Fae, I'm sorry, but I'm seeing a lot of bad faith in your messaging here. Everyone who is part of the jury is a longtime volunteer, with the exception of the WMF staffer who has been intensively working on Wikimanias for the last two years so has a great deal of experience with the actual management of the Wikimania conference. Several of the jurors have very deep experience in handling conferences, by dint of their real-world experiences, which in some cases include holding roles on chapter staff. I am having a really hard time understanding why you are very clearly implying that there is something untoward about selecting the group tasked to make the recommendation based on both volunteer and professional experience. And yes, I think selecting a group that actually has these attributes is considerably better than selecting a group with no particular criteria, or what appeared to be the previous criteria of "has been to lots of Wikimanias before". The latter has not been a particularly useful criterion, since attending conferences does not give insight to the managing of a conference.
People are appointed to other committees and groups based on factors that are external to their attendance at certain conferences or their edit count all the time. There is a need to have accountants on the Audit committee. There is a need to have people experienced with checkuser on the Ombud committee. The selection of the Wikimania jury based on actual skill and experience instead of popularity or number of conferences attended is a positive sign of a maturing organization recognizing the value of the conference. It's never been an elected position, and there's no basis in anything that anyone has said on this list that would indicate that making it an elected position would lead to a somehow better process for identifying the next Wikimania location. Risker/Anne On 10 October 2014 10:44, Fæ <[email protected]> wrote: > On 10 October 2014 14:58, Lodewijk <[email protected]> wrote: > > If you're interested in discussing the future of Wikimania, perhaps it > > makes sense to do that on the dedicated list? Just a wild thought. > > Thanks for the thought. Itzik's general question was posted to > Wikimedia-l, so answering it here makes sense. No doubt most readers > of wikimedia-l are like myself and do not normally follow wikimania-l. > > Governance and transparency issues for Wikimania are of more general > interest than a readership of "Wikimania attendees, presenters, and > fans", particularly when as a community of volunteers we have chosen > to let a WMF employee make community decisions for us (such as > appointing the Jury that has our full authority for deciding where > Wikimania will be held, along with the political and financial > implications of support contracts and investing significant money in a > chosen country). > > Wikimania has become a big business with significant press attention > and associated significant risks. It benefits from having many > volunteers in our movement asking questions and ensuring that the main > body of unpaid volunteers are happy that it is directed by volunteers > and focused on our community, rather than the interests of partners, > other commerical rationales or indeed the interests of the WMF which > is not exactly the same as the interests of the wider Wikimedia > community/beneficiaries. > > As an unpaid volunteer at Wikimania in London, I was very interested > in talking to other unpaid volunteers, some of whom were taking part > because they wanted to gain experience in event management for their > CVs but with no prior understanding of what Wikimania projects > actually were. I think that's okay, we welcome this sort of support, > but how these varied interests should be managed to meet our shared > open knowledge ethics and values is something to continue to ponder as > our movement continues to grow, particularly if measured by how many > tens of millions of dollars are donated to us each year -- which seems > to be the critical measure of success used by the WMF and the > international press. > > Fae > -- > [email protected] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > [email protected] > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/[email protected]> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> > _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe>
