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2024:Impact and Results

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From Wikimania

Conference Overview

2227 Wikimedians from 143 countries gathered together remotely and in person in Katowice, Poland from 7-10 August, 2024.

The Core Organizing Team poured 20 months of planning into a program in 6 languages that encompassed 4 days, 300 sessions, 12 tracks, and offered numerous meetups and parallel events, like the WikiWomen Summit and the Hackathon.

This report presents findings from the evaluation from Wikimania 2024. It outlines the approach taken by the Core Organizing Team to the event, and explores attendee satisfaction, speaker experience and scholar experience. The report was prepared by colleagues from the Wikimedia Foundation Communications Department.

By the numbers

  • 2227 attendees
  • 1054 in-person attendees
  • 1173 online attendees
  • 143 countries
  • 57.7% of attendees self-identified as men, 34.6% as women, 1.1% non-binary and 2.5% preferred not to say
  • ~50% were first-time Wikimania attendees
  • ~50% were under 35
  • 6 languages
  • 300+ sessions
  • 500+ speakers

Survey results

We asked in-person and virtual Wikimania attendees to complete an evaluation survey on Limesurvey to understand their level of satisfaction with the approach and planning. The Wikimania evaluation survey received 507 responses. 86.5% of respondees attended only in-person, 11.8% attended only online, and 1.7% attended in both formats. The number of responses gives us better than a 95% a confidence level (standard) with a 4% margin of error (better than standard) in terms of knowing that the survey represents the views of the attendee population.[1]

Survey responses

Wikimania is an important part of the Wikimedia movement

~90% of respondents strongly agree or agree

Wikimania made me feel like I belong to the Wikimedia Movement

~86% of respondents strongly agree or agree

Overall, I am satisfied with Wikimania

~90% of respondents strongly agree or agree

Overall, I am satisfied with the quality of sessions I attended

~84% of respondents strongly agree or agree

What worked well during your session?

Respondees could select multiple answers.

Being able to share knowledge was the most important.
Positive results for programme process and session logistics.

What were your two favorite activities at Wikimania?

Top 5 things
Networking, opening ceremony with Wikimedian of the Year, lighting talks, side events, Hackathon.

I gained knowledge and skills relevant to me

~88% of respondents strongly agree or agree

I felt safe, respected and comfortable participating

~89% of respondents strongly agree or agree

I look forward to contributing content around new topics or approaches I learned about at Wikimania

~89% of respondents strongly agree or agree

I worked with others to develop new ideas or solve existing problems

~79% of respondents strongly agree or agree

The eventyay platform was easy to navigate and use

60% agreed or strongly agreed that eventyay was easy to use

Please share what worked well or you enjoyed the most at Wikimania

Interesting presentations, great organization, respecting the time schedule, great and modern venue.

Eventyay super-easy. It has 4+ Android applications with event notifications (like Giggity). Finally I'm not losted in Meta.

Las sesiones en donde se compartieron herramientas y las traducciones simultáneas.

The sessions where tools and simultaneous translations were shared.

I would just like to thank the COT and the WMF for working hard to hold events like these that uphold collaboration, diversity and recognition to the thousands or hundreds of thousands Wikimedians of Wilimedians to connect with and learn from each other from across the globe

Amor, ideas claras, slides disponibles, comidas

Love, clear ideas, slides available, meals.

Communication with representatives from different countries

It was very slick and hybrid participation was very well supported this time.

I think that the program was well organized and it cover the most objects to expect of wikimedia movement

Scholar questions

How do you plan to contribute to the Wikimedia movement after Wikimania?

Contributing new content / building our work.
Sharing lessons with others / spreading our work.

What difference did the scholarship provided by the Wikimedia Foundation make to your work?

لقد ساهمت في مساعدتي في الحضور وتمثيل بلدي إلى جانب أنها سوف تساهم بشكل كبير في تأسيس مجموعة مستخدمين جديدة في بلدي عما قريب بعد أن حصلت على العديد من المعلومات حول هذا الأمر

It helped me come and represent my country and it will contribute greatly to establishing a new user group in my country soon after I got a lot of information about this matter.

It empowered me to set up two informal meetups that grew two seperate wiki community projects.

I am going back with way more clear, structured and evidence-based agenda and vision how to prioritize and consolidate my work to pursue bigger and better impact.

The scholarship strengthened my resolve to be more active in the movement leading more people to read and edit Wikipedia as well as advance our advocacies in ESEAP.

Обновить умения, связи с викимедийцами.

Update skills, connections with Wikimedians.

I feel that my volunteer work is appreciated.

更了解維基媒體的內容也認識參與不同計畫的人們，讓年輕維基人跟多年維基人可以更互相瞭解彼此。

Learn more about the content of Wikimedia and get to know the people involved in different projects, so that young Wikipedians and long-time Wikipedians can understand each other better.

Qualitative findings on improvements from respondents

The following points and open questions represent the most common feedback we heard across the survey with regard to improvements for future years.

  • People still very much value the chance for in-person interaction – discuss and solve things quickly!
  • Networking spaces incl. lunch area enjoyed – ensure these spaces are there
  • Opening and closing ceremonies shorter than 2+ hours
  • Th venue let us down at some points – air conditioning, food labelling
  • Consideration about competing sessions with similar themes or topics
  • Reflect on more popular sessions this year to help inform programming and room allocation for next year
  • Consider thematic programming for rooms so people don’t need to move around so much
  • Appreciation for the live translation but how can we encourage further use next year?
  • Covid tests and precautions were appreciated.
  • Bag checks kept undesirable items out – Nairobi will have even higher security checks. Communications on this is key.
  • Informal meet-up space that people can book is a must
  • How do we better connect technical people with those wanting to learn more?
  • How can we build momentum before the Wikimania Hackathon?

General approach

The approach of the Core Organizing Team focused on equity in bringing Wikimedians together. The team aimed to bring more scholars than any previous Wikimania, to promote language inclusivity, and to improve the virtual event experience.

Bringing Wikimedians to Katowice

As early as in 2022, when the COT were drafting the first bid, they set out with the goal to bring more Wikimedians to Wikimania 2024 than ever before. The Wikimedia movement is global and diverse and we want that to be seen and felt in the gathering. The more people we can get in the room (online or in person), including promising newer contributors and experienced contributors, the richer the collaboration in person will be.

The COT met this goal, and made it possible in two ways: first, they worked with the Foundation to shift some additional budget to scholarships. The Foundation decided to increase the total scholarships amount from $653,000 USD in 2023 to $690,000 USD in 2024.

Second, they decided to spend the funds to accommodate as many people as possible, including how they allocate full and partial scholarships. They opted for more partial scholarships this year, allowing for more Wikimedians to access funding. This model was enabled by the fact that travel within Europe is affordable, making it more realistic for regional Wikimedians with partial scholarships to be able to attend.

The last in person Wikimania before the pandemic, there were 117 scholarships. This increased by 70% to 200 in 2023 and in 2024, 240 scholarships were offered - which is almost double from 2019.

Language inclusivity at the conference

Multilinguality is very important to our movement. Wikimania 2024 focused on core international languages as well as regional languages. Wikimania 2024 was supported in Arabic, English, French, Russian, Spanish and Ukrainian. Information leading up to the event, as well as the virtual event platform, was available in these supported languages. During the event, multiple tracks of the program had live interpretation into these languages.

Working toward a seamless virtual experience

At Wikimania 2023, the Wikimania Singapore Core Organizing Team experimented with an open source event platform created by FOSSASIA - a values-aligned supplier.

70% of 2023 event survey respondents agreed that the platform, eventyay, was easy to navigate and use. Therefore, the team decided to use participant feedback from 2023 to make improvements to the platform, with the aim of enriching the virtual experience of the conference, and making it even more straightforward and enjoyable. Improvements included more comprehensive schedule overviews, simpler navigation between sessions, increased discoverability of chat, improved session video availability and discoverability once sessions are complete, and more.

Side events

Wiki Science Photo Exhibition (1st - 13th Aug)

Curated by WM Polska, a Wikimedia photo exhibit in the center of Katowice with 40 photos from the Wiki Science Photo Competition 2023

Pre Conference (6th August)

  • Hosted at the Silesian Museum Complex
  • Over 220 attendees
  • 8+ Sessions

Tours/Workshops

  • 5 Categories | 16 Tours | 2 Pottery Workshops
  • Almost 500 slots- all were sold out!
  • Additional Self Organised/Community Organised Options

Reaching the external world

Social media

The below figures are for between 21 June to 21 August 2024 representing different social media channels and accounts.

  • 121+ posts.
  • 420K+ impressions.
  • 8.4K+ engagements.
  • ~1.98% engagement rate.

Media highlights

In addition to community coverage, there has been a big uptake of Wikimania stories in the media, with more than 100 news pieces published globally.

  • The Economist described how the conference halls of Katowice “filled with WikiFauna, the people who edit Wikipedia.”
  • The Guardian remarked that Wikimania is “an event that feels a bit like an international summit of librarians crossed with Comic-Con.”
  • An interview with Jimmy Wales was published by the Polish Press Agency; and picked up multiple times across Poland.

Media reach

  • 66 media outlets have covered our work to date
  • Countries include; Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, India, Poland, the UK, Ukraine
  • Total estimated reach: 37,509,625

References

  1. ↑ https://uk.surveymonkey.com/mp/margin-of-error-calculator/ Survey Monkey Margin of Error Calculator
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