User talk:Wittylama

CFP

Hi, does anybody already know what will be the deadline of call for paper (or something like that) in Wikimania 2019 and when will it be told which papers have been accepted.--Urjanhai (talk) 10:30, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

hello User:Urjanhai. This year the program design will be quite different to past years. You can see the draft announcement that I’m building, here: User:Wittylama/Sandbox. This will be published in the next couple of days. This will open the “call for proposals” for people to be leaders of a “space” (see document for details). Once those people are chosen, THEN they will indicate what kind of contributions they are seeking from the wider community for each “space”. Wittylama (talk) 10:39, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. That was only to be able to manage my own timetable during the coming months with respect to wikimania.--Urjanhai (talk) 11:01, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Costs

And another question: what will be the registration fee? And what would roughly be the accomodation costs. (This is perhaps not any big question for someone from Global north and especially from Finland as accomodation perhaps can be arrange by one's own easily.) Especially the cost of registration would be nice to know beforehand to asses if it would be possible to take part or not with or without scholarship application.--Urjanhai (talk) 10:30, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Registration fee hasn’t been decided yet. Costs of accomodation - I don’t know, I’m just the volunteer program coordinator. That will be announced soon by the WMF event manager I assume. Wittylama (talk) 10:39, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. Hopefully some information will be given before the deadline for scholarsip applications. --Urjanhai (talk) 11:04, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Welcome message

G'day cobber. Now there is a permanent home at wikimaniawiki, I am proposing that we have a template:welcome. Something with a bot delivery, though the welcome message with a tweak in having some dynamic sections. You can see the beginning conversation at User talk:Eric Luth (WMSE). Guessing that if it is looking okay, that I should move the conversation to the pertinent talk page. Hope is all well, and that you are not losing any Strine. :-) As I linked in program design as part of the example, thought that I should flag this.  — billinghurst sDrewth 12:13, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

no wukkas maaaaaaaaate. The only thing I'd suggest is that the 'program design' page is particularly relevant right now (and so is the scholarships page) but that will become very much less relevant as we get closer to the event (and the 'schedule' page [which currently doesn't exist] will replace it in importance. So, as long as it's easy to update what we'd be interested in promoting... OR to simply point to one page where the most current issues are always likely to be (probably the main page) rather than requiring updating a template message which will only ever be sent to people on their first signup. Geddit? Wittylama (talk) 12:35, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

Spaces hosted by WMF

Hello Liam

I'm the spokesperson for several others. The question to know if the WMF can host a space has been raised in several conversation I was involved in. I'm working with several teams that have are interested but don't know if they can apply. Can we?

Ping Eric for information.

Thanks, Trizek (WMF) (talk) 16:02, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Dear Trizek, the short answer is: yes. WMF staff are very welcome to make a "space" submission. In fact there should have been at least two all-staff emails that went around the WMF in the last week encouraging people at the organisation to take a look at the concept! I'm equally hoping that there will be a reasonably strong participation in the program from external communities/organisations with whom we can/could/should work (we're not going to reach the global goals by ourselves! The two specific clarifications I'd like to make are that:

• The purpose of the "space" concept is to have a room dedicated to a specific topic are for a day (or perhaps more), where a variety of content, contributors, formats can be brought together. the "leaders" are tasked with curating that space - partially through directly invited presenters, partially through a call for responses for specific topics, and partially through an open call for submissions on the topic. Thus, it is not a format designed for one person, or team, to "own the microphone" for a while day to present their own activities. Another way of saying this is that a "space" is NOT a single, all-day workshop, led by the proposer(s).
• While there is no "quota" of staff vs. volunteer space in the program, or as leaders of spaces, I am strongly encouraging that the co-leaders of these spaces (I assume that most will have 2-3) come from diverse perspectives on the movement. So, employees of the WMF would be requested to have co-leaders from the volunteer community. For an individual presentation it makes sense that it might be two people from the same team in the organisation, but not for the whole "space".

Make sense? Wittylama (talk) 16:51, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick and helpful reply, Wittylama. I'm Marshall; I'm the product manager for the Growth team here at the WMF, working with Trizek (WMF). We were talking about how to create space at Wikimania to have discussions, presentations, or workshops amongst members of different communities about newcomer retention and the future of how newcomers edit (particularly on mobile). Ideally, different communities would be able to share perspectives on what newcomers experience in their wikis and how they see the future of editing in their cultures. I think my two follow-up questions are:

• I know that the spaces are meant to be related to the Wikimania theme of UN Sustainable Development Goals. Does the rough idea I mentioned above seem like it could align with "Sustainable Cities and Communities" or "Reduced Inequalities" (I know this is somewhat thinking about it the wrong way around).
• It would be great to have co-sponsors from other communities as we work on this, but I don't know if we would be able to find them by the deadline this week. Do you think it will be okay to find interested community members and bring them in after we apply?

-- MMiller (WMF) (talk) 18:06, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Hello Marshall (pinging also Benoit). Sorry I didn't reply sooner - I realise the official deadline is ticking closer and I don't mean to give you unnecessary delays. However, the actual proposal form is not onerous in requested detail, and there certainly is no expectation that what is written within it is 'fixed' - we recognise that these proposals are 'emergent' and will change as we get closer to the event. So, feel free to submit something, don't let 'perfect be the enemy of good'.

I appreciate the thought you've put into how this proposal idea - which is a very important topic within the wikiverse generally - can be made applicable to the specific theme and purpose of this event. I recommend looking at this analysis documentation of the relationship of each SDG to Wikimedia. Notably, goal 9 (technology) includes the line: ""Significantly increase access to information and communications technology and strive to provide universal and affordable access to the Internet in least developed countries by 2020". I would argue that the wikimedia strategy direction of "knowledge equity" implies that mere "access [to the internet]" is insufficient. Sure, 'anyone can edit' right now, but do they...

So, yes, I believe a viable argument can be made for how Wikimedia user-retention can relate to the SDGs, BUT I would encourage you to ensure two things in this 'space' proposal': 1) that it be broader than merely the WMF's software development roadmap. The leaders of a Space certainly can present their own content within it, that's their prerogative, but it needs to be interactive and diverse in contributors. And 2) that it be scoped to talk about healthy participation in online society in general (and where Wikimedia can have a role in that) to think beyond the retention of new users merely for our own website's growth. This could, for example, include discussion of how Wikimedia is faring in the 'era of fake news'...

As for people who might be particularly interested in supporting (and even co-leading) this "space", I would start by talking to the members of the Community Health working group in the Strategy process. I have already extended an invitation to that group to propose something (via Sandra R. and Philip K.) so I would request their suggestions. Also, please take note of the ideas suggested on the 'program design' talkpage by Lukas - These could be incorporated too. Do not be concerned that you don't have any co-leaders from the wider community right now - as you can see in the "list of submitted proposals" many of them have "co-leader TBD" for the time being. Wittylama (talk) 17:29, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

2019:Program

Hi Wittylama, unfortunately I am not allowed to edit that page. So you have to do it ... "Spcial:Mylanguage/" should be added to the link to the "Closing party", because that is ja translateable page with already some versions in different languages. --Brackenheim (talk) 13:54, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

I did. Stryn (talk) 14:20, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Great! Thank you very much. --Brackenheim (talk) 15:06, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Thank you

Hey Liam, just wanted to let you know that I liked the new format and the resulting program. Great work! --Frank Schulenburg (talk) 19:19, 18 August 2019 (UTC)