are similar to those from the Board Governance session.
  • Presentation on best practices in decentralized innovation in software engineering (PDF). Official session notes are here.
    Presentation on best practices in decentralized innovation in software engineering (PDF). Official session notes are here.
  • Reflections on Lila's talk. Official notes are here.
    Reflections on Lila's talk. Official notes are here.

End of the day

After all that, it was time to either go to the dance party at HomeBase Lounge, or try to unwind. I chose the latter, partly because I had an early morning flight scheduled for Monday and I wanted to minimize my jetlag. So instead I went out to diner at the mall, where I met another Wikimedian and we talked over dinner.

It looks like those who went to the party had a good time.

After dinner and emails, I crashed into bed for the night.

Sunday, May 17: Conference day 3

Here's the schedule:

Start time Room A Room E Room D
09:00 Walk-in, coffee
09:30 Welcome
10:00 19 WMF Grantmaking’s
Impact Focus 		21 Financial Management 16 Working on Public &
Regulatory Policy
10:30
11:00
11:30 Break Break
12:00 23 Chapters Dialogue Global Metrics workshop
12:10 to 13:00 		11 Communication
Best Practices
12:30
13:00 Lunch
13:30
Start time Room A Room E Room D
14:00 28 Future of the
Wikimedia Conference 		User groups meet-up
(organized by Micru and KuboF)
14:30
14:45 Break
15:00 27 Building bridges
between
WMCON & Wikimania
15:30
15:45 Wrap-up, feedback and good-bye
16:00
16:30
17:00 Get-together and
dinner snack at
Wikimedia Deutschland's office
17:30
18:00
18:30
19:00
19:30
20:00
Open end

WMF Grantmaking's Impact Focus

I attended "WMF Grantmaking’s Impact Focus". Siko promptly told us that the session would not involve WMF telling us a definition of "impact"; Luis said earlier in the conference that he had become aware that "impact" means different things to different people. I decided to start the conversation by proposing that we should banish "impact" from our collective vocabulary, which resulted in some mild laughter from the other participants. I highly recommend reading the official notes from the conference session, which are here.

Financial Management

In the meantime, other participants were in the "Financial Management" session that was led by the honorary treasurer of Wikimedia UK. The session looks like it was very informative.

Whiteghost.ink of Wikimedia Australia reported that "One view expressed (at the conference) was that payment should only be made for necessary tasks for which skills are unavailable among volunteers. There were other views. At the session for conference newcomers, affiliates were strongly advised to secure the skills of a professional accountant for their organisation."

See also the learning patterns "Making an annual financial report", Facilitate the preparation of an FDC report", "Using expense-tracking software" and "Using the general ledger and project codes to evaluate outcomes".

Official notes from the session are here.

  • Presentation slide (PDF)
    Presentation slide (PDF)
  • Another presentation slide (PDF)
    Another presentation slide (PDF)
  • Flip chart page 1
    Flip chart page 1
  • Flip chart page 2
    Flip chart page 2
  • Financial management discussion
    Financial management discussion

Working on Public & Regulatory Policy

I couldn't attend this session. Some affiliates have previously expressed interest in regulatory policy, particularly concerning freedom of panorama and copyright reform.

  • Public policy presentation (PDF)
    Public policy presentation (PDF)

Globally, chapters are actively participating in many forms of advocacy. This is an area that Wikimedia NYC could take on if there is interest in the Chapter. Potential avenues for advocacy include engaging in advocacy about Freedom of Panorama or in Orphan works policies which prevent information from reaching the public domain.

At a session on advocacy was given by the Free Knowledge Advocacy Group EU, which has focused on EU copyright reform, and enacting legislative change for free knowledge. Issue areas include: Copyright, Censorship, Access to Knowledge, Intermediaries, and Privacy.

If members of Wikimedia NYC are interested in doing more advocacy work, we might consider such things as putting out public statements in support of specific policy measures, helping with community education on copyright and some if its nuances for such things as freedom of panorama and orphan works, or even forming an advocacy committee that might try to engage in some more explicit lobbying in Washington D.C. or our elected officials.

Official documentation from the session is here.

Communications Best Practices

Next I attended the Communications Best Practices session. Katherine and Juliet asked affiliates what affiliates need in the way of communications support, and we provided a long list.

Also see the Communications learning patterns category on Meta.

Official notes from the session are here.

Our list of skills that we would like WMF Communications to help us with:

  • Basic Communications Briefing
  • Attracting the press to attract contributors
  • Build awareness of our mission
  • Mass messaging to large audience
  • Proactive storytelling
  • Brand story
  • Pitching reporters
  • When not to talk to the press
  • Good answers to common questions
  • Community interactions
  • Fundraising
  • Volunteers speaking for Wikimedia
  • Speaking to different audiences
  • Multilingual messaging and resource challenges
  • Messaging to partner organizations
  • Staying "on message"
  • Communicating abstract; Ideas - "Free Knowledge"???
  • Breaking down fear... Technophobia!
  • Giving other affiliate organisations awareness/context in media stories
  • Explaining volunteerism in our context

We also talked about ways that WMF and affiliates could collaborate our communications:

  • Shared resources
  • Clear message/visibility
  • Weekly/monthly talking points (e. g.: NSA lawsuit)
  • More stories – local (capturing + visiting to show international complexity)
  • Languages on blog
  • Local media + global
  • Link stories from one community to another (distribute + know who to speak to)
  • Have basic info about themes (Healthcare etc.)
  • Understanding what's important + effective
    • resources
    • lessons learned
    • channels
  • Social media best practices (Learning & Evaluation?)
    • program solution format
  • Office hour for comm best practices
  • Standardized templates for press releases
  • "Wikipedia is magical!"
    "Wikipedia is magical!"
  • Communications presentation (PDF)
    Communications presentation (PDF)
  • Our wish list
    Our wish list
  • We had a lively discussion
    We had a lively discussion

Chapters Dialogue

While I was in the Communications session, other participants attended the Chapters Dialogue session with Nicole from WMDE. Official session notes are here.

  • The Chapters Dialogue video from 2014
  • The Chapters Dialogue report from 2014 (PDF)
    The Chapters Dialogue report from 2014 (PDF)
  • The Chapters Dialogue presentation at WMCON this year (PDF)
    The Chapters Dialogue presentation at WMCON this year (PDF)

User Groups Meetup

After lunch I attended the user groups meetup. A common theme among user groups is that we get little support from the Wikimedia Foundation and could use more. Siko said earlier that WMF is considering providing more support, and I was told that the chapters are interested in helping user groups to become chapters or thematic organizations. I expressed some of my frustrations with WMF during this session and was grateful to have an understanding audience. In the same room, WikiSource user group participants held a meeting of their own. We joined together for a group photo:

Members of user group affiliates including WikiSource, and the WMF staff who joined us

End of the day, and a few more photos

After this, I went to the closing session.

Here are a few more photos from our last day.

After the conference

One of Wikimedia Deutschland's goals for the conference is that participants will continue forward with initiatives and projects that were discussed at the conference. Happily, that seems to be happening

Attendee responses

Responses of participants to the event were generally very positive. Participants expressed gratitude to WMDE.

The president of Wikimedia Italia, Andrea Zanni, said, “I learned a lot about the ongoing transformation of the Wikimedia Foundation: many things are changing, they are working a lot, and very often we as affiliates do not notice these things. I saw many changes towards a better, more open and more collaborative Foundation, and I don't know many times I heard WMF employees asking for feedback and help.”

After the conference, I (Pine) adapted this logo for optional use by Wikimedia Affiliates. I derived this from work by Sonia, who created the image as a Wikidata logo nominee.

Sonia's file description says, "Initial structure derived from a 2D projection of a 5-cube, specifically File:5-cube t2 B3.svg. The central red dots represent Wikidata's information, and the grey lines connecting them to other dots show how this data can be used and reused and shared among other projects, WMF-wide and beyond. Can be easily simplified for a favicon. (Oh, and I have read the submission guidelines.)"

The way that I conceive of this logo for the affiliates is that the red dots represent Wikimedia organizations who collaborate with the WMF (black center), each other, and external partners (blue and green dots).

While this isn't an official logo, my early impression is that at least a few people who were at the conference like it. Derek commented, "I do like the logo and the idea it reflects on the complex relationships between the WMF and the affiliates and also among the Affiliates; because as a matter of fact in reality 'behind the logo' unseen from the viewpoint of the logo invisible lines of communication run across between affiliates that are geographically a globe apart."

  • A new optional logo for Wikimedia affiliates
    A new optional logo for Wikimedia affiliates

Reports and reviews from attendees

  • Report for Wikimedia Australia (PDF)
    Report for Wikimedia Australia (PDF)
  • Report for Wikimedia Taiwan (PDF)
    Report for Wikimedia Taiwan (PDF)
  • Report for Wikimedia Ghana User Group (PDF)
    Report for Wikimedia Ghana User Group (PDF)

Blog posts

On-wiki reports

Etherpad

PDFs

Google Docs

Analysis and comments; follow-up topics and actions

Official initiatives

This section was written by Cornelius Kibelka (WMDE), who is the Program and Engagement Coordinator (PEC) for Wikimedia Conference 2015

One of WMDE’s main goals for the Wikimedia Conference is to make it more sustainable and productive. The Program and Engagement Coordinator will ensure and monitor that essential conference topics are constantly been worked on and further developed.

  • Movement Roles
    Movement Roles
  • Fundraising
    Fundraising
  • Advocacy
    Advocacy
  • Governance
    Governance
  • The group of paid full-time chapter executive directors is working on a contextualised summary of the findings of the “What could local organisations bring to the movement?” session that can be used as further input for the ongoing movement strategy process.
  • In Lila’s presentation slides, there was a question on a possible consultation about the future roles of affiliates and WMF. In the “Reflection on Lila’s talk” session, people expressed their wish to have such a consultation. Reach out to Luis Villa, if you are interested in giving further input on this.
  • Regarding the input gathered in the “Chapters Dialogue” session, Nicole Ebber (WMDE) will assess and publish the group work. She is planning to prioritise the questions and is looking forward an ongoing dialogue, facilitated, and outcome driven in a structured approach, where voices of all involved parties are heard and that leads to answers. She'll draft a definition of what steps we will use to build these new insights into our practice, continue conversations in smaller groups and during Wikimania and create and discuss an outline for a sequel project.
  • John Andersson (WMSE) will coordinate the international external fundraising efforts. Please reach out to him and support him in this initiative.
  • Grantmaking & Impact
    Grantmaking & Impact
  • Communication
    Communication
  • Community Support
    Community Support
  • Miscellaneous
    Miscellaneous
  • Lila announced a community consultation on the WMF grant programmes for Q3 2015. Reach out to Siko Bouterse if you are interested in providing respective input.
  • Learning and Evaluation at WMF will be conducting an “Impact Analysis” of the FY2013-14 PEG and IEG grants, exploring new qualitative areas of impact beyond Global Metrics. This will feed into future conversations about impact, potentially even at Wikimedia Conference 2016.
  • Katherine Maher, Juliet Barbara (WMF Communications Team) and Michael Jahn (WMDE’s Head of Communications) want to enhance the international collaboration on communication. They will start a page on Meta and are asking for further input on the ComCom list.
  • The regional network of Wikimedia Central and Eastern Europe (WMCEE) is gathering questions and needs of its members and members-to-be on this page
  • WMCEE published a calendar of its members activities (WMCEE Calendar 2015)
  • Matanya (WMIL) works together with Abraham Taherivand (WMDE) on starting a “technical wishlist” for the Hebrew-speaking community. Reach out to Abraham Taherivand if you are interested in the community centred engineering work his team is doing.
  • WMDE will publish the evaluation of the post-conference survey in July. A report on the Program and Engagement Coordinator’s efforts and his conclusions will be published in autumn and influence the upcoming conferences. WMDE will lead the process and – in coordination with other movement leaders and consultation by the facilitators – propose an enhanced concept for the upcoming conferences.

Disclaimer: the comments in the sections below reflect my personal analysis and opinions, and are not official positions of the Signpost or Cascadia Wikimedians.

Lila's speech

  • The tone of Lila's speech seemed remarkably different from the tone that I have previously sensed from WMF about affiliates. Previously I felt that WMF largely thought of affiliates, especially the largest affiliates, as being financially wasteful, public-relations liabilities, and of a far lower WMF institutional priority than the WMF technical investments that were supposed to result in editor growth (but have yet to do so after many years of investment). I speculate that the failure of the technical investments to improve editor growth, combined with improved evaluation tools that allow WMF to get a better grasp of their return on investment, may explain WMF's change in tone toward the affiliates. WMF might now think of affiliates as likely conduits to obtaining more volunteer contributors, better content, and (in the case of WMDE) important technical assets like Wikidata. I hope that WMF's tone of cooperation will continue.


Volunteer burnout and administrative workloads

Several affiliate members talked about volunteer burnout and administrative workloads.
  • Related to the discussions about volunteer burnout, I found two relevant web links. Web searches seem to suggest that volunteers who do administrative tasks, and/or (in the words of Mssemantics) "emotional labor", are at highest risk. Those categories apply to many Wikimedians. I get the impression that other affiliates are also concerned about volunteer burnout, particularly if they lack paid administrative staff to do their finance, accounting, and evaluation work.
  • A frequent subject of discussion and sarcasm at the conference among some American and Canadian participants was the amount of WMF bureaucracy regarding grant applications and grant reports. We vented our frustrations by poking fun at the same processes that some of us are involved in administering. James from WMDC jokingly advocated for "lean agility" (whatever that means!) in grantmaking processes; I suggested to Varnent that the Affiliations Committee should become Six Sigma compliant, and he responded by threatening to require all new user groups to achieve ISO 9001 certification; and my suggestion to Risker and Luis that the FDC should be ISO 9001 certified was immediately followed by Risker threatening to stab me with a fork. While this joking allowed us to blow off steam and create friendly relationships with our fellow sufferers, it did suggest to me that there is a feeling that many people and committees have piles of demanding administrative work that require considerable time and effort from the volunteers.
  • More seriously, I commented on Wikimedia-l that requiring volunteers to do significant amounts of administrative work may have negative effects on contributor motivation, which is a WMF Global metric. I hope that one outcome of the Wikimedia Conference is that WMF will rethink the amount of administrative work that it expects of volunteers and people who are involved in small grants, and becomes more willing to provide funding for administrative support so that volunteers can focus on activities that they enjoy and find motivational.
  • I suggested the creation of a learning pattern about how to increase affiliates' human resources capacity.

WMID addition is happy project vs successful project

Happy project usually don't have successful measurement of impact, yet successful project usually is an unhappy project costing lots of time regardless volunteer or not (WMID paid volunteers to become commitee in the "Free Your Knowlege Competition) it creates 3,506 artikel [1] in 88 days of competition - high quality ones. But it is a pretty unhappy project for the committee lots of burn outs, difficult to replicate, long hours and elaborate investigative process to find plagiarism articles and kicking the participant out... But looking back, it was a momentum to be proud of, but something that anyone wouldn't do on a daily basis..."

Also, a lot of member of community have high expectation that a project for them, is a happy one. When it is resource intensive with the goal of being successful-not the goal for happyness, it need to be clear who is the project is for. . .

[1] http://wikimedia.or.id/wiki/Free_Your_Knowledge_2014/Report#Evaluations_and_Implementations

--Siska from Wikimedia Indonesia
I think that those are good points about volunteer happiness needing to be balanced with other project goals. Projects which make volunteers unhappy are likely to be unsustainable and need rethinking; at their worst, they can demotivate volunteers from ever again contributing to Wikimedia and create negative word-of-mouth among potential contributors. On the other hand, there is a need to be clear with volunteers that they should have at least some self-motivation to contribute to public service, and volunteering often involves some responsibility and activities which are more like work than play. For example, photography events which look like they might be as simple as touring cultural events with a camera and friends, actually require some planning and evaluation if they're done at large scale and involve competitions. So, program leaders need to find the right balance between recruiting volunteers, motivating volunteers, retaining volunteers, and achieving program goals.
  • Related to the comments above, program leaders need to know their own personal limits about their personal skills and capacities, so that they avoid over-committing themselves and then creating risks to their programs, their health, or their other commitments because they are overworked. Some examples:
  • One Wikimedian told me that they have gone to professional counseling because of their wiki-stress.
  • I'm personally very familiar with being overworked and under-slept from the months that I was trying to meet the needs of both my regular job and my WMF contract.
  • Michal Lester from Wikimedia Israel said that she has sometimes phoned volunteers to suggest to them that they are volunteering too much and should to commit to a more sustainable level of activity.
  • Affiliates that have paid staff might be in a better position to help keep volunteers from burning out, and to help keep programs moving forward at a sustainable pace. I think it's great that Michal proactively does this and I hope that other affiliates will too.
I hope that the sustainability and motivation of program leaders will be given more regular consideration by the Wikimedia Foundation in all that they do.
  • Some of us suggested to WMF that follow-on reports to the Chapter-wide Financial Trends Report 2013 should take into account, and report separately, the staff and volunteer hours involved in applying for and reporting about WMF grants. I hope that this would correlate with a WMF initiative to decrease the amount of volunteer time spent on this kind of grant-writing, reporting, evaluation, and administrative burden. Perhaps WMF will consider these issues when it launches its planned community consultation about grantmaking in Q3 of its 2015 fiscal year.

Providing more support for volunteers

The Wikimedia Blog recently published an entry about "Open Badges for editor retention".
  • A number of participants discussed how to provide positive motivation and support to the volunteers of affiliates. Hopefully, discussions about providing encouragement and support to volunteers will continue, and both the WMF and affiliates will provide more resources for the support of volunteers.
  • The "Building a "we" in the Wikimedia movement" discussion Wikimedia-l was started by Micru. Among other points that were discussed were the need for friendlier atmosphere on our online projects, the need for more and friendlier personal connections among Wikimedians, the need to think of Wikimedia as a social organization instead of just a technological or knowledge movement, that most discussions should be open to the public by default, and the need for more concentrated support for user groups so that they can grow and flourish.
  • We learned at the Wikimedia Conference that one affiliate mails real-life bottles of milk to good new Wikipedia contributors to thank them and engage with them.
  • Historically, WMF has addressed technological but not social issues in Wikimedia communities. In some ways this makes sense; WMF is ill-suited to investigate thousands of complaints or to evaluate compliance with community policies. However, I feel that it can and should do more to foster a civil atmosphere on Wikimedia projects. An article that is somewhat related is this interview of a former Microsoft researcher who talks about technology's limitations in attempting to create social change. Some Wikimedia Conference participants and presentations talked about the importance of offline, personal interactions with other Wikimedians in order to foster understanding and empathy. Some ideas that I proposed to the WMF Community Advocacy director (Philippe) for his consideration are:
  • Develop a standardized way of offering emotional support to volunteers of all kinds, particularly dispute resolution volunteers and victims of harassment.
  • Make Wikipedia's user interface friendlier (and, I hope, more easily customizable on both desktop and mobile interfaces).
  • Reward productive contributors as they reach milestones like anniversaries. Set up social events online and in person to thank them, connect with them, and help them to network and support each other.
  • Significantly increase the number of travel scholarships for Wikimania and national conferences.


Providing more support for user groups

A post-it on a wall where ideas and suggestions were collected
  • User groups expressed the hope at WMCON for more support from WMF. Siko said that this is under consideration. I hope that, after this conference and possibly aligned with the other notes about volunteer burnout, WMF will take a more supportive approach to small orgs, and eliminate blanket prohibitions on modest shared office expenses and part-time labor expenses for small groups. Large labor expenses (theoretically up to $30,000) are already allowed for IEG grants, so I feel strongly that at least some modest labor expenses should also be allowed for PEG grants. Currently, PEG theoretically will fund part-time and/or term-limited staff, and I hope that WMF will take a more supportive approach in allowing user groups and other affiliates to receive PEG funding for part-time and/or term-limited administrative and programmatic support staff.
  • Also, user groups expressed a wish to be allowed to send two representatives to WMCON instead of the one that we were each allowed this year, so that user groups could send representatives to multiple concurrent sessions at the conference.


Diversity among board members

  • Related to the discussions about recruiting more diverse board members who have good qualities for Board work, this discussion thread took place on the Gendergap mailing list.


Expansion of metrics, and improving tools for evaluation

  • At WMCON, we discussed how measures of success other than global metrics are important, such as content that has passed quality reviews, partnerships with reputable organizations, or content that has special relevance for certain groups of people like citizens of a particular country. I hope that there will be more discussions about how to expand the diversity of measures that everyone can use to evaluate the success of programs.
  • We discussed the need for better and easier tools to evaluate the outcomes of programs.


Upcoming community consultation about WMF grantmaking

I'm thinking about advocating for four changes:

  1. In light of concerns that the FDC is nearly at its capacity to evaluate proposals, yet more organizations may submit proposals to the FDC in coming years, I am thinking that replacing or supplementing the FDC with a peer review process for affiliate annual plans could be valuable.
  2. This peer review process could also be applied to annual plans that are submitted to the GAC.
  3. I'm considering suggesting a reversal of grant committee staff and volunteer roles. In this reversed structure, grantmaking staff would support and advise committees and grantees, and would perform administrative functions like background checks, disbursements, and compliance analysis. The committees would become fully empowered decision-makers in a manner appropriate to a peer production community that is supposed to be led by volunteers, instead of continuing in their current status as merely advisory to WMF. I generally believe that the committees do good work when evaluating grant proposals, and are experienced and credible when evaluating many kinds of proposals. If a WMF employee or a grant applicant felt that a committee had made an error, then that person could appeal the committee's decision to the WMF Board. This is an approach that I think would better serve and empower our volunteers and affiliates.
  4. Abandonment of the use of "APG" to refer exclusively to grants funded by the FDC, because GAC also funds annual plans. Perhaps a replacement term would be "Funds Dissemination Committee Grants" (FDCG), in which case "APG" can refer broadly to all annual plan grants including GAC-funded plans.

Also:

  • I heard that Community Resources is considering establishing an additional grants track for annual plans that are relatively complex for GAC but don't require an application to the FDC.


Learning from failure; failing in good and bad ways

Risk analysis: NASA's illustration showing high impact risk areas for the International Space Station
  • We talked about how projects can fail in good and not-so-good ways. Learning from failure is good; doing pilot projects with managed risk is good. Failing at large scale is bad. Here are a few theoretical and one actual example:
  • Example of a good failure: a pilot project has limited success and needs rethinking before being scaled up.
  • Example of a good failure: edit-a-thon results in few new participants but extensive feedback on how to make future edit-a-thons better.
  • Example of a bad failure: the IEP fostered large-scale copyright violations and sockpuppetry. The independent consultant's report about the disaster noted the demotivating effect on well-intentioned participants and the heavy workload imposed on Wikipedia volunteers to clean up the mess. "One global administrator estimated that the total impact on the community was between 2,000 and 3,000 (volunteer) hours. The Foundation hasn't yet found a good way of systematically measuring the impact, but it acknowledges that the impact was enormous."

In general I believe that we affiliates and the Wikimedia Foundation should have the courage to fund modest experiments and be willing to fail on occasion in order to learn and improve our ability to succeed. For awhile I was a member of the Individual Engagement Grants Committee which was intended from the beginning to be a bit adventurous in funding projects; one of our big successes has been the Wikipedia Library.


Contributor recruiting and retention

We learned that for editor retention, the projects with the highest rate of 3-month retention appear to be writing contests. Photo events like Wiki Loves Monuments and Wiki Loves Earth engage many more people, but the activity of those users appears to be low outside of photo events; it may be possible to engage such high numbers of photo event participants that a reasonable number, even if a small percentage, of contributors would remain active throughout the year.


Communications with the press

WMF Communications is developing resources for affiliates to assist with this.


Affiliates mailing list

There is an initiative to expand the reach of the existing Chapters email list so that it is open to board members of thematic organizations and user groups. This initiative appears to be waiting for a decision to be made by the email list administrators.


National and regional initiatives

Some affiliates, like the United States affiliates and the Iberocoop chapters, collaborate with each other across geographic boundaries. There may be more of this kind of cooperation after the conference.


National and regional cooperation were discussed at the conference.

Suggestions for potential conference participants next year

Hotel room

Wikimedia Conference 2015 was not a vacation. I was exhausted every night. As I said above, I paid from my personal funds to have a single hotel room instead of a double, and for me the cost was worthwhile and probably necessary for me to be rested enough to keep up with the pace of the conference, and to have some quiet space to gather my thoughts at the end of each day. I will do this again if I attend next year, and I suggest that other participants might want to do the same if you like to have some quiet space to yourself. However, if a friend or someone else from your affiliate is attending the conference, then you might enjoy being roommates with them.

Jet lag

If you travel a long distance to get to the conference, I recommend that you arrive a day early so that you can shake off much of the jetlag during the "free day". My "free day" on Wednesday was paid at my own expense. DerHexer's tour of Potsdam on Wednesday was enjoyable and if you come to WMCON next year then I recommend that you attend one of his tours.

Derek from Wikimedia Belguim commented to me, "I have seen a lot of WMF staff and some attendees coming in very late for the conference and some from long haul flights were still shivering with jet lag. I think that your travel advice should be taken very seriously by WMF for their staff especially because they have to be at their best for the conference. Conference attendees prefer well rested staff members and cost is a relative concept."

GPS and cell phone service

My cell phone service didn't work in Germany, and neither did my phone's built-in GPS software because it depends on having access to a data service. I later discovered that there are some GPS apps that I can use on my phone even when the phone data is offline. If you have a cell phone with GPS and your phone data service doesn't work in Germany, then I recommend that you install an offline GPS app.

Cell phones work on different frequencies and cell service providers cover different geographies. My American cell service wouldn't work in Germany. I tried to get a German SIM card to work on my phone, but my phone told me that the SIM card would work for emergency calls only. Perhaps next year I will try a different cell provider.

Who should come to WMCON?

Overall I felt that the conference this year was well organized and informative. The events at the conference changed my perspective, and I hope that they changed WMF's perspective as well. I would highly recommend attendance to any affiliate board member or employee if he or she is able to come next year, and is interested improving his or her affiliate's effectiveness or is interested in having face-to-face meetings with other affiliate and WMF representatives.

Summary of the most significant developments and topics at the conference

From my perspective, the most significant developments and topics of discussion at the conference were:

  • Lila's supportive approach to affiliates
  • Strong interest in getting more support from WMF for user groups
  • Concern about volunteer burnout
  • Concern about online civility
  • Interest in developing more and improved tools for program evaluation
  • Frustration with administrative workloads for volunteers
  • Interest among affiliates about networking with each other to achieve common goals

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following people and organizations for their contributions to this report:

  • Antanana and Ilya from Wikimedia Ukraine
  • Daniel from the Wiki Project Med Foundation
  • Daniela, Nicole and Cornelius from Wikimedia Deutschland (Germany)
  • Derek from Wikimedia Belgium
  • Maria from WMF Learning and Evaluation
  • Peaceray from Cascadia Wikimedians User Group
  • Siska from Wikimedia Indonesia
  • Whiteghost.ink from Wikimedia Australia


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