Quim, Responses inline.
- We seem to have an erratic use of "Wikipedia", "Wikimedia", "MediaWiki", [choose your logo] and [nothing] for naming these events. For instance, see the web pages of "San Francisco Hackathon" "Berlin Hackathon" or "Amsterdam Hackathon" and try to find the full name written down. The pictures show that creative, inconsistent solutions were found for the banners. This makes no sense for the outsiders we want to reach. +1 for standardizing to Mediawiki <event> <city> - We seem to use "Hackathon" always but then Bangalore was a "DevCamp". It is useful to settle in one word, unless the event is something completely different. We changed the usage of the term 'hackathon' to 'devcamp' specifically for the India subcontinent where 'hacking=security breakins'. We were having to turnaway people who wanted to work together on cracking passwords and more at our hackathons. The preferred terminology in Asia would not be 'hackathon'. Devcamps have also included lightning talks as well as tutorials and demos. Again, localizing for the needs of a geography is okay. - Some events specify the date in their name, some don't. There is no need to specify the month-year in the name of the event since any event has a date anyway. This allows us to recycle and update web pages, archiving properly past events. URLs stay and they become stronger. You can find an extreme example of this problem in Wikimania where (up to date) every year there has been a new URL, a new Twitter account, etc. Let's avoid this problem at least in our context. I agree. There is no need to specify month-year in the event name. We discarded the practice for the most recent Bangalore DevCamp. -Alolita On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 9:21 AM, Sumana Harihareswara <suma...@wikimedia.org > wrote: > On 01/23/2013 12:14 PM, Quim Gil wrote: > > Hi, back in November Erik and Sumana explained the intention of the WMF > > to get less involved in the direct organization of developer events. > > Instead, the WMF will empower and help community groups taking the lead > > organizing developer activities. > > > > > http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2012-November/122725.html > > > > In practice, this means that those events are run more in a > > franchise-like mode (sorry for the commercial word: I'm using it to > > illustrate the point). As we can learn from the franchise model, the > > more complete is the documentation and the more standardized is the > > process, the easier it is for a local promoter to setup and activity on > > their own and succeed. Local successes help the global success, and > > global success helps local successes. > > > > Ok, now back to our reality. :) > > > > The first element of an event is its name, and already there we have > > room for improvement. > > > > Proposal: naming all our developer events > > > > MediaWiki Hackathon City > > > > e.g. MediaWiki Hackathon Amsterdam, to mention an event currently > > showing a branding problem: > > https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Amsterdam_Hackathon_2013 > > > > Localizations and exceptions to be considered and approved one by one. > > > > > > The problem, in more detail: > > > > - We seem to have an erratic use of "Wikipedia", "Wikimedia", > > "MediaWiki", [choose your logo] and [nothing] for naming these events. > > For instance, see the web pages of "San Francisco Hackathon" "Berlin > > Hackathon" or "Amsterdam Hackathon" and try to find the full name > > written down. The pictures show that creative, inconsistent solutions > > were found for the banners. This makes no sense for the outsiders we > > want to reach. > > > > - We seem to use "Hackathon" always but then Bangalore was a "DevCamp". > > It is useful to settle in one word, unless the event is something > > completely different. > > > > - Some events specify the date in their name, some don't. There is no > > need to specify the month-year in the name of the event since any event > > has a date anyway. This allows us to recycle and update web pages, > > archiving properly past events. URLs stay and they become stronger. You > > can find an extreme example of this problem in Wikimania where (up to > > date) every year there has been a new URL, a new Twitter account, etc. > > Let's avoid this problem at least in our context. > > I am actually fine with inconsistency here. I don't think we need > uniformity. In one city, local technologists might call something a > hackathon; in another country, the word "hack" always means cracking and > security work, so the people we want to reach would understand better if > we call it a training or a conference or a jam or "dev days"; and so on. > (This is what has happened in India and caused actual headaches and > disappointment and misleading word-of-mouth for past Indian events that > had "hack" in the name.) > > I'd like to see what the actual harm caused by inconsistency is and I'd > like more data on what real benefit we'd get by making people always > name things according to the same scheme. Not just hypotheticals. > Perhaps a few other open source communities have dealt with this and > would be able to provide that data. > > Dates in the names of events -- sure, do away with those, fine. > > -- > Sumana Harihareswara > Engineering Community Manager > Wikimedia Foundation > > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > -- Alolita Sharma Director of Engineering Language Engineering Wikimedia Foundation _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
