Hi Phoebe and all, great idea! This fits very well into this approach:[1] of sharing experience and talking about best practises. I'll put that on the agenda for the panel, so that it will have some lasting effect.
[1] http://wikimania2010.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Panel_Discussion_for_Knowledge_Sharing:_How_to_make_a_Wiki_Event /Manuel Am 17.06.2010 22:28, schrieb phoebe ayers: > On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 12:06 PM, Sue Gardner<[email protected]> wrote: >> Hi folks, >> >> For several years now, people have occasionally floated the notion >> that there should be a permanent Wikimania oversight committee – >> basically, a group of people responsible for giving some coaching and >> guidance and oversight to the local planning team each year. Over the >> years, support has been offered each year by people like Phoebe, James >> Forrester, Delphine (Delphine both in her staff role and as a >> volunteer) and SJ … but there has never (AFAIK) been a formal >> oversight committee. I think there probably should be. > > Hello Sue and all, > > Good timing -- we just had a long conversation about this in the > #wikimedia open meeting this afternoon. There were quite a few > participants, including several past wikimania organizers. > > Quick summary of that discussion: > * there is definite interest in an ongoing Wikimania (oversight, > governance, guidance) (body, committee, group) (we talked for quite a > while about those various names and their different connotations) > > * there are a few potential roles that people see for such a group: > ** 1) collecting and writing better documentation about the > conference, including best practices for organization and what has > happened in the past > ** 2) answering questions from Wikimania organizers about past > practices, helping coordinate who to ask about various aspects > ** 3) providing oversight to the overall wikimania process -- for > instance making sure that a bid jury is called and the bids are > submitted in time (like elections) > ** 4) providing oversight/governance as the conference progresses -- > for instance, getting regular reports about the conference. Along with > this, the org team would have someone to report to if, say, a venue > burns down or some other catastrophe happens. > > These ideas are roughly in order of how much controversy they > generated among discussion participants. I think we all pretty much > agreed that we need better conference documentation, and a loose > community group of past organizers and interested participants can > provide such documentation. Here's a start: > > Conference handbook: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/Handbook > -- let's write the big book of Wikimania > Conference checklist: > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/checklist -- make sure you > have everything you need > Conference community: > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/community -- a start at a > community group, w/ interested participants. > > We discussed however that for any oversight/governance functions we > might need a more formalized structure and perhaps a formal mandate. > This seemed like a Board-level issue to several people (including me). > We also discussed that there's not a good process for proposing and > forming community committees that would interact with the Foundation > on various issues. > > What do you all think? > > best, > Phoebe > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimania-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l > -- Regards Manuel Schneider Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens Wikimedia CH - Association for the advancement of free knowledge www.wikimedia.ch _______________________________________________ Wikimania-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
