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Wikimania Handbook

This is an archived version of this page, as edited by Theo10011 (talk | contribs) at 19:27, 30 January 2011 (→Wikimedia Foundation staff). It may differ significantly from the current version.
Wikimania overview
Organization
Next event
  • 2025 (Nairobi, Kenya)
Future events
  • 2026 (Paris, France)
  • 2027 To be determined
Past years

How to run a Wikimania: past practice, best practice, and general guidance

So, you want to organize a Wikimania? Well, good luck. :-) This guide is pretty huge and should give you lots of tips on how to organize Wikimania and where to get help for stuff not on here.

Please note: This is not a set of official requirements for Wikimania. However, it is a collection of best practices that have been developed over the past several years, as well as a comprehensive checklist of the areas to consider when running a conference. The goal of this guide is to help each new team in planning the best conference they can.

Ideally this guide will also prove useful to organizers of other Wikimedia and community events, not just Wikimania. Feel free to adapt and remix it.

This guide is also very much in progress -- please add to it and update it.

What is Wikimania?

Hopefully you already know what Wikimania is, but if not, Wikimania is an annual global conference devoted to Wikimedia projects around the world (Wikipedia and the MediaWiki software). The conference is a community gathering, giving the editors, users and developers of Wikimedia projects an opportunity to meet each other, exchange ideas, report on research and projects, and collaborate on the future of the projects. The conference is open to the public, and is a chance for educators, researchers, programmers and free culture activists who are interested in the Wikimedia projects to learn more and share ideas about the Wikimedia projects.

However, this short description does not capture the complexity of what Wikimania can be. Because this is a community-generated conference, each team is free to re-imagine Wikimania.

Who is Wikimania for?

This question has been repeatedly debated over many years. First and foremost Wikimania is for the Wikimedia community to come together. But beyond that, you may want to consider whether your Wikimania will be a venue for:

  • new editors, readers and "fans"
  • journalists and film-makers
  • business meetings of various groups (chapters, Wikimedia Foundation committees, etc)
  • people from other non-Wikimedia wikis and/or related movements (free culture, OER, etc)

This is a question that each team gets to focus on and decide. Who do you want Wikimania to be for? The answer to this question will help determine the kinds of activities that you include (such as whether there is a session for new editors); and perhaps the total size of the conference (which could in turn determine such things as venue, accommodation options, etc.)

Conference theme

It is helpful for the core team to think of a conference theme. Is there an area that you would like your Wikimania to focus on?

Are you ready to host Wikimania?

The best way to tell whether your community group is ready to host Wikimania is to try bidding for the conference, as described below. Reading and discussing the bid requirements, as well as this handbook, will give you a good idea of whether you are ready to host the conference.

Wikimania is a lot of work and requires a substantial commitment over time, but it doesn't have to be daunting. It is a true "team effort" and you will have the support of collaborators from all over the world, as well as the thanks of the entire Wikimedia movement!

Bidding

Overview

Just like the projects it celebrates, Wikimania is very community-run and is dominated by the community. The Wikimania planning process begins each year with an open bidding process where different community teams submit their own bids so that they can bring Wikimania to their area. These bids are then fleshed out and developed over a few months. In the end, the bids are all reviewed by a jury of Wikimedia Foundation members, community representatives, and former organizers, who then decide which country will host the next Wikimania. Once the bid is awarded, that team can go ahead with planning the conference.

The process of bidding is time-consuming but good preparation for planning the conference, and preparing a bid can help a team decide if they are ready to put on the conference. The bid must show a comprehensive and realistic plan for hosting the conference, including a core team of committed volunteers, a proposed ___location, and a budget. The bid must convince the jury that the team is ready and able to host a great Wikimania.

Making a bid

Preparing Initial bid

Before you propose a venue to host wikimania, check the following aspects:

  • Discuss with your team member the pros and cons of the ___location, have several ___location proposed and chose the city in your local vicinity and the venue therein. Each city would probably have several optional venues, so choose the one most suitable:
    • Closest to hotels/dorms/restaurants/shopping areas
    • easy to reach by public transportation
    • easy access from hotels/dorms to venue by public transportation
    • venue has enough halls and rooms to hold several tracks of the conference, and a main hall big enough to hold plenary sessions.
  • Once choosing the venue contact the venue and make sure what are the available dates.
  • If planning on using nearby dorms – make sure which dates are available.
  • Team members who live or work near the venue, and are able to get to the venue once a week at the early planning stages and several times a week at the late planning stages.

After choosing the venue, choose the dates of the conference based on the following:

  • Dorms and venues are available
  • No religious holidays which will prevent groups from attending the conference
  • No local national holidays (which will result in restaurants or suppliers not working during the conference)

After choosing the ___location and the dates you may apply your initial bid.

Preparing Complete Bid

Preparing your bid:

  • Background info on the country, the city
  • Information on the venue
  • Proposed itinerary
  • List nearby accommodation options
  • Explain transportation options to the venue, and between accommodations and venue; check flight costs through sites like expedia
  • Cost of living (costs of food)
  • Nearby interesting sites
  • List weaknesses of your proposal and how you are planning to solve them
  • Draft budget (have at least one price quote for each subject in order to make sure the budget is reasonable
  • Make sure the local city or authorities, and also state government are supporting the conference. Approach them, requesting support letters.
  • Obtain support letters from various supporters (local companies, local universities).

Use bids of previous years, and wikimania sites of previous years (http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org, http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org, http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org, http://wikimania2010.wikimedia.org, http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org) for tips and ideas

It is best to divide the areas of responsibilities between the team members so it is clear which team member is responsible for what.

Judging process

Team

Overview

The local team is by far the most critical component to any successful Wikimania. The team is the group of people that will implement the conference and that will make sure everything is taken care of. Part of the planning team -- what is usually called "the core team" -- will need to form at the bidding stage and stay involved throughout the year, coordinating the entire operation. Some team members -- the "additional team" -- will only become involved with specific parts of the conference -- for instance the scholarships committee. Foundation staff will generally fall into this type of role. Finally, some team members may only become involved at the last stage of the conference -- just before, during and after the conference. These team members may be volunteers who come from the hosting institution or other local groups (such as a local university).

Finally, the team is split into online-only (or "remote") volunteers and in-person volunteers. Remote volunteers can handle a lot of tasks -- the program is a good example -- but in-person volunteers are crucial to running the logistical side of the conference. Many of the core team members need to be in-person. It is helpful to have a number of in-person volunteers who are local to the conference site -- that is, living in the same town or very nearby.

Team roles

Describe and refine the team roles before the event itself.

  • Team Lead- Consider having at-least 1-2 team leads, people either who have some experience in organizing events or managing people.
  • Team member (Back office related)- OTRS, Press, email contact.
  • Team member (Visa, Travel related)- Two people would be ideal helping, checking Visas, and answering travel related queries.
  • Organizer(Internal/External)- Decide if you want to hire an outside organizer or enlist a professional or if you want to take the lead on the operations.
  • Negotiating/financing/sponsor- A dedicated team member who specializes in negotiating with vendors, and arranging sponsors is an idea asset to have on the team from the beginning. Might be an outside paid professional or a volunteer.

Recruiting volunteers

  • best practice for recruiting volunteers:
    • in person- Try and enlist local Wikimedians in the area, feel free to look for volunteers and other interested supporters in the vicinity. A good option to always consider is a University, or a college in the area to recruit volunteers.
    • online - Recruit interested volunteers for OTRS, email, design related tasks and other consultation. Feel free to announce on the mailing list, VP or email individually.

Wikimedia Foundation staff

  • what to expect from WMF staff - Get a clear idea of what you want from the staff and the foundation before you visit. Discuss the issues before visiting before hand. Also consider talking to previous organizers.
  • Work on a checklist and a Wishlist of what you would want from the staff.
  • The core team will usually visit the Foundation offices to meet with WMF staff at some point in the fall after being awarded the bid. What to expect from this meeting.

Professional planners

There is no specific guidelines on whether or not a team should consider using a professional conference planner for managing some or all logistics planning; this is a decision that is up to the team.

  • pros & cons here

Partnerships

  • past partnerships (berkman etc)
  • possibilities for partnerships
  • partnerships with other conferences: WikiSym etc.; best practices for this

Planning meetings

  • best practices for planning, holding and documenting meetings to plan the conference
  • an ideal schedule
  • see also: internal communications

On-site team

  • You will need volunteers for on-site tasks; these people may not have been involved in the planning process.
    • best practices for recruiting volunteers

Historical information

  • Ideas for how past teams have met this challenge

Sponsorships & Budget

Overview

Money is required to make any conference run!

Funding for Wikimania comes from four main sources:

  • Sponsorships by companies and organizations
  • Sponsorship by the Wikimedia Foundation
  • Registration fees from participants
  • in-kind donations from companies and organizations (such as a free or reduced price venue)

Processing a large amount of money -- both paying conference vendors and receiving sponsorships and fees -- is required to run a Wikimania. In order to handle this money, teams must have a financial structure set up. Some Wikimania teams have created non-profit organizations for the purpose of handling the money, and some teams have worked through existing organizations (like a chapter or outside partner).

Financial reporting is also required, both internally and back to sponsors and the Wikimedia Foundation. Guidelines on reporting and budgeting are below.

There are also many types of costs that the conference will entail. These expenses are typically divided into two types: fixed expenses and variable expenses. Fixed expenses include conference infrastructure, things like the cost of the venue rental -- these expenses stay the same no matter how many attendees you have. Variable expenses however are the costs for individual participants, and change depending on how many attendees you have -- for instance, the cost of food. Variable expenses are usually calculated "per-person"; each additional attendee will entail a certain cost. Multiplying variable costs by the number of attendees, and adding this to the fixed costs, equals the total cost of the conference that will need to be balanced by sponsorships and registration fees.

Bid budgets should take into account both fixed and variable costs. The bid budget should also reflect core (absolutely necessary) expenses and potential extra expenses (such as for a field trip that might only happen if funding is received). Budgets should also contain a contingency. It is normal for bid budgets to change if for instance in-kind sponsorship is received later in the process. However, careful track should be kept of such changes and the team should always have an up-to-date budget and more than one person that understands it. All team members that handle money should understand the importance of keeping careful track of the money, obtaining good receipts and records of any money spent or received, and being financially responsible.

Obtaining sponsorships is a core part of every Wikimania team's job, but it can often be quite difficult and time-consuming. Assigning at least one person the job of handling sponsorships is important. The Wikimedia Foundation will work with teams to pursue big or international sponsors and can help work with sponsors on behalf of teams, but it is up to every team to pursue at least local and in-kind opportunities and to make sure that materials that make it easier to get sponsorship (such as up-to-date press kits, websites, budgets and other information) are available.

Financial structure

  • information on various financial structures here
  • how to assign a treasurer

Budget planning and reporting

  • Initial (bid) budget
  • Interim budgets
  • reports to WMF

Sponsorships

  • international
  • local
  • need: Kul, Barcex (2009), Saper (2010)
  • kit; levels

Budget team

  • budget team best practices

Historical information

  • Ideas for how past teams have met this challenge

Program

Overview

The "program" comprises all of the activities during the conference that attendees engage in -- whether it's listening to academic presentations or participating in a trivia contest. The program is a crucial component of the conference experience.

It is also an area where there is a great deal of leeway for the local team to determine what they want the conference to be. At the same time, there are certain "traditions" (such as the Wikimedia Foundation Board panel) that have been established over the years and planners are welcome to continue these traditions. The program is typically an area where there is a good deal of remote and international help as well as local participation. This is in fact a good area to assign to a team of remote volunteers, as long as there is a liaison to the core local team.

While the program is often considered "the fun part" of the conference, it has many complicated components that often depend on one another. Careful scheduling of program deadlines well in advance -- and sticking to that schedule -- is an important part of planning the conference.

Deciding the overall types of program activities that will be included needs to be done at the very beginning of conference planning, as this will determine how long the conference is. For instance, if you want to have two days of business meetings and hackathon before the main conference, this will add an additional two days to the time that you will need a venue, accommodation, etc. for.

The program team is often split into several groups -- for instance, the people who are planning the parties and social events and the people who are in charge of the core "academic" program. While these groups can work independently, there needs to be very good coordination between all of the groups and the core team. Several areas, such as the attendee party, the keynote speakers, and Wikimedia Foundation events, will require the input and possible leadership of the core team.

Program components

  • core conference program
  • Wikimedia Foundation presentations -- board panel, executive director, etc.
  • fun activities and social activities (incld. pre & post conference
  • party
  • business meetings/chapter meetings
  • hackathon
  • etc.

Poster session

Some Wikimanias have had a poster session. These have a specific set of requirements to do well.

Open space

What is open space, requirements, etc.

Submission system and timeline

Program review, scheduling, and speaker management

  • example schedule outline

Keynotes

  • keynotes and invitations to send out

Parties and events

On-site program needs

  • program needs to coordinate with tech & venue
  • moderators!!!!

Program team

  • Program team / committee best practices
  • program committee; wikimania-program@lists
    • international committee! not just local team

Historical information

  • Ideas for how past teams have met this challenge

On-site logistics and attendee services

Overview

This is the "physical" part of the conference -- dealing with on-site services, including the venue. This is the part of the conference that affects the experience of attendees and their comfort: where they sleep, what they eat, and how they get around. People usually remember this part of the conference -- if they don't have good sleeping arrangements, that can spoil the rest of the experience.

These details are not very glamorous but they are a crucial part of planning an event. In addition, this is the part of the conference where budgeting becomes very important, since small differences in the cost of a meal can add up to big changes in your overall budget.

The final part of attendee logistics are on-site services, which include registration check-in, information services, childcare, presentation logistics and teams to deal with any emergencies. When several hundred people converge in one place, there will be issues that will need to be dealt with, and the on-site team will be the ones dealing with them.

The team for this diverse set of areas may consist of several individuals, many of whom will typically be part of or will work closely with the core team. These team members generally need to be local, so that they can conduct in-person negotiations, site visits, etc. However, the logistics team will also need to coordinate with every other team -- since logistics will be the ones setting up registration tables, helping the tech team get access, assisting the program team with room assignments, providing and receiving budget information and so on. On-site services will be coordinated by this team, but may actually be provided by a "last-minute" larger crew of volunteers who may come from the venue, a local university, the local meetup group, etc. Many people will be required throughout the conference to provide these services, and these people will need to be coordinated by the volunteer coordinator, which should be an assigned position (*not* the lead organizer).

Venue coordination

  • venue coordination and planning
  • venue requirements for Wikimania (presentation rooms, auditoriums, lounges, etc)
  • coordinating with tech & program teams

Lounge/social space

Wikimania 2007 lounge
Wikimania 2010 patio setup - with couches AND beer, and a view of the waterway :)

This is one of the unusual requirements of Wikimania, compared to most conferences -- Wikimedians love to hang out :) Nothing makes a big group of Wikimedians happier than having a quiet area with access to wifi, coffee (or beer) and couches on which they can sit and discuss plans for world domination (and/or improving the projects). In fact you could probably host all of Wikimania successfully just by giving people a big room with enough couches in it. This social space may be in the venue itself or it may be in the accommodation space. Ideally, it's somewhere that everyone has access to. Other requirements include:

  • big enough so that many people can hang out here
  • easy access for long hours -- preferably pre- & post- (especially post) conference, as well as during
  • access to food and drink
  • comfortable - not too noisy
  • flexible - so attendees can set up their own tables, exhibits, podcasting sessions, etc.
  • with power outlets and wifi

Accommodation

Accommodation is one of the biggest headaches for Wikimania, since we would like both on-site and very cheap housing for our participants -- a combination that is often quite difficult to find. It is preferable for Wikimania attendees to sleep on site or as near the conference site as possible.

Options

  • Bulk booking in advance at hotels- Many Budget priced hotels would consider subsidized rates for bulk booking especially in off-season or when negotiated in advance.
  • Dorms- University, schools or other Institutions can provide lodging depending upon the season and availability.
  • Hostels-There are lots of Hostels that offer lodging for highly subsidized rates.

Food

Lunch at Wikimania 2006
  • coffee, coffee and more coffee and if it is hot weather water is essential.
  • snacks.
  • Food service- Professional catering is ideal in most cases, especially if prices are competitive and negotiated before-hand.
  • Beverages- Depending on the temperature that might be lots of coffee or cold drinks refreshments for warmer venues.
  • vegetarian options.
  • Many editors avoid pork for religious/cultural reasons.
  • Always advisable to have Kosher/Halal options.
  • Always have water around - also between coffee breaks. You should make sure with your caterer that water is always available. Some might just remove everything after breaks, due to misunderstanding or costs.

Transportation

Every locations differs in terms of its requirement for transportation. Some things to consider regardless of the venue

  • Distance to and from the Airport
  • Distance from the Venue to the center of the city.

If the distances are high, prices and bulk deals could be arranged before-hand with a transport option like a Taxi company to provide pick up service for the event.

Handouts to attendees

  • A welcome Kit- should ideally include program table, listings, brochures, pins, stickers and other knick-knack.
    • Another option to consider is co-branding with a sponsor or finding a sponsor to provide the material altogether, sponsors can include their promotional material in the kit.
  • tshirt
  • program
  • conference information
  • etc

Childcare

  • An ideal option to consider, but do bear in mind the security and safety of Children. Providing materials for children, babies is a thoughtful option to consider.

On-site services

  • Information desk
  • lost and found
  • tech help
  • presentation room help

Security

A high proportion of Wikimania attendees will have laptops or netbooks with them, depending on the level of local crime this may necessitate on site security to ensure that people only leave the venue with their own laptops. In Buenos Aires several computers were stolen and security had to be implemented with guards checking every computer that was taken out of the venue and in and out of certain rooms.

As a precaution, laptops should be labelled as part of the registration process.

Insurance and emergencies

  • about event insurance
  • how to set up an emergency team
  • emergency info for participants
  • first aid and health teams

Logistics team

  • logistics team best practices

Historical information

  • Ideas for how past teams have met this challenge

On-site technology

Overview

Unsuprisingly, everyone wants great wifi at the conference! Perhaps surprisingly, this is remarkably hard to get at conference venues. In addition, since Wikimania is a global conference with a world-wide audience, recording sessions and making them available (during and after the conference) is important.

These technical areas require pre-planning and are complex enough to need a dedicated team.

Attendee wifi

this may not be the ideal solution, but sometimes you need guerilla networking. Wikimania 2005
.

For many attendees of Wikimania, WiFi is the only connection to the outside world (which we can't live without) since we are traveling internationally and our cellular devices don't have service or would cost a fortune due to roaming fees.

Consider that you have about 600 visitors, so you need to be prepared for many devices. Most contractors would never consider that every Wikimania attendee will have at least one device that wants an IP and potentially two or three. With this in mind, a /23 (510 devices), or even a /22 (1022 devices), subnet (instead of the usual /24 with 254 hosts) should be considered. Additionally you could limit the DHCP lease time to 1 or 2 hours so that addresses can be reallocated often.

A wifi access point can - according to vendors - handle up to 20 concurrent devices. In practice you can support around a hundred people with one AP as they are mostly not using wifi all at the same time. Consider getting cheap wifi gear and more of those. There are only three wifi channels which don't have overlaping frequencies (1, 6, 11), so you can have up to three wifi gears per room. Put them into three different corners of the hall and limit the radio power so they don't interfere with wifi in the next room or in the lobby.

Graphical representation of Wi-Fi channels in 2.4 GHz band

Additionally you might also put up 5 GHz wifi (802.1n) but these are not licensed in all countries.

Bandwidth on the wifi is less of a problem, much more important is to support enough concurrent users in big halls and to avoid inteference. Therefore also check with the venue if they have wifi - maybe even in their office - and switch them completely off.

Recording/streaming of sessions

Do it yourself

Streaming and recording is what we really should support on every Wikimania, but it needs a lot of resources.

For a minimal setup you will need (per lecture room):

  • a camera (DV with Firewire)
  • a PC (with Linux and Firewire)
  • one person handling the camera and monitoring the streaming

The simple setup uses an Icecast server which is hosted somewhere in the internet (Manuel has done that in the past for free). With a few command line tools you can grab the camera input from Firewire (dvgrab), encode it into Ogg/Theora (ffmpeg2theora) and push it via HTTP/ICE2 to the streaming server (oggfwd). You can simply run dvgrab and ffmpeg2theora in a second instance to record the lectures onto the local harddrive in a different format. This can be started and stopped by the person handling the camera before and after each lecture, so you get seperated files. If you have an additional volunteer you can collect the recordings from the computers immediately after, adjust the beginning and end, convert and upload them soon after the lecture has ended.

Sound

To improve the sound check that your cameras have a seperate audio input or play with ffmpeg2theora so it uses the audio from your soundcard instead. If you use the camera make sure you can switch of Auto-Gain. Get a small mixer - you might already have one to adjust the microphone volume in the hall - and use the recording output from there as sound input. The camera person should use a headset to verify the sound is good at all time, a VU meter in the mixer would be also helpful to be able to stick with a certain level.

Better Video

If you can afford, get a second camera for a static position that captures the whole lecture scene while the first camera will be guided and caputures close-ups of the speaker. You will need a seperate camera person for this.

Per video mixer you can mix the two images from both cameras to provide a more lively scene and better vision to the viewers. A good video mixer can also capture the VGA input from the projector - the projectors mostly have a VGA output where you can capture the image they are showing. This way you can also mix in the slides shown during the lecture which improves readability and overall quality of the video greatly.

Contractors

If you are able to get a contractor make sure:

  • streams can be watched with open source tools (eg. no flash)
  • recordings will be provided in a free format (either Ogg/Theora or raw DV)
  • when the recordings will be provided and to whom

The last item is important, in the past we had problems that contractors have promised to provide a DVD with all recordings which we never received, despite asking several times.

A contractor should be able to provide all the equipment and staff as outlined above, especially the "Better Video" stuff. A typical Wikimania will need a team of ten people (five concurrent lectures) to do all this. Including the rent of the equipment 1000-2000 EUR per day is a reasonable price for this.

Kaltura, an open source video portal and streaming company is also working with the Wikimedia Foundation on video editing on Wikimedia Commons. They have offered to do streaming for free, provide staff and equipment.

  • need: Manuel Schneider (streaming/recording); wm2009 team too

Technology team

Know your peers

Be on the site early, if possible visit the site a few months prior to Wikimania to check the following:

  • internet uplink:
    • existing - can we use it?
    • do we need to buy our own uplink?
  • cabled network:
    • there must be at least one RJ45 socket in each lecture hall, connected to a central network rack
    • do we need to bring extra switches? how many switches, how many ports, where can we put them (power, uplink nearby)?
    • do we need extra cabling?
    • how do we get access to the central network infrastructure during the conference?
  • wireless network:
    • is there any wifi already in place we can either use or shut off?
    • where can we put our own wifi gears, how to hook them up to the cabled network, where is power?
  • audio:
    • do the lecture rooms have amplification available?
    • how many microphones are available (wireless?)
      • needed: two for small rooms, four in the big halls
    • mixer available? - recording output needed for streaming / recording!
    • if we need to rent more equipment: Do they have a contractor for that?

Make a list of all important persons and their mobile numbers, know when they are available during the conference and where to find them:

  • facility manager - helps you with locking / unlocking doors, power issues, lights
  • audio technician - in case there is a problem with the local audio equipment
  • IT manager - to get access to server / phone cabinet with internet uplink, switches etc.

During the conference

You need at least one person in the local team who exactly knows the venue and has access to all the information listed above. This person has to be immediately available in case of emergency. Radios assure the communication between Wikimania office and the rest of the local team while they are around.

Additionally one or two volunteers who can jump in wherever needed: To exchange the batteries of a microphone or reset a wifi gear that has locked up.

Spare parts

  • check the batteries needed in the wireless microphones - have a lot of spares
    • we [who??] exchanged the batteries - just in case - every morning to prevent them dying during a lecture
    • have one set of batteries in each lecture room - the session chair should take care of them
  • have one or two extra wifi gears available
  • an extra set of network cables is always needed
  • bring as many power strips as you can find
  • best practices for an on-site tech team

Historical information

  • Ideas for how past teams have met this challenge

Registration

Overview

All your preparations are made in vain if people can't register for your awesome conference! Registration is a headache. Fortunately, you can draw on the experiences of past teams.

In order to register people for the conference, you need to have:

  • a registration system set up
  • a list of the information that you want to collect from attendees
  • registration fees decided and a system for payment set up
  • enough information about the conference so that people want to register!

The timeline for registration should be set at the beginning of conference planning and based on the date of the conference, especially if you are offering tiered (early/late) registrations. However, registration is also dependent on information from many parties (see below). It is helpful to set up registration infrastructure as soon as possible so that when all the variables fall into place it can be easily switched on.

Once everyone is registered, the registration team isn't done -- there is an on-site component to registration as well. All attendees will need badges and will need to be checked in.

The registration team will need to work closely with the budget, scholarships, program, press and logistics teams. The budget team should determine best practices for handling money and where the money should go, as well as setting registration fees. The scholarships team and registration team will need to coordinate about how to register participants who are also applying for scholarships. And the program team and registration team will need to coordinate about how to register program speakers, as well as how to register the long list of VIPs and guests that the program team will have: everyone from Jimmy Wales to the local dignitary. And the registration team will need to work with the press team for issuing and keeping track of press passes.

Finally, the registration team must stay in close contact with the logistics team, who will provide cut-off dates for registration (for instance, no more registrations after x date so that we can order the food), as well as information about accommodation (which may or may not be a part of the registrations process). The logistics team will need an updated and accurate count of registrations throughout the process; it's probably helpful for the registration team to get in the habit of making a weekly report to the core team throughout the registration season.

Registration systems

  • overview
  • registration checklist
  • what a registration systems should do
  • receipts
  • flexibility to waive fees
  • good reporting
  • buying vs making: registration systems of the past

Visas

Probably one of the most time-consuming and complicated thing to consider. As Wikimanias get larger, the number of countries represented also increases. Some familiarity with Visa Procedures would go a long way, consider grouping countries by their Visa Requirements. Use similar options for all the visitors from a single category. Also, consider having a dedicated team member checking and following through on progress of Visas.

  • Visas, invitation letters

Badges

  • need: Austin, Cary
  • visas, invitation letters

Registration team

  • Best practices for a registration team (on and off site)

Historical information

  • Ideas for how past teams have met this challenge
  • Registration must start well before the deadline for attendees to apply for visas, especially if the host countries visa process requires one to register before getting a visa.

Scholarships

Overview

A scholarship -- or individual grant of money -- provides a way for Wikimedians of limited means to travel all over the world to the conference. They are a crucial part of making a Wikimania a success.

Scholarship money can come from several sources: in past years, individual Chapters, private organizations, and the Wikimedia Foundation have all sponsored scholarships. Organizations may be approached specifically for sponsorship of scholarships or scholarship money may be part of a general fund.

Scholarship recipient criteria can vary; for instance, individuals may be selected for scholarships based on their role in Wikimedia (such as a chapter officer or long-time editor), their role in the conference (such as scholarships for organizers or program presenters), be geography-based (such as scholarships that target community members living in certain countries or areas), or be need-based (such as scholarships for students). The amount of individual scholarships may be fixed or variable depending on individual need.

It typically takes a dedicated coordinator and committee to coordinate the scholarship process and review applications. Scholarship applications and funding needs to be done well in advance of the conference and be coordinated with the registration and program processes and timelines. Additional complications to running the scholarships process for Wikimania include those that come with running a global conference -- for instance, scholarship recipients may need visas to the country Wikimania will be held in, which means that they must receive their scholarship far in advance of the conference. In some cases, the scholarships team has taken the additional step of assisting scholarship recipients with travel or buying travel tickets directly. Assigning scholarships is complex but worthwhile.

Scholarship application systems

Wikimedia Foundation scholarships

Chapter scholarships

Scholarships from other organizations

Scholarships team

  • best practices for a scholarships team
  • committee/team
  • need Sara/Cary to help with this

Historical information

  • Ideas for how past teams have met this challenge

External communications

Overview

People need to know about the conference to make it a success! That is where communications come in.

You will need to publicize the conference widely and have a great conference wiki that is up-to-date and makes people want to attend. This is a good job for a combination of remote and in-person volunteers. In addition, you will need a team that is available to answer questions from potential attendees, speakers and volunteers, both in public forums (like the mailing lists) and private ones (like email through OTRS). While this is something that is ongoing throughout the conference planning process, it will become a full-time job just before and during the conference.

Finally, working with the press is a crucial part of the conference. Wikimania is always well-covered by the press, and the conference is a great opportunity to promote Wikimedia and the local Wikimedia community and to make announcements and give interviews. While not every Wikimania has had a dedicated press conference, dealing with the press (including issuing press passes, a press kit, and explaining and promoting the conference) is a job that every team must take on. This is a good area for the local team to partner with Foundation staff and other Wikimedians who routinely deal with press and public relations.

Conference wiki

  • It wouldn't be advisable to have a new wiki for every year, but consider having a centralized wiki for every year. The resources from the last year could be added and used by the next team.

Sitenotices, mailing lists and more

Logo and permissions

  • where is the official logo, how to get trademark permissions

Translations

  • English would probably the most widely spoken language at Wikimania. Please consider having english translations available for any materials, directions, announcements, followed by the second most widely spoken language.
  • Consider using Meta in advance to get translation in some of the most widely spoken languages for directions, banners, important material that might be needed.

OTRS

  • A Dedicated team member checking the back-office operations like keeping track of issues reported on OTRS and following up is an ideal option. It would be advisable to consider someone familiar with OTRS, if the language difference is not an issue consider asking volunteers located remotely to help.

Press and press conference

  • If your team has someone familiar with dealing with press then get them material and directions before-hand. Alternatively, an option to consider is enlisting outside help to manage press relations for the event. Get a local PR agency or a PR person to do a press release, go over the material and be available to the media for questions, etc..

Communications team

  • Best practices in building a communications team

Historical information

  • Ideas for how past teams have met this challenge

Internal communication and planning tools

Overview

How do you coordinate all of the moving parts of the conference? It is a job that can feel overwhelming at times. This is where good internal communication is crucial. Making a communications plan up-front and sticking to it will help you run the conference smoothly and efficiently. Good communications includes making sure that all team members know what is going on, what their responsibilities are and how to get the answers to questions; making sure that planning meetings are well-documented for the sake of those who join your team later; and making sure that planning documents (including budgets and timelines) are up-to-date and accessible.

Good communications makes it possible to get additional volunteers, since people are more likely to help if they can figure out what is going on and if they know what the areas are where their assistance is needed. It can also help the lead organizers feel less stress, since if you have a good plan that is well communicated (and all your team members communicate back to you) you will know exactly at what stage of the planning process you are in and what needs to be done next.

Finally, good communication is required in a few circumstances -- for instance, for reporting back to the Wikimedia Foundation and other sponsors. All of your funders will require clear, prompt and detailed communication about the state of the conference and how their money is being put to use.

Internal communication

  • mailing lists etc.

Planning tools

Planning the conference is like planning any major project, and typical project management tools will be helpful.

  • GAANT charts
  • Timelines
  • Regular planning meetings
  • Mailing lists

Historical information

  • Ideas for how past teams have met this challenge

After the conference

Overview

After the conference is done, you will feel giddy from lack of sleep, have lots of adrenaline from running around, and be happy from the knowledge that you've finished a huge accomplishment! You can congratulate yourself and your team on a job well done. But you're still not quite done. After you get a little rest and have a celebration meal, there will still be activities you need to complete.

Immediately at the end of the conference, you'll need to make sure the physical space and attendees are taken care of. Is there a place to store extra supplies, like extra t-shirts; is the space cleaned up; is technical equipment removed? For attendees, a certain number will likely be staying after the conference; do these people have a central place to gather? You don't need to plan activities for attendees after the conference, but it can be a nice touch and is a good job for local volunteers (but not for the lead organizers -- who will be exhausted at this point).

After this stage, the next most immediate thing to take care of is the conference "post-mortem", which should be done as soon as possible after the end of the conference while the whole experience is fresh in everyone's mind. The post-mortem very simply means that you analyze each area of the conference (you might use the breakdown of this handbook) and have team members report on what went wrong and what went right. The post-mortem serves two purposes: knowledge collected from the session will help future teams decide what to do, and it can provide a kind of closure to the experience for the team.

You may also want to collect attendee feedback about the conference, either online or in person at the end of the event.

The next crucial set of things to do after the conference is to finish your reporting. You will have receipts and final bills to account for, and you will need to make sure all of your accounting is finished. You will then have to submit reports to the Wikimedia Foundation and any of your other sponsors that require them. You may also choose to post a final report for the community.

Lastly, attendees will want to see the videos of sessions that were recorded and any other program notes (such as presenter slides) posted online for later viewing. This is a process that may stretch for several weeks (or even months) but a timeline for this should be developed and followed by the technical and program teams, who will respectively be in charge of these areas.

The very last thing to do is to share your experiences with the conference on this wiki and in the handbook. A representative from your team will also be invited to join the Wikimania bid jury for the following year. Congratulations, you ran Wikimania!

Final reporting

Post-mortems

Sharing the conference

Historical information

  • Ideas for how past teams have met this challenge


Appendices

Contacts

  • list of contacts for various areas

Checklist

Timeline

From http://wikimaniateam.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Ideal_Timeline

A timeline for Wikimania planning.

Immediately after winning the bid

Venue and accomodations

  • Contact venue and book it for the dates of the event.
  • Contact hotels and rooms, negotiate prices and book sufficient rooms.

Website

  • Placeholder webpage with information

Sponsors

  • Early sponsor inquiries -- in-kind venue and lodging sponsors if possible

Program

  • Early keynote invitations possible.
  • Identify list of interesting speakers, topics, community discussions

Staff

  • Core team recruiting
    • Query bid team for interest & availability for further planning

12 Month out

Budget

  • Complete draft budget based on propodal received.
  • Recruit Sponsors

9-7 months out

Templates finalized

Registration

  • Fee schedule & calendar set
  • Online registration opens for community
  • Visa invitation templates (speaker, vip, other)
  • Attendee invitation templates (vip, other)

Program

  • CfP system set up
  • Set content themes
  • Begin speaker invitations

Communication

  • Placeholder website w/dates
    • First draft of calendar of related events
  • Year-specific logo design
  • First save the date! notice, blog posts
  • Call for participation (papers, &c) to community
  • Call for participation (wide broadcast)
  • Translations started of the above
  • Translations of CfP system

Materials

  • City-specific draft docs (bid team followup)
    • directions, local events/outings sheets

Logistics

  • Initial venue walk-through
  • Draft A/V, projection, wireless, mic needs w/ venue staff

Budget & finances

  • Final budget, overall
  • Recruit Sponsors

Staff

  • Continue recruiting core teammembers
  • Recruit reviewers for program submissions
  • Look for high-reliability volunteers : local crash-space, people w/ summer availability

Scholarships

  • Set scholarship timeline
  • Announce early scholarships & provide applications

6 months out

Draft "how to find local sponsorship" kit (and translate)

Communication

  • Basic website launch
  • Email teasers, sig designs
  • Web banners & buttons for supporting sites
  • Translation of banners & slogans
  • Translation of reg anncmt, interface

Registration

  • Early call for registration, specify dates & prices
  • Registration opens.

Social

  • party venues contacted

Sponsorship & Budget

  • Get early quotes
  • Sponsorship (ongoing, corporate & other)
    • Support for travel scholarships
    • In-kind support for materials, food, printing

Scholarships

  • Early scholarship acceptances; finalized

Materials

  • Design : framework for print materials

Program

  • Call for papers underway
  • Program committee reviewing papers; finding final reviewers
  • Draft speaker list finished; invitations continue
  • Acceptance of early submissions, workshops, &c.
  • Draft schedule

Staff

  • Recruit more translators & designers
  • T-shirt design for planning committee
  • Draft poster/late-submission reviewers
  • Draft volunteer-emails

3 months out

2 months out

6 weeks out

4 weeks out

Logistics

  • Final run down of the ___location
  • Venue/program adequation fine tuned

2 weeks out

  • A/V test if applicable

10 days out

  • Go to Tahiti The North Pole to cool spirits down

Program

  • finalize moderation schedule

Logistics

  • program should be printed
  • blank badges should be printed

1 week out

[HD1] 3 days out

[HD2] 2 days out

Registration

  • names on badges should be printed - badges finalized
  • testing badge printers
  • test registration system
  • training registration desk people

Program

Hacking Days

[HD3] day before

  • Registration opens
  • Accommodation registration opens
  • A/V installation (if applicable)

Day 1

  • Sample schedule:
 7:30 - volunteers/staff training
 8:00 - Check rooms, stock with water
           Registration begins
 8:50 - Stage manager - check for all moderators, speakers
 9:00 - Program starts
           A/V coordinator - roll all streaming video/audio

Day 2

Day 3

day after

  • cleanup
  • Chapter meetings? Board meeting?

2 days after

  • cleanup
  • conference debriefing (post-mortem)

week after

  • send thank you notes

after

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