[Wikimania-l] Re: Excursion to Auschwitz?

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Il 14/12/23 21:21, Harry Mitchell ha scritto:

If anyone is interested in going with a group of Wikimedians, please feel
free to get in touch with me. If there are a few of us we could coordinate
plans.


Thanks for checking! I'm interested in joining, especially if it's on 
August 6 or 11 (to minimise chances of conflicts with other last-minute 
side events). The page 
 doesn't exist 
yet, it would be good to create it as soon as some tentative date is chosen.


Federico
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Re: [Wikimania-l] Free books for a university in your city/country

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Leila Zia, 06/08/19 07:45:

[1] In our volunteer times, we're co-presidents of a non-profit
organization and the organization has received the books from the
publishers (Cambridge, Springer, Morgan & Claypool).


Do the donors prohibit you from donating the books to the Internet Archive?

Federico

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2019 Early Bird Registration is Now Open!

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

The registration fee is reasonable, or possibly on the cheap side given 
the typical costs 
(). Being 
Sweden I assume there will be good vegan options at all meals, otherwise 
it would be fair to allow unbundling the meals.


On the other hand, I'm not sure what's the point of the registration 
period being 2 weeks for early bird and 2 months for the base price. 
This creates an incentive to register only at the last minute, after one 
has decided all other details of the trip.


As noted, travel and accommodation usually make a much bigger share of 
the costs. It's soon too late to get the best prices, but I see on 
Airbnb there are still hundreds of rooms in Stockholm centre which cost 
less than the official accommodation for a single room, and a few dozens 
which cost less than the double room price. I've not checked university 
dorms/apartments but I think they start getting full already in August.


Federico

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Suggestion on details in scholarship emails

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Gnangarra, 17/04/19 13:23:

What we'll end up with Wikimanias in 3rd world countries because ts cheaper


Is it? The budgets I've seen so far suggest otherwise, but we don't have 
full data.


Federico

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Suggestion on details in scholarship emails

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Rehman Abubakr, 17/04/19 12:10:
Would it make sense to include the approximate total monetary value of 
the scholarship award (airfare, lodging, insurance, logistics, etc) 
within the scholarship award emails to the recipients?


This is a good suggestion, although it might be hard to give an exact 
figure before the flights are booked (if WMF is booking them directly).


The total figure should also include the per capita cost for the overall 
conference. Such calculations are easier to make if the budget is 
published transparently after Wikimania, something that seems to have 
stopped:



Federico

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Closing wikimania2018wiki

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

DerHexer, 16/08/2018 13:16:
People need to add their presentations to the pages, videos needs to be 
edited and linked there,, lessons learned want to be shared, etc. It 
might be a good push now but get everything in place but in my humble 
opinion, two months after the conference is way too early, sorry.


Right. A couple pages worth updating:
* https://wikimania2018.wikimedia.org/wiki/Attendees (usually there are 
more names; it helps connect and follow up)
* https://wikimania2018.wikimedia.org/wiki/Video#Resources (Commons has 
than 50 videos, mostly unused)


Federico

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Friendly Space Policy (was: Sad news)

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Lilli Iliev, 29/07/2018 20:04:
One reliable way to silence people when they experience harassment as 
well as keeping others from speaking out, is to have them experience how 
other, non-involved people, would immediately have an opinion on what 
happened and judge the case or the person in question.


I'll note that this is valid both ways. So, to be consistent, you 
shouldn't jump at the conclusion that the outcome of the case was 
correct, just as you are asking not to jump to the conclusion it was wrong.


Federico

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Sad news

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Devouard (gmail), 20/07/2018 12:18:
So, I am thinking that... whilst some of us put little stickers on our 
badges to indicate we do not want to be taken in picture, perhaps we 
need to consider also little stickers to put on our badges to indicate 
that we prefer "a certain physical distance" and warn others that we may 
be sensitive to closeness so they be aware it might be an issue ?


+1, this is a suggestion worth exploring (is there a feedback page 
already on the wiki, where to add it?).


If you see a "fi-N" on someone's badge you may remember the advice 
"Never hug, kiss or touch a Finn" 
, but not 
everybody may be expected to walk around with a cultural etiquette 
matrix for 200 cultures.


(At Wikimania I usually also wear Wikiquote and sister project stickers 
and pins so that people are warned that, if they use language which 
assumes "Wikipedia" or "English [Wikipedia]" or other discriminations of 
some projects, I will definitely take offense and object to it.)


Federico

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Sad news

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

KuboF Hromoslav, 20/07/2018 00:03:
I am not aware of all details but as I personally know you, you are very 
helpful and skilled. As we say "only those who do nothing, do no errors".


Indeed, or in Italian "chi non fa non sbaglia". I hope in the future 
Wikimania will be inclusive and able to foster collaboration between 
good spirited people even if they're "different".


Which reminds me, these days some interesting things happened in 
Johannesburg around Mandela day.

https://youtu.be/9P3c8wAETjc
https://youtu.be/mviqiDKIqDc?t=2h13m10s

Federico

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania-l Digest, Vol 146, Issue 1

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Chris Keating, 05/06/2018 18:53:

Thinking about it, drawing lots might not be the silliest idea in the universe.


Sure. It's used in several kinds of official selections and there's 
ample research on the effects. That said, it's rarely popular, because 
it's often perceived as a failure or last resort.


Federico

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Update on Wikimania '18

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Chris Keating, 31/05/2018 15:50:

Therefore, the observation that some people get scholarships several
years in a row is not strong evidence that the selection process is
somehow biased towards a select few...


True. Personally I would not state that there is such a bias, although 
there might be (mostly because past applicants know how to file 
successful applications).


But I do state that the system is not redistributive, and might even be 
regressive (using concepts from fiscal policy). This is not an 
accusation: it's just not designed to be.


Federico

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Update on Wikimania '18

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

cs, 30/05/2018 10:16:
Is there any  other way  of investigating  these issues /without/ 
mentioning  the names of the scholarship awardees?


Well, in theory we've been publishing the names of people who got a 
scholarship for a few years now, so it should be possible to make a 
complete list of repeat recipients in N years and then talk just about 
the number rather than names.


I agree that repeat scholarships are a bad way to spend donor money, for 
the law of diminishing returns. We can disagree on how big the problem 
is, but we have sufficient evidence that it exists. In the past I've 
proposed and implemented severe penalties, but I'll clearly admit that I 
failed to effectively reform the review process.


I personally agree with more draconian solutions which would set very 
clear expectations. A total ban on a scholarship for those who got one 
the previous year is a possibility. It would be as fair as re-election 
limits in democratic competitions.


Federico

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Chapter- Funded Scholarships to attend Wikimania '18?

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Ellie Young, 15/03/2018 01:44:
Nemo,  Do you want or need anything from us?  Can you let me know how 
your program is going to work this year?


Pretty much like all the other years, with WMIT's own form.
<https://wiki.wikimedia.it/index.php?curid=63961>

When you send the selection notifications in March, as usual we'd 
appreciate having the list of WMF scholarships to Italian speakers (or a 
check for our candidates).


You can keep in touch with Giuseppe for the details, he's in the committee.

Federico

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Chapter- Funded Scholarships to attend Wikimania '18?

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Lorenzo added a link for WMIT scholarships yesterday. Now the page needs 
to be marked for translation so that the updates are shown everywhere.

https://wikimania2018.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships

Thanks,
Federico

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[Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2017 attendees list

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Reminder: please help make the list 
https://wikimania2017.wikimedia.org/wiki/Attendees more complete to 
improve everyone's productivity.


It seems that many entities have not yet added the list of their 
reimbursed attendees (scholarships, staff, board members and whatnot). 
(Including WMIT, I'm fixing now.)


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Wiki (not) Mania?

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Olatunde Isaac, 07/11/2016 21:47:

Thus, it would be more appropriate to use a title known to the general public.


Like... a title that contains "wiki" plus some other catchy suffix? ;-)

Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] I think I need to submit my report

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Samat, 24/08/2016 21:47:

My personal opinion that a late report is much more useful than a not
published/written report.


Definitely. Especially if you want to be able to ask for a scholarship 
again in the future! ;-)


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] I think I need to submit my report

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Andy Mabbett, 24/08/2016 21:33:

I've a vague feeling I'm required to submit a report about how I
benefited. Where should I do this?


There's an inputbox at 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:TPS/Wikimania_scholars#Reporting


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] DebConf 17 in Montreal

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Legoktm, 11/07/2016 23:38:

My quick searching indicated that the venues are about 30 minutes away
on public transport, so it might be feasible to attend parts of it while
at Wikimania...


Very interesting combo! Finally wikimaniacs can experiment bringing the 
extreme sport of conference multitasking to a new level. ;-)


Nemo

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[Wikimania-l] Reports, sharing and scholarship comments

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

One of the things I like most of Wikimania is reading people's notes 
etc. about it, e.g. starting from

* https://wikimania2016.wikimedia.org/wiki/Attendees
* https://wikimania2016.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:RecentChanges
* https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimania_2016_presentations
(make sure to add yours!).
	Having chaired the scholarship committee this year, I want to remind 
everyone that the scholars are working on the outcomes of their 
attendance, to be described or pointed to from 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:TPS/Wikimania_scholars#Reports_from_2016 
.
	Whether you attended Wikimania or not, consulting this material is 
useful; even more useful if you comment on the respective talk page. You 
could point out what you found most interesting, or give suggestions on 
how achievements could be further advanced (maybe with inspiration from 
other attendees, current or past), or what else you'd like to see. Such 
comments will be useful for the author of the report (and their 
community), for other wikimaniacs and for next year's scholarship 
committee too.
	If you instead have comments on specific applications (or granted 
scholarships), e.g. because you don't understand the committee's 
decision, and you can't post them on any talk page, feel free to throw 
them at me (e.g. at wikimania-scholarsh...@wikimedia.org ). I may reply 
on your talk page, as my responses can't contain private information 
anyway, and I can usually shed light on the thought process or the 
mechanism which led to a certain outcome. Understanding the system is 
necessary both to work with it as is and to change it; this is how I 
interpret transparency.


Federico Leva

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Re: [Wikimania-l] accommodation details

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Joseph Fox, 17/06/2016 17:03:

I've been informed that what I said below isn't actually true; European
ID cards are indeed accepted as valid ID in the UK (and other
non-Schengen EU countries). Please disregard!


It's easy to get confused, because UK rips all the benefit of EU 
membership without giving any to the others. ;-)


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] accommodation details

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Joseph Fox, 17/06/2016 16:50:

if you are travelling from (for example) the United Kingdom, you will
need a passport. They will not allow you into the Schengen area without it.


http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/entry-exit/eu-citizen/index_en.htm 
does not seem to agree with you.


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Thematic Meetups at Wikimania 2016

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

I've just added a Wikiquote meetup and I'd like to see at least a 
Wiktionary meetup, to meet all the Wiktionary people of Wikimania in 
case I miss some at 
https://wikimania2016.wikimedia.org/wiki/Critical_issues_presentations/How_the_French_Wiktionary_became_a_grown-up_project


Others are hopefully interested in other sister projects, too.

Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] transport

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Martin Rulsch, 16/06/2016 11:05:

Yes, there is more information on the airport shuttle pages but still
not how to get to them. I guess it's easy to add that very helpful
information.


The only relevant question, for Malpensa, is whether buses stop at 
terminal 1 or 2: probably it's terminal 1 only, but it's indeed not 
written on the wiki AFAICT. Other than that, in Linate/Orio/MXP1 the 
directions are going to be pretty much "take the only exit and look in 
the only possible direction". After 1000 years of ever-increasing soil 
consumption, Italy doesn't have the luxury of options. ;-)


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Mobile connectivity in Esino Lario

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Alan Lai, 15/06/2016 18:48:

During your bid, you claimed that Telecom Italia will connect a 1Gbps
fibre cable to the hill town of Esino Lario for wikimania and beyond, so


Connectivity is provided by Eolo in the end.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2016_bids/Esino_Lario/Connectivity#Implementation


I wonder whether this means it's only TIM got mobile signal there or
whether all mobile operators including Vodafone, WIND and 3 Italia will
also have service in the area?


Mobile signal is and was available from all mobile operators. The bigger 
ones (Vodafone and TIM) tend to have better connectivity outside major 
cities of Italy. (If you're comparing the costs and wondering why Wind 
costs much less, that's the reason.)


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Milan Pride Parade

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

The parade is on June *25*.
http://www.ilga-europe.org/resources/pride-event-calendar/milano-pride

The parade leaves at the central station and goes through 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corso_Buenos_Aires (then you can go back 
with tram 9) so it's rather easy to coordinate for a group arriving by 
train.


This year celebrates 
http://www.ilga-europe.org/resources/news/latest-news/italy-recognises-same-sex-couples


The Milan pride is a rather institutional one, e.g. the mayor attends: 
https://twitter.com/giulianopisapia/status/614828048920223745


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Anyone up to split accommodations in/near Esionio Lario?

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Pharos, 09/06/2016 15:53:

if not, I'd be looking for alternatives relatively nearby.


The closest chance is probably Milan. For local solutions, the best bet 
is probably an apartment in Varenna or Mandello del Lario with 3-4 other 
people and 1 car. I see there are still some apartments on airbnb for 
less than 100 €/night. For bike junkies looking for a daily 1200 m 
climb, I see there are some hotels in places like Introbio.


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Query about provided accommodations in Esino Lario

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Alan Lai, 21/04/2016 17:45:

I would like to ask whether the accommodations in Esino Lario would only 
consist of dorm rooms of 8-10 ppl or would they also include double rooms or 
4-person rooms which had more privacy


See 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2016_bids/Esino_Lario/Accommodation


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Comitato Wikimania Esino Lario 2016

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Bohdan Melnychuk, 26/03/2016 20:50:

That being said, what pops into my mind as a not-far-past large
Wikimedia event in Italy is the Wikimedia Conference which was held in
Milan a couple of years ago — was there the same model being used? If
not, how did they do it?


That's an entirely different model, for instance it's entirely paid by 
attending organisations rather than individuals. Anyway, Wikimedia 
Italia is an asociazione di promozione sociale (APS) which has way less 
legal restrictions than the Wikimania 2016 fiscal sponsor (ONLUS).



Please do translate the documents as fast as possible. Not being able to
read them is the thing which prevents me to fill the registration, and
that is a major bottleneck for me. I see that some work has already
started on Wikimania 2016 wiki:
https://wikimania2016.wikimedia.org/wiki/Associazione_Comitato_Wikimania_Esino_Lario_2016
https://wikimania2016.wikimedia.org/wiki/Informativa_per_la_privacy_dei_volontari
, but it really needs to be finished ASAP.


These are really standard documents, they say almost nothing that is not 
already written in the law. The only interesting articles are 3 and 21 
in the bylaws, would you be happier if I translated those?



Sadly, I also cannot stop myself from voicing a thought which is not
helpful in any way when the situation is as it is already, but it could
be something to lessons learnt section of it all, in my opinion. I do
believe that such circumstances as compulsory enlisting of, I guess,
1000+ people into an NGO as a prerequisite of running the event is not
something to omit while the very bidding process.


I certainly agree. Considering that the law changed on December 2015, 
that's hardly something to blame on the organisers. I cannot be more 
ashamed of my own national parliament and I hope for national 
sovereignities to be disbanded as soon as possible in the EU, but that's 
quite far on the horizon.


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Arrival date + Wikimania Takes Lake Como

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Rehman Abubakr, 21/03/2016 00:54:

Also, Wikimania Takes Lake Como
<http://Programme/Wikimania%20Takes%20Lake%20Como> (WTLC) is planned
four days prior to 23rd (20th-23rd?). Does that mean folks who would
like to attend this, needs to arrive on the 19th?


There is no "need", based on the description of the event (see talk 
page). But you may want to pay closer attention to the details specified 
on the page before asking more: in particular, it says that early 
arrivals are expected to have accommodation in Milan (indeed, that's the 
most logical place if you want to visit the region).


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Bus from Airport to the Venue

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Deryck Chan, 19/03/2016 23:51:

I calculated about €12 each way between Malpensa and Esino Lario, for
example?


What sort of calculation did you make? Mine would be 12 + 1.5 + 6.7 + 2.2.

Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Comitato Wikimania Esino Lario 2016

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Leila Zia, 15/03/2016 16:36:

I may have missed this: What is the process for stopping the membership
at some point in the future? Do members have to stay as members for a
minimum number of days/months/years?


By definition (in the law) a "comitato" only exists to serve its 
purpose, so after Wikimania is completed and wrapped up I assume it will 
be easily disbanded. (This is just my personal guess, I didn't check 
sources nor the team.)


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Breakdown of attribution for scholarships

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Ellie Young, 15/03/2016 23:18:

Of the 401 applications that made it into Phase 2 of the review process,

[...] (We cannot
provide a breakdown by country [...])



We can however provide a breakdown of *applications* (phase 2) by region:

Africa  37
Arab States 30
Asia & Pacific  156
CIS 31
Europe  153
North America   33
South/Latin America 65

Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2016 - Notifications of acceptance and rejection for "Critical issues" presentations

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Andrew Lih, 04/02/2016 16:57:

One thing that would help make sense of where we are now: remind us how
the overall structure of the conference is going to include not just the
42 “critical issues” sessions picked out of EasyChair, but also ones via
other processes. Make it clear, repeat it constantly, and give links to
people to understand it.


+1
For the rest, huge +1 on Shani's "wiki way" paragraph.


- “User digest presentations" - When the page says “Contact the Thematic
Liaison,” the user is almost always at least two clicks away from
finding a way to contact that person. Even worse, for many users,
clicking on their name sends you to a confusing page:
“https://wikimania2016.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:CentralAuth/Username“
What is the average user supposed to do with that?


The page can be edited. :-) Information on most people listed there is 
public here or there, only needs some editing help to be presented at best.


I added the user accounts link for the case where no link is provided, 
thinking that the "average user" of a Wikimania wiki knows how to use 
talk pages. How does your "average user" look like?




- “Discussions” page is a red link. There is not even a simple
description of what this is. Same thing with “Community Village”


These are repeat models, so any former Wikimania attendee can help fill 
in. :-)




- Even a brief paragraph or a diagram showing the 10,000 foot/3048 meter
view of the overall plan would be welcome on the submissions page. Right
now there is no prose, only six big categories. This requires a lot of
haphazard clicking and piecing together of the conference narrative.


The "general narrative" is 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2016_bids/Esino_Lario/Pillars 
, AFAIK.


Nemo

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[Wikimania-l] Wikimania "critical issues" submissions published

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

See https://wikimania2016.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Submissions

The committee decided not to publish the detailed reviews. It's still a 
wiki and the talk pages are open as usual!


I also added categories for the keywords proposed by the submitters, so 
you'll soon be able to create a wonderful category tree with the help of 
https://wikimania2016.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:WantedCategories (once 
the cache is updated).


Nemo

P.s.: As you noticed, I addressed the doubts about the time required for 
copy-and-pasting and did the import by bot. This means that if you want 
to augment/change the imported data and practise 
http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath/ you can do so with a patch: 
https://github.com/nemobis/bots/blob/master/easychair-submissions-scraper.py


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Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2016 - Notifications of acceptance and rejection for "Critical issues" presentations

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Tomasz Ganicz, 04/02/2016 10:54:

1-4 are IMHO relatively easy to evaluate - I would expect from the
reviews to answer yes or no to them. 5 is a bit tricky as it depends
strongly of what the reviewer think is "at the centre"  - but I would
expect that they at least explain in few words here what they think is
"at the centre" or not :-)


Yet, reviews like the one Andy mentioned clearly address this: his 
review was a clear "no" for point 5 as it pointed to (the absence of) a 
mailing list discussion. (I can't check whether that's true.)


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2016 - Notifications of acceptance and rejection for "Critical issues" presentations

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Lodewijk, 03/02/2016 15:49:

lots of people were quite surprised by the outcomes of the review.


This sounds like a good thing! If reviews matched expectations, there 
would be no point in having a review. :)


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Did you ever attend Wikimania with your money? Talk to us!

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Thank you again to the 50 (!) people who responded. A first followup 
after a meeting with Iolanda yesterday. There will be more later I 
think, e.g. this month there is a meetup to talk about program.*
	The registration form will definitely include an option to donate some 
money for the scholarships fund. There was a substantial interest in 
this option. We plan to provide partial scholarships/discount codes of 
300 € each, see also 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/Scholarships/2016 for current 
budget info and of course 
https://wikimania2016.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarship_committee .
	As for the question on (variable) costs, the answers varied a lot. The 
registration form is also expected to clear up any confusion, because 
every single service/offering will be labeled with its actual cost. Any 
unexpected saving will also go back to (future) Wikimania scholarships 
funds or similar.


Nemo

(*) https://wikimania2016.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programme

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Biggest disappointment from Wikimania 2017

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

It's indeed a pity that things were not announced sooner and better, but 
the whole point of the new system is to decide earlier and waste less 
volunteer time/nerves. If we dislike having losers, let's design a 
system where there are no losers instead of asking that other people be 
the losers. (See Iolanda's message.)


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Coming up with a new process for Wikimania selection

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Luca Martinelli, 05/10/2015 00:22:

Moving from James' idea of a three-years rotation between regions, and
taking into account Katie's idea, we may define three rotating areas:
* First year: Europe + Middle East + North Africa
* Second year: Americas + Oceania
* Third year: rest of Asia + Sub-Saharan Africa


I'd rather group regions by the likelihood that people in those regions 
come together and cooperate on an event (once their region is chosen): 
it's no use selecting a region if 5 "big" competing bids then emerge for it.


Europe should definitely be (at least) in Council of Europe terms. 
Americas have Iberocoop + all the spanish-speaking USA people and might 
indeed be considered as a whole.


As for Africa, I'd really like to see a map of the continent where 
distance is measured by flight cost... we might discover that the centre 
of Subsaharian Africa is Dubai, Paris or Frankfurt. My search results 
were poor:

* https://whoee.wordpress.com/2015/01/05/fun-with-maps/
* http://www.cityofsound.com/blog/2006/01/map_of_europe_i.html

As for the rest of the world, no idea...

Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] (no subject)

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Orsolya Gyenes, 01/03/2013 16:19:

Yes, but if your friend would like to join our congress s/he needs to
pay registration.


Not necessarily so in Esino Lario! Entrance will be free for those who 
don't cost anything to the organisation (there will be some fully-public 
events in Varenna as well as the option to attend without using catering 
etc.).


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Coming up with a new process for Wikimania selection

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

What I like about the explicit rotation:
* more transparency, the rotation is no longer an unwritten rule;
* more time (2 years) to make Wikimania great, less volunteer time spent 
on (concurring) bids;
* more concreteness and (hopefully) cooperation in the selection stage, 
less "let's beat continent X";
* more pragmatism, recognising we can't always flight the biggest groups 
of people in the farthest places.


Nemo

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[Wikimania-l] Did you ever attend Wikimania with your money? Talk to us!

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

TL;DR: Fill 
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1RtBz72MTmKJKcraZk8FORHZRL6Y0gSo5VeNIFOKwHtw/viewform 
, it takes 5 min.


--

As you probably know by now, Wikimania 2016 Esino Lario wants to achieve 
a Wikimania format which allows people to "get things done" and leave 
the conference fully satisfied with the result of their investment of 
time and other resources (see pillars 2 and 4: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2016_bids/Esino_Lario/Pillars ).
For this purpose, we consider all audiences (see 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2016_bids/Esino_Lario/Program#Target 
).


Participants other than scholarship recipients and reimbursed 
representatives are one group we heard very little from, but we think 
they are important because: 1) they have financial resources and help 
make the Wikimania budget sustainable; 2) they have motivation to share 
and ideas on what makes Wikimania valuable.


We set up this form mainly to collect names of some such people and talk 
with them later: if you provide your contact, we may write you on this 
topic. We may release aggregate data from the resposes; data will be 
handled by us and the Wikimania 2016 fiscal sponsor "Ecomuseo delle 
Grigne" (under EU law). Please fill the whole form, it's short!


https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1RtBz72MTmKJKcraZk8FORHZRL6Y0gSo5VeNIFOKwHtw/viewform

Feel free to forward this invite to anyone.

Thanks,
Federico Leva and Martin Rulsch
Wikimania 2016 team, scholarships subteam

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania Scholarship

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Amir Ladsgroup, 01/08/2015 14:02:

helped wikimania newbies to write their applications more efficiently
and helped them to prepare proper documents for visa which is super
complicated


That's great! We should have more Wikimania recruiters/helpers like you. 
Maybe they should form a Wikimania scholarship committee at large?


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Fwd: Wikimania Scholarship

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Stuart Prior, 31/07/2015 13:56:

My understanding (and my hope) is that next year the scholarships will
be even more focused on participation and contribution to the event
itself. So we can further the idea that a scholarship should be about
what you can bring, what you will achieve, and not just be about what
you have done, to make the conference have even more tangible outcomes.


Yes, after all the Wikimania 2016 leit-motive is let's get stuff done. ;-)
There are some working documents at 
https://wikimania2016.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships which await 
comments and proposals, by the way.


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Soumaya reception

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Chris Keating, 19/07/2015 06:04:

To add to Asaf ' s list of don'ts can I suggest for future Wikimanias:


Thanks! I've created the 
https://wikimania2015.wikimedia.org/wiki/Feedback page, please everyone 
add to it.

Can a sysop include it in the sidebar (and later in the sitenotice)? Thanks.

Nemo


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Re: [Wikimania-l] Video recording of Wikimania sessions

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Lodewijk, 18/07/2015 00:03:

Just a few questions that come up when I read this. Because to be
honest, we invest even more money and time in the 'few hundred' people
that actually attend the conference.


Yes. Wikimania videos were always published too late, when any interest 
had already faded. A better comparison would be to look at how many 
people watch FOSDEM (or CCC?) recordings, to assess how wide an audience 
could be reached by a *functioning* recording scheme.


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Hotel wifi fast generally but very slow on Wikipedia

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Emmanuel Engelhart, 16/07/2015 06:54:

This remembers me similar problems we have had remarked in Hong-Kong (I
don't remember the ticket number) where people had (still have?)
problems to upload data to Commons even with theoretically good-enough
connections.


Context: bug 60283. http://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T62283



At that time is was IMO pretty obvious that we suffer of a lack of
End-2-End approach of the problem (in particular lack of tool to make
the correct measurements).


Yeah, there are probably hundreds of regions with similar problems at 
least for some part of the users which we never get to know about.


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Ally skills at Wikimania for Wikimedia admins and editors

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Valerie Aurora, 25/06/2015 20:14:

including how to best use
existing policies


Policies of which projects?

Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania Scholarship Application Deadline is Approaching!

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Does the cc to the wmfall list mean that WMF staff also have to apply 
via the standard scholarship process, to get travel funding? If so, nice 
idea!


Ellie Young, 09/02/2015 20:55:

https://wikimania2015.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships


I see phase 1 and phase 2 criteria would be fit for WMF staff too, makes 
sense.


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] WM2014 video labels

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Also, do I understand correctly that the videos as uploaded to YouTube 
are 1920x1080? It would be nice to have them uploaded on archive.org (or 
directly Wikimedia Commons 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimania_2014_presentation_videos 
if you're able to convert to appropriate formats), because it seems 
1280x720 is the best one can download directly.


When the labels are ok, I can easily upload everything on archive.org, 
but I won't be download the 1920x1080 videos and the audio separately to 
merge them.


Nemo

$ youtube-dl -F 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5GKyKujsnMl'
[youtube] Confirming age
[youtube] D5GKyKujsnM: Downloading webpage
[youtube] D5GKyKujsnM: Downloading video info webpage
[youtube] D5GKyKujsnM: Extracting video information
[youtube] D5GKyKujsnM: Downloading DASH manifest
[info] Available formats for D5GKyKujsnM:
format code extension resolution  note
139 m4a   audio only  DASH audio   54k , audio@ 48k 
(22050Hz), 35.58MiB (worst)
140 m4a   audio only  DASH audio  134k , audio@128k 
(44100Hz), 94.69MiB
141 m4a   audio only  DASH audio  261k , audio@256k 
(44100Hz), 188.05MiB

160 mp4   256x144 DASH video  135k , video only, 76.23MiB
133 mp4   426x240 DASH video  269k , video only, 180.22MiB
134 mp4   640x360 DASH video  311k , video only, 96.32MiB
135 mp4   854x480 DASH video  635k , video only, 245.35MiB
136 mp4   1280x720DASH video 1358k , video only, 705.61MiB
137 mp4   1920x1080   DASH video 4111k , video only, 1.65GiB
17  3gp   176x144
36  3gp   320x240
5   flv   400x240
18  mp4   640x360
43  webm  640x360
22  mp4   1280x720(best)

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Re: [Wikimania-l] [Wikimedia-l] Wikimania 2016 - Jury Announcement and Start of Bidding

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Fæ, 10/10/2014 16:44:

[...] a WMF employee make community decisions for us (such as
appointing the Jury  [...]


I've not inspected the facts in detail, but as far as I could understand 
this is NOT what happened, so it's a bit annoying to hear you repeat it 
continuously. I added a summary to 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2016_jury some days ago and I 
encourage everyone to edit it (with references, where controversial).


I'm sure it will be easier to discuss productively once we've agreed 
upon the essential facts.


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2016 - Jury Announcement and Start of Bidding

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Joseph Fox, 29/09/2014 13:01:

It looks like at least two are London organisers, and two are Mexico
organisers (correct me if I’m wrong on that one). One is (of course)
Ellie, Daniel is an Australian Wikipedian of more than eight years, and
a cursory Google reveals Finne Boonen is a Dutch attendee of three
previous Wikimanias and open-source advocate.

It all comes down to who applies and what the Committee are looking for
in a jury.


And it makes sense that applications were from people fresh of Wikimania 
passion. Also, maybe folks are confused by the real names: I think 
everyone knows henna and her involvement in Wikimania.


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Acceptance of the submission without notification

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Thomas Tanon, 04/07/2014 11:58:
 So, there may be more than one submission in the same case.

catscan finds 16:
Submissions/Project Recap: Distributing WikiReaders to Schools in India,
Mexico and South Africa
Submissions/Replaying Edits  Visualising Edit History
Submissions/Video games and how I successfully used Kickstarter to fund
Wikimedia content
Submissions/From paper book to a digital one on Wikisource
Submissions/Open Source Hygiene: Getting the Details Right
Submissions/The URAA, Copyright Terms, and the Wikimedia Projects
Submissions/Context visualization for Wikipedia articles
Submissions/Label-a-thon for Wikidata
Submissions/Wikisource technical infrastructure: what we have done and
what we could do
Submissions/An update and LIVE A/B Test from the Fundraising Team
Submissions/The Full OA Stack - Open Access and Open Source
Submissions/Engineering volunteering - what’s this volunteer support all
about anyway?
Submissions/Facing failures and making drastic changes
Submissions/JavaScript and long-term relationships
Submissions/Structured Wikiquote — The future of the free quote
compendium that anyone can edit
Submissions/Free Our Research - reaching out to academics

http://tools.wmflabs.org/catscan2/catscan2.php?language=wikimania2014categories=Under+Reviewoutlinks_yes=Programmedoit=1

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Thistle City Barbican fully booked?

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Andy Mabbett, 10/06/2014 12:53:

Given that UK scholarships have yet to be awarded...


WMIT decided yesterday (pending board resolution today).

Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] List of scholarship attendees

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Nice, all WMPL scholarships are public. :) 
https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Attendees/100


Ellie Young, 02/05/2014 19:29:

On May 2, 2014, at 9:22 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.com wrote:

Hello, https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Attendees is still 
basically empty. I've not yet decided whether to attend Wikimania this year; a 
major factor will be who I can meet/do something with there (together with 
accommodation cost).



This will go  up when registration goes  live next week.  It is an
opt-in list and we will encourage people as best we can to use it.


Still seeing almost nobody among WMF scholarships (less than 20), or 
even among WMF staff for that matter. Looks like a very inefficient use 
of resources to require hundreds of contacts and edits to add 
information that WMF already has and can post with one edit, making the 
conference more effective at no cost.


Nemo




Therefore, WMF scholarship administrators, please paste the list of 
already-funded scholarship recipients (usernames) on the page. Knowing what 
bunch of wonderful Wikimedia volunteers already got selected will be very 
inspiring/compelling. (I believe WMF staff attendees were already decided as 
well? Chapter scholarships and affiliates' attendees can be added later.)

Cf.
* https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/Scholarships/Vision_2015
* 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/Scholarships/SWOT_2005-2014_and_goals_for_2015
(read again if you missed past discussions and/or you're thinking of boycotting 
my summer planning ;) ).

Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Registration payment options

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Stuart Prior, 04/06/2014 16:33:

there are effective and commonly used bank transfer systems in some
European countries


Some?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area

Nemo

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[Wikimania-l] Wikimania financial statements digging

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Despite Itzik's effort, this is quite depressing: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/Comparative#Actuals
For 2008 and 2009 I extracted some information from WMF's form 990 a few 
years ago, it would be nice if someone did the same for later years.


Nemo

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[Wikimania-l] List of scholarship attendees

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Hello, https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Attendees is 
still basically empty. I've not yet decided whether to attend Wikimania 
this year; a major factor will be who I can meet/do something with there 
(together with accommodation cost).


Therefore, WMF scholarship administrators, please paste the list of 
already-funded scholarship recipients (usernames) on the page. Knowing 
what bunch of wonderful Wikimedia volunteers already got selected will 
be very inspiring/compelling. (I believe WMF staff attendees were 
already decided as well? Chapter scholarships and affiliates' attendees 
can be added later.)


Cf.
* https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/Scholarships/Vision_2015
* 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/Scholarships/SWOT_2005-2014_and_goals_for_2015 

(read again if you missed past discussions and/or you're thinking of 
boycotting my summer planning ;) ).


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] List of scholarship attendees

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Ellie Young, 02/05/2014 19:29:

This will go  up when registration goes  live next week.  It is an
opt-in list and we will encourage people as best we can to use it.


Registration? That will take ages, too late.

Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Manuel Schneider, 24/03/2014 11:07:

I fully agree with that and want to support that. Since several years I
am fighting an invisible war against programmeritis Wikimania has
fallen for.

* have less talks, focus on quality and that people are actually able to
digest the information - less is more!


+1
The counterpart to (falsely) conveying the idea that Wikimania 
attendance has near-zero cost for attendees (both in terms of finance 
and personal effort/involvement) is that many people, to get financial 
support, are forced by the respective organisations/funders to prove 
they're going to get stuff done, to deliver (usually a presentation, 
because it's the obvious thing).
Instead, we shold have a Wikimania in which we believe enough as to 
consider it valuable in itself and where people only do stuff they're 
truly engaged in.


Nemo

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[Wikimania-l] Two years to plan and implement Wikimania

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

It's proposed to open up *now* the bidding for Wikimania 2016, in order 
to have 2 years' time for planning and implementation.
See 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimania#Two_years_to_plan_and_implement_Wikimania.


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Samuel Klein, 23/03/2014 00:21:

This has a few benefits:
* tickets fully cover the cost of food and materials
* tickets contribute significantly to covering the cost of the event
* scholarships and reimbursements for attendance (for scholars,
professionals, academics all getting covered by their home
institutions), in paying for tickets, cover the full cost of those
people attending the event.
* more accurate headcounts in advance.


I agree on the benefits. I wish I could have paid real 
tickets/registration fees in the years when I attended Wikimania: (my 
time, and secondarily) travel and accommodation would have still been 
the main costs, but I would have avoided the feeling of being what in 
Italian is called a mangia pane a ufo.


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Bence Damokos, 23/03/2014 13:28:

I am not sure it is the right approach to expect attendees to pay the
full price of the per capita conference cost instead of relying on
sponsors and donors to cover the majority of the costs.


It may also not be the right approach to expect attendees to have the 
sort of services they have (accommodation, food etc.) for free. Looking 
close to us, FOSDEM seems to work rather well*, they have no 
registration fee at all but what expenses do they have?** Is their 
population so different from ours?


Lodewijk, 23/03/2014 14:03:
 So, maybe we should first answer that question - what would our ideal
 attendance look like?

Seconded. The Esino Lario bid tries to start from this fundamental 
question by the way. (Though all I said on this thread is just my opinion.)


Nemo

(*) They're also much more efficient than Wikimania, e.g. they publish 
videos in few days.
(**) https://lists.fosdem.org/pipermail/fosdem/2011-April/001302.html 
says the budget is somewhere on the wiki but not 
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Category:FOSDEM AFAICS.


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Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2014 updates on a separate mailing list?

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

I don't plan to follow any additional Wikimania mailing list so I do 
indeed hope all stuff will pass here.


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2013 videos

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Alan C Y Lai, 05/02/2014 08:07:

Dear Deryck,

Thanks for your great job!

For the closing ceremony, do you think you can recover from Livestream?


Livestream videos have been on archive.org since the beginning.
https://archive.org/search.php?query=wikimania2013-plenary

Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2013 videos

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

And now all the 71 1280x720px videos are on 
https://archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22Wikimania+2013%22 
too. In a couple hours at most they should all have ogv.


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2013 videos

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Deryck Chan, 18/01/2014 17:59:

We now have a distributed effort by multiple volunteers in Hong Kong to
upload all the video footage from Wikimania 2013 onto YouTube.


Thanks for coordinating and to all the volunteers involved, an amusing 
effort! I saw that you used the YouTube video editor and there are 
videos in HD too (1280x720px): Hong Kong beats Washington, arriving 
first despite a slower start. ;-) Please add your learnings to the 
Wikimania Handbook.

I noticed two things:
* WebM format is available at varying qualities, I suppose they're still 
being derived but I'm not sure.
* Some videos/rooms have very poor audio, but it may be my hardware 
fault too. Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciaK855R66g


Nemo

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[Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2015 scholarships vision

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Hello, today I and Martin have polished the scholarship vision/program 
for our Wikimania 2015 bid: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Esino_Lario/Scholarships.
	Considering a background and aiming for a long-term impact on the 
Wikimedia mission, we propose the following principles: Transparency; 
Accountability and self-reflection; Grassroot; Efficiency and fairness; 
Innovation. From those we identify 4 external needs and 8 goals.
	Please read the proposal and edit boldly or comment on talk page or 
wherever. Keep in mind it's still a draft, not the official WMIT 
proposal yet. While the bids warm up and the Wikimania discussion is 
still quiet, we think it's useful for everyone to focus the discussion 
on some specific areas in advance. (And if all bids adopt our idea of 
scholarships, all the better!)


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2015 scholarships vision

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Lodewijk, 12/01/2014 17:53:

Out of curiosity, why is this bid specific?


It's explained in the crucial for the success of this Wikimania plan 
passage and in several other places in the bid, where it's pointed out 
that Wikimania needs to be looked at as a whole.



I think it would be much
more valuable if we can have this discussion independent of the bid.
These values and goals should be similar independent of the location.
Even the members of the committee should be mostly independent of the
location I think.


We don't propose to change the (process of) composition of the 
committee; the bid only includes a proposed coordinator/point of contact 
with the local organising team, as per handbook/practice (that is me). 
We're just telling you one or two years in advance what we plan to do 
with that. :)


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Poster to present Wikimedia activities/projects/chapters/affiliates/tools...

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Andrew Gray, 10/01/2014 20:05:

There were a good number of posters in Gdansk, and I think it worked
reasonably well - most were from research projects, IIRC, but I
think there's certainly scope for something more movement-oriented as
well.


I liked that posters in Gdansk, that's why I added several pro items to 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/Sessions#Posters .
Especially if the conference is crowded, it's important that the author 
leaves some hints how to be found for clarifications and discussion, my 
notes still contain an unaddressed item which was – I think – a poster I 
couldn't find the author of. :)


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Videos of Wikimania 2013

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Kris Cheng, 12/12/2013 11:58:

I just asked. The videos are all 1080p and as big as 800 gb so it's
stuck there.


Stuck there where? Why can't you just upload them on archive.org and let 
their system do the necessary conversions/other users download and edit 
them as needed?


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] 2013 attendance figures?

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

No answer so far? Rumours are that it was around 500 attendees (I have 
some 470 sticking in my mind), but I have not tried to verify it.


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] WMHK Videos?

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Indeed we are always repeating the same things.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_Handbook#Video_recording_and_streaming

Daniel Schwen, 29/08/2013 01:18:

Yeah, while it would be nice to have the raw video I think you may
have a wrong idea here.
HDV video has about 10GB per hour.
8 parallel sessions
4.5h per day per session
3 days (last day a bit shorter)

With that I get about one TB of raw video data.
Good luck uploading that to an FTP server...


Not an FTP server, but on archive.org even 1 TB is easy. :)
No need to ship hard disks to other continents; it also takes care of 
the format conversion.

Bulk upload tool: https://github.com/kngenie/ias3upload
I have already uploaded the videos from livestream: 
https://archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22Wikimania+2013%22


Jan Ainali, 29/08/2013 10:50:
 Fortunately, next year everything will be live streamed and available
 immediately.

 https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Brainstorming#Live_broadcasting

I don't see any such reassurance in there.

Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Recordings

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Federico Leva (Nemo), 09/08/2013 18:03:

Time for the customary recordings thread. :)
There isn't any information about recordings on the wiki, apart from a
link in main page to the streaming of the auditorium at
http://new.livestream.com/socreclive/wikimania
Does somebody know if any recording is taking place and, if yes, in what
rooms?


Ahem, does seriously nobody know whether recordings exist? Has anyone 
seen cameras anywhere?
I will upload https://new.livestream.com/socreclive/wikimania/videos to 
archive.org (no free license), but there isn't even a title so I don't 
understand what they are. All of them just the plenary room in the 
specified day?


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Recordings

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Thank you both, this is encouraging; let's hope to see the videos 
uploaded on archive.org or Commons soon.


In the meanwhile I have uploaded the 7 streams to 
https://archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22Wikimania+2013%22 
(collection https://archive.org/details/wikimedia-other).
Feel free to comment on the items with more details to be added to the 
metadata, or just to upload the derived ogv files to Commons. :)


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] New mailing list: Wikifarm

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Mark A. Hershberger, 11/08/2013 07:55:

One of the products of our MediaWiki Release Management meetup here at
Wikimania yesterday is a new mailing list for people running Wiki Farms.
  We want to start standardizing the tools and methods of setting up
these farms.

If you're interested, please join us:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikifarm


Please add it to 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Overview#MediaWiki and 
http://gmane.org/subscribe.php before the archives are lost.


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Play WMF Board QA bingo!

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

phoebe ayers, 11/08/2013 08:11:

Well,  did anyone get a bingo? !
:)


Or alternatively, did anyone get asleep nevertheless?

Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Etherpads

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Asaf Bartov, 10/08/2013 17:26:

  Disappointingly, epl.wikimedia.org http://epl.wikimedia.org is not
_at all_ more reliable.  I keep getting losing the connection, both at
the venue and here in my hotel, where the wifi is otherwise excellent.

Any ideas?


epl should not be used until it's officially ready; the wmflabs version 
is not production so it must not be relied upon. Just use 
etherpad.wikimedia.org which has less bugs and problems as of now.

As early as this Sunday, a merge may happen.
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=45312

Nemo

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[Wikimania-l] Recordings

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Time for the customary recordings thread. :)
There isn't any information about recordings on the wiki, apart from a 
link in main page to the streaming of the auditorium at 
http://new.livestream.com/socreclive/wikimania
Does somebody know if any recording is taking place and, if yes, in what 
rooms?


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Power plugs

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

ViswaPrabha (വിശ്വപ്രഭ), 04/08/2013 03:33:

During last Wikimania (DC), I had vehemently suggested that accessories
like power plugs and split-outs of local / Universal standards and
possibly even different kinds of USB chargers could be very suitable
candidates for http://shop.wikimedia.org/ merchandise at their stalls.


Stalls?

Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania, or other events done by a third party?

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Balázs Viczián, 14/05/2013 23:30:

1) What if a third party applies to create an event? [...]

1/b) What if their bid is the best overall? Would they be allowed to
execute it (a.k.a. being announced winners)? [...]


In practice this has already happened, so it doesn't seem particularly 
strange.


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] [Wikimedia-l] Selection of winning bid for Wikimania 2014: London

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

James Forrester, 01/05/2013 19:10:

The London team took our comments to heart and decreased their core
budget to 20% of their initial proposal, [...]


£100,000 for videos seems indeed quite expensive, 0 on the other hand 
sounds risky. I suppose the team will get in touch with FOSDEM people 
(or others with experience) to learn how they do?


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2005 videos

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Erik Moeller, 23/04/2013 07:43:

(This may be a limit on archive.org's crawler, or it
may be a limit on how much content they serve. I suspect it's the
former, but will ping them as well.)


In general it's the crawler, but in this case even 480 MB videos are 
there, except that my connection was closed after about 100 MB.
Officially speaking, the reason is https://archive.org/about/faqs.php#28 
; practically speaking, they usually don't care 
http://blog.archive.org/2012/04/26/downloading-in-bulk-using-wget/


First step would probably be to get them moved to an archive.org 
collection rather than the Wayback machine.
I didn't know about 2005 but I recently saved on archive.org the 2008 
videos hosted on some precarious dreamhost domain. 
https://archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22Wikimania+2008%22


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] [Wikimania 2013] Too many people accessing the website at this time. Please try later.

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Butch Bustria, 14/04/2013 14:21:

The registration website crashed in time for the last day of Early Bird
Registration


Yes, the centralnotice yesterday killed the site and was took down.

Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] [Wikimania 2013] Too many people accessing the website at this time. Please try later.

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Thomas Morton, 14/04/2013 15:40:

Caching and Nginx are your first friends, every time.


Maybe the first, but in such cases usually the best is learning to link 
only a Wikimedia project page from the sitenotice or centralnotice. 
Notices get a lot of random clicks, few are interested in proceeding to 
the server where the meat is. Moreover, on our wikis we can use the 
Translate extension.
I think this common sense rule may be added to 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CentralNotice/Usage_guidelines. Only 
destinations tested for the load should be linked.


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania organization structure/style

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Jeremy Baron, 14/04/2013 16:48:

[...]
On Sun, Apr 14, 2013 at 2:12 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo)
nemow...@gmail.com wrote:

Only
destinations tested for the load should be linked.


You could build up gradually to the desired weight. But that's hard to
do if they're going to show up because of a deadline rather than
showing up because they just saw the banner.


Sorry, this discussion is totally off-topic. We have done this for a
while and it was never neccessary to have another extra IT just for
Wikimania.


I'm not sure I agree. (and don't necessarily disagree either) But, I
think the question of whether they needed some custom work or
something different than what they ended up getting is a small detail.

Maybe there was some public planning or discussion (or even something
on the -team list) that I missed or somehow wasn't subscribed to. [...]


I doubt it. CentralNotices are usually announced at 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CentralNotice/Calendar
What happened is probably just that the sysop enabling the banner 
assumed everything was ok because it's what has been done last years 
too, except that it wasn't because in the past the wikis were linked 
instead. 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:NoticeTemplate/viewtemplate=wikimania_reg_anon
The root problem seems more that the CentralNotice promoter and 
implementer were the same person (a temporary sysop, not someone 
experienced with the tool).


I agree with all the rest of your post, but it's not really the cause of 
this particular problem, IMHO.
On the other hand, it may be the reason why we still don't have 
Wikimania 2012 videos while FOSDEM 2013 videos were online only a few 
days after the conference.


Nemo


But
maybe this is one more an example of how I wish Wikimania were more
like DebConf (debconf.org). Typically I've wanted to apply the DebConf
model to organization in general and video recording/streaming/etc.
but I imagine this applies just as well to setting up a registration
server. Not saying we should copy everything exactly nor are they
perfect as is but I think they have a good model to learn from.

With DebConf, more work is typically done in house by volunteers that
are interested in what they're working on. (Much like the way enwiki
works, things are typically done by people interested in making them
happen because otherwise they're not done at all. There's rarely or
never any paid staff involved and rarely anyone assigning work for
someone else to do. People are given opportunities to find out about
how something will work early and when someone wants to do something
differently or thinks there's a problem with the something they are
often invited to join in that work themselves.)

Some work is necessarily done out of the public eye (e.g. some
negotiations with potential fiscal sponsors or handling of private
personal info about attendees) but that's the exception rather than
the rule. Most work is planned and discussed in public and the
organizing teams (which are essentially defined as whoever shows up
regular and takes on some work) have regularly scheduled and widely
announced public meetings. (for IRC meetings logs are published very
soon after the meeting. for public meatspace meetings there is usually
no recording but some basic notes are taken and published.)

Some examples:
http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20120703.022020.76785594.en.html
http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20120701.233202.64f18798.en.html
http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20120701.234402.d6ae00ac.en.html
http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20130408.200353.623deacf.en.html

Thanks!

-Jeremy

[[user:jeremyb]]
Wikimedia NYC  Wikimania 2012

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania organization structure/style

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Jeremy Baron, 14/04/2013 17:11:

On Sun, Apr 14, 2013 at 3:04 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo)
nemow...@gmail.com wrote:

On the other hand, it may be the reason why we still don't have Wikimania
2012 videos while FOSDEM 2013 videos were online only a few days after the
conference.


I think most are online already at
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhVZi8OXqfHtOiP2LADQW_jMY5kGPjYMsfeature=view_all


Sure, but for practical purposes that's been mostly useless to me. I had 
to manually upload some videos myself to Commons, and of course I can't 
do anything about the quality.




And maybe sometime in the next few months they'll make their way to
commons. (I've asked about that relatively recently and there has been
relatively recent communication between the Wikimania team and the
vendor they're waiting on.)

However, your reasoning might be correct; I don't know much about
FOSDEM video besides that a lot is the same as DebConf video. (both in
terms of methods and equipment but also overlap in team members) The
DebConf method involves streaming and recording the stream for upload.
Files are then given a quick review to be sure there's no readily
apparent serious issues and are then available for download by the
general public. There is no editing done at all unless a major problem
is found, so no waiting for the editing process to finish.


And surely the also have no waiting for someone outside the organising 
team with shell access to upload them to the server!


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] wikimani live streaming

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Jeremy Baron, 01/03/2013 05:06:

On Fri, Mar 1, 2013 at 3:39 AM, Srinivasan Dwarakanathan
vasandva...@gmail.com wrote:

Do we have live streaming of wikimania 2013? If this option is available how
can I subscribe to it?

Also where can I see the recorded sessions?


You know it's 5 months away?

I imagine some of those decisions might not even be made yet.


FOSDEM video team seems several orders of magnitude more efficient than 
any Wikimania's, does someone know when they start planning? Can we hire 
them? :)


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikitrain to Wikimania HK

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Marco Fleckinger, 20/01/2013 03:07:

I once heard that shipping a container from China to Germany costs
approx. 400 Euros. If we are enough and had enough time...


No, it's more, maybe you mean from Germany to China and only ship 
freight (then it could be possible in some periods).


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikitrain to Wikimania HK

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Seb35, 19/01/2013 17:15:

Thanks for your advices; I hope share the trip with some of you.
I began a page to coordinate
https://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikitrain

Regarding the prices of the train I found it is very (very) varying,
from 150 € to 4300 €, and depends of many parameters like if it is a
global ticket or tickets for local sections, if you buy it on the Web or
in train stations, if you speak Russian, the period in the year, etc. so
a deeper investigation is needed.


Also if you stop or not between the different sections, I heard?

Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikitrain to Wikimania HK

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Sven, 19/01/2013 00:16:

wiki-shippingcontainers? Umm...


FYI, trans-siberian cargo transport by train is very insecure (due to 
stops and thefts) and needs high insurance, so don't try to sneak in a 
trans-siberian wiki-shippingcontainer!
The new Deutsche Bahn fast cargo train is supposed to deal with it but, 
to answer Sumana, I can't write about it on Wikivoyage due to family 
COI. :-p


Nemo



On Jan 18, 2013, at 1:50 PM, Pharos wrote:


Someone needs to start a historical list of wiki-trains, wiki-buses,
and wiki-shippingcontainers on a page on Meta.


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Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikitrain to Wikimania HK

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Seb35, 17/01/2013 23:53:

Hello, Добрый день,

Three years ago some crazy Wikimedians (whose I was) travelled by train
through Europe to join Gdańsk for Wikimania.

This year I intend to join Wikimania Hong Kong by train from France,
mainly with the Trans-Siberian Railway and the Chinese trains. The
travel can take a minimum of about 2 weeks (of intensive train :), but
it would be more comfortable to take more time; the price seems to be
about 300-400 € (+food, visas, etc…), so probably less or similar than
the airtravel of ~800 €.


Visas are very expensive, as far as I know. Also, I suppose you're 
talking of tickets bought separately for each section locally?
People I know that did the travel in the cheapest way possible four 
years ago spent more like twice as much, but I don't remember exactly.



Does anyone is interested to join me? You have time if you want think
about. If we are some people interested in Europe, we could join in
Deutschland before continuing the 10k km :)


No wm2013 for me I'm afraid, although the wikitrain alone would make it 
worthy.


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Here Comes your Programme Committee Scholarship Committee

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Jeromy-Yu Maximilian Chan, 05/01/2013 05:35:

Programme Committee

NameAffiliation
Simon Shek2013 local team
Deryck Chan2013 local team
Katie Filbert2012 PC, WMDC
Kiril Simeonovski2012 PC, WMMK
Deror Lin   2012 PC, WMIL
Gyenes Orsolya Virág WMHU
Greg Varnum2012 PC
Sarah Stierch2012 PC, WMDC
James ForresterPerpetual Wikimaniac
John VandenbergWMAU
Ota TakashiJapan WG


What are their thoughts on last year's feedback and discussions on the 
program? Some people (Gmaxwell comes to mind) asked to change the 
process quite a bit.

https://wikimania2012.wikimedia.org/wiki/Feedback#Program

Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2013 call for scholarship review committee

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Simon Shek, 24/11/2012 10:21:

We would advise attendees from countries that required a Hong Kong
visiting visa should plan and apply now.


So will you provide invitation letters and whatnot to all potential 
attendees, even if unsure?
The process for this should probably be defined in the next few weeks or 
days and 1) communicated on this mailing list and to all previous 
attendees (do you have a list of email addresses? maybe not), 2) 
included as a recommendation in the application form for a scholarship.


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2013 call for scholarship review committee

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Simon Shek, 24/11/2012 12:02:

An invitation letter will be provided only for those registered for wm2013, or 
applied scholarship.


Simon Shek, 24/11/2012 10:21:

We would advise attendees from countries that required a Hong Kong
visiting visa should plan and apply now.


Ehm, how can those two sentences be consistent?
How can one request visa right now? Do you suggest to register even if 
unsure, to get the invitation letter and request visas? No to mention 
that The registration for Wikimania 2013 has not begun yet according 
to the wiki.


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2013 call for scholarship review committee

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Joseph Fox, 24/11/2012 13:12:

It would be almost fraudulent to send out invitation letters to people who 
haven't yet received allowance to even enter HK I think. But I don't know, 
maybe send them to people who have paid?


I've no idea what's the best way or even if invitation letters are 
required/useful at all for anyone to get HK visas, people who know more 
will decide/find out; I'd only want to be sure that our scholarship 
recipients don't fail to attend due to visa problems again.
Experience teaches that we're bound to underestimate visa problems 
people will have... better to be safe.


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2013 call for scholarship review committee

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Simon Shek, 19/11/2012 17:03:

Deadline to apply is Tuesday, December 11, 2012.
The local team will contact all candidates between November and
January; the list of scholarship committee members will be announced
in January.


Will this leave enough time for the scholarships to be confirmed in time 
for people to get visas?


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Looking for Wikimania Materials on Wikipedia Infrastructure

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Tomasz Ganicz, 27/08/2012 13:27:

Detailed information regarding Wikimedia Foundation's server's and
network can be found here:

http://wikitech.wikimedia.org/


Which is completely useless for any kind of high-level information, in 
particular [[Server roles]] which is dead and has no replacement and 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_servers is outdated.
But you might dig http://wikitech.wikimedia.org/view/Presentations , 
it's also possible that some Wikimania presentations have been added 
already.


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2012 videos are being uploaded

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Just in case someone hadn't noticed the status of this, about half of 
the slots have been covered/uploaded.


Nemo

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