Grants:PEG/WM AT/WikiCon 2012/Report

Report accepted

This report for a Project and Event grant approved in FY 2011-12 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.

To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:PEG/WM AT/WikiCon 2012.

You may still comment on this report on its discussion page, or visit the discussion page to read the discussion about this report.
You are welcome to Email grants at wikimedia dot org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.

Did you comply with the requirements specified by WMF in the grant agreement? Yes.

Activities

There was a total of 212 participants attending the conference, of which about 10% were active non Wikimedia-open-content-projects (according to the poll).
2012 is the European Year of Active Aging. Meike Westerhaus from University of Ulm presented the TAO (Third Age Online) project, which got a lot of attention, especially from the local radio station which made a feature on this topic a week after.
FHV professors presented both Wiktionary and Wikibooks. A much attended session was given on the relationship between open content projects and academies.
20% of the participants registered on-site and were aquired by our local outreach efforts. The local radio station had WikiCon in their program a full day before the event with one of the organising team as guest in their morning program. A public broadcasting company included WikiCon in their evening news on TV. At least 19 media articles and features were published by international and local media prior to WikiCon, beginning in March 2012. In total we know about 50 publications. For two weeks prior to the event a huge banner (4x4 meters) was shown on the outside of the university, right at the main road of Dornbirn. As a result participants coming to Dornbirn were identified by busdrivers and led to WikiCon.
The municipality of Dornbirn offered us two city-tours for free, which have been attended by a few participants.
For the convenience of the participants they received a free day-pass during the whole event which allowed them free usage of all public transport within the whole state of Vorarlberg including also bordering stations in Switzerland and Germany. This allowed participants to make use of local discount prices in their country when traveling to WikiCon. Beside that a bus shuttle enhanced the mobility between the venue and the hotel early morning and late night.
A member of the state government, Andrea Kaufmann, gave the opening speech. On Saturday morning a member of the EU Parlament, Dr. Eva Lichtenberger, gave a very interesting keynote about the debates on internet rights in the EU parlament which was very interactive and very well received, both by Mrs. Lichtenberger and the participants.
A photoshow of Ziko van Dijk presented the international Wikimedia movement and its organisations to the audience in a very funny way. He integrated international affairs like Wikimania and the Wikimedia Chapters Association, explained the processes around them and their relevance to the community. In a very entertaining way he built a bridge between public, movement/volunteers and the organisations.
As outlined below 57 workshops and talks have been held.
Spontaneusly a group of participants wrote a resolution and gathered statements which summarized the findings and common understanding of this conference.
We offered child care which was used by five children.

Links

Project goals

WikiCon is a conference for the German speaking community of free content projects, including the Wikimedia projects. Its main goals are to provide unique opportunities for the communities, its projects and likeminded organisations to come together, share their common spirit, and develop better ways to work together on a multinational level. After WikiCon 2011 in Nürenberg WikiCon 2012 in Dornbirn was held to establish an annual conference for the German speaking community. The WikiCon 2012 program was designed to create multiple opportunities for conference participants to actively engage with the subject matter, the environment, and, most importantly, each other. As main goals for the conference the programm focused on the community spirit and collaboration, the technical realization and possibilities of participation.

The goals were reached by presentations of members of the comunity, discussions and a dense social program after the lectures. The success can be measured by the high number of presentations, the high number of participants and the well attended evening programs.

Measures of success

number of participants (planned: around 200)
- 212 participants
number of workshops and talks (planned: two keynotes, two panels, 40 talks / presentations, ten workshops)
- 57 events in total conducted by 45 speakers / leaders
- 30 talks
- 2 keynotes
- 2 panels
- 13 workshops
- 9 Open Space sessions
- 1 city tour
- tabular view of program schedule: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiCon_2012/Programm/Programmraster
- list of all events and speakers: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiCon_2012/Programm/Listen
press coverage
- see list http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiCon_2012/Pressespiegel
number of participating politicians and other non-Wikimedian officials (planned: 20%)
- at least two participants are mainly active on OpenStreetMap.org
- at least one participant are mainly active on OpenSeaMap.org
- at least one participant are mainly active on Wikivoyage
- at least two politiciants (one from Vorarlberg government, one from the European Union)
- at least five participants got accredited as press
follow-up projects due to new contacts between Wikimedia organisations and external organisations
- the TAO / Silberwissen / Third Age Online project got much media attention with follow-up activities in the media
- Wikimedia Österreich is starting a cooperation with the photography club of Vorarlberg (VÖAV) for Wiki Loves Monuments, kick-off meeting with WMAT board and VÖAV board on October 8th in Vienna
- Wikimedia Österreich is also starting a cooperation with the University if Innsbruck (of which 3 officials attended), regarding biology-related topics on de.WP
- three new participants joined the WikiTV project

Lessons learned

What lessons were learned that may help others succeed in similar projects?

Communication

in the run up:
- entire and transparent planning on a public wiki was well proven.
- the internal communication via a separate mailinglist was also well proven.
during the conference:
- purchase of walki-talkis helped enormously with the communication.
- the distribution of contact information and emergency phones are important and were necessarily used
- a "Cheat Sheet" given to all team members and volunteers containing every information about the conference and the venue (in alphabetical order) gave the impression to the particiapants that the vounteers knew everything (see http://mitglieder.wikimedia.at/Projekte/WikiCon_2012/WikiCon-Atlas)

Costs

attendance-fees should be uniformly on a moderate but not to low level
in the german-speaking area Wikimedia Deutschland is trying to establish standard costs for conferences - speak with them first before setting up your fees

Information

be careful with Sitenotice Banners. They create a tremendous load - quite many people click them. Better link to the project page on a Wikimedia project than to your chapter's or own website - even a dedicated server is likely to go down.
Make sure to make the weblinks visible in the banner design, or even better: link the whole banner. Some wikis have CSS rules which removed the typical link styles, so the links where invisible in the banner text.

Accomodation

check in advance if there are any other big events in the region which may interfere with hotel booking

Program

Plan a long time for the Call for Papers. Most applications will come shortly before or even after the end.
From the end to the Call for Papers you need around one month to publish a finished program. Make sure you ask those whose papers you have accepted if they are really coming and ask them for a registration to be sure, before you finish the program planning.
The call for papers should ideally end AFTER another bigger event where you can advertise the CfP and get more speakers. You can also check the speaker's qualities at such events.
The preparation and printing of the program-booklet takes quite a while (two weeks just for printing and post-production!). Therefore program has to be ready quite early before the event.
A collaborative closing statement seems to be usual at other events and was well accepted by the attendees. This should be well planned in advance though to include as many interested people as possible.
There should be a real barcamp instead of an open space as unconference.

Technics

proper wifi is crucial. Universities generally have good wifi infrastructure, though we faced issues that they were using enterprise, VPN style security settings which needed to be set up manually on older operating systems.

Facilities

you will need more than one key to the venue and the rooms, otherwise you loose a lot of time by running after the key
the baggage-store should be located near the administration to save man-power and still be able to watch it

Misc

the nametag on the badge should be written in a big font and on both sides of the badge.
there should be publicly accessible workstations for accessing the internet
chargers for cellphones are always needed

What impact did the project have on WMF mission goals of Increased Reach, Increased Quality, Increased Credibility, Increased and Diversified Participation?

Ting Chen's report to the board: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2012-September/121943.html
WikiCon 2011 had two participants from Austria and one from Switzerland. The rest were from Germany. WikiCon 2012 had...
- at least three participants from Liechtenstein - Liechtenstein is implicitely included in WMCH's territory but no contacts have been established so far, no community was known
- at least one participant from Südtirol - a german-speaking province in Italy which was formerly Austrian. Like Liechtenstein no contacts existed to this community before.
- around 40 participants from Austria
- around 30 participants from Switzerland
- one person from Luxembourg
- (all numbers not including on-site registration)
At least in the smaller communities in Austria and Switzerland increased activities are experienced. Several members could be acquired by the Wikimedia Chapters. Several new projects were started - see "Measures of Success".
It is important for the community to meet in real life. a big conference like WikiCon provides the possibility to get to know new community-people, outside your local meetups. the relationship between community-members can therefore be much better established, than via the project, irc, email, etc.

Reporting and documentation of expenditures

Documentation of expenditures has been received by WMF.

Remaining funds from this grant have been returned to WMF in the amount of GBP 1885.27.

Did you send WMF documentation of all expenses paid for with grant funds?

Yes

A PDF with all invoices and receipts has been compiled and sent to Asaf. It contains all incoming receipts. Beside a document with a complete balance sheet and all registrations including amount and payment status have been submitted.

Details of expenditures:

Description	Quantity	Unit Price	Quoted	Effective
Catering Breakfast: Sat, Sun Lunch: Sat, Sun Dinner: Fri, Sat Coffee Breaks: Fri Sat, Sun 2 Coffee Stations with Water and Juice 1 Cafeteria with Fruits, Chocolate Bars and Bakery	200		12.000 €	12.000 €
Accommodation Hotel Dorfpark	38	2x2x 43 €	6.536 €	5.164,00 €
Accommodation Business Hotel 24*7	35	2x 96 €	6.720 €	0 €
Accommodation Sport Hall Walter Gindelhumer, +43 5572 306-8204, walter.gindelhumer dornbirn.at	100	2x 4 €	800 €	500 €
~~Insurance Sports Hall~~			0 €
Security Service Sports Hall 21 EUR / Stunde, 21 - 9 Uhr (2 x 12 Stunden) Alfonso Mandracchia, +43 676 833062650, alfonso.mandracchia dornbirn.at	24	21 €	504 €	1.259,60 €
Public Transport Tickets Fri - Sun	200		550 €	670,34 €
Marketing Material: Flag Standard für Ausleger mit 5 cm Saum 120 x 600 cm, Digital-Direkt – Polytrans (110g/m²) Fahnen Gärtner; office fahnen-gaertner.com, http://www.fahnen-gaertner.com/	3	190 €	570 €	0 €
Marketing Material: Flag aluminium (roadside) 3,85 x 3,85 m Insomnia Bild und Werbeproducing; m.peitler insomnia.at, http://www.insomnia.at/	1	495 €	495 €	594,00 €
Marketing Material: Banner for the Foyer 800 x 270 cm, Sublimationsdruck, 4c auf Deco-Tex, 3cm Hohlsaum oben und unten Hoferprint, thomas hoferprint.com, http://www.hoferprint.com/	4	68 €	272 €	105,84 €
Presents for Helpers / VIPs people helping which do not get paid or do not receive any other compensation Patron Janitor	20	25 €	500 €	147,80 €
Accommodation Organising Team Wed - Sun (4 Nights) Gustavf Patrick Flominator Manuel + Annette	4	4x 390 €	1.560 €	1.560,00 €
Accommodation Speakers / Volunteers Fri - Sun (2 Nights)	64	2x 64 €	8.192 €	6.894,00 €
Additional items not part of original budget
Flyer for advertising at several events prior WikiCon	307,89 €
Wristbands with WikiCon Logo in three Wikimedia colors (weekend-pass, Saturday-only, Sunday-only)	234,17 €
Material for Registration Counter	61,34 €
Printed Program (Proceedings with schedule, biographies, additional information)	2.634,66 €
Prepaid mobile phone SIM cards for volunteers without Austrian SIM card	44,70 €
T-Shirts for volunteers (red with white WikiCon logo and "Ask me something!" on the back	551,07 €
Entertainer "Luis von Südtirol" for Friday evening program	1.500,00 €
Tourguide	80,00 €
Travel Costs volunteers	940,43 €
Drinks for Social Event (Saturday Evening)	429,00 €
Child Care (material + travel costs)	77,60 €
Shuttle Bus Dornbirn - Hotel Dorfpark in Götzis	700,00 €
Total Expenses: (rounded)			40.000 €	36.456,44 €
Income
Participation Fees	200	10 €	2.000 €	1.345,00 €
Accommodation Fee	100	2x 50 €	10.000 €	6.400,00 €
Accounts Receivable (taken over by Wikimedia Österreich)	270,00 €
Donations	60,00 €
Deficit: (rounded)			28.000 €	28.381,44 €
Sponsoring Wikimedia Österreich	1	5.000 €	5.000 €	10.000 €
Sponsoring Wikimedia Deutschland	1	10.000 €	10.000 €	10.000 €
Sponsoring Wikimedia CH	1	5.000 €	5.000 €	5.000 €
Wikimedia Grant	1	10.000 €	10.000 €	10.000 €
local Sponsoring	1	5.000 €	5.000 €	1.560 €
Contingency: (rounded)			7.000 €	36,560 €

Will you be requesting re-allocation of remaining grant funding?

No (see answer to next question).

Will you be returning unused funds to the Wikimedia Foundation?

8.178,56 EUR of total funds were remaining and will be given back in the percentage as the Wikimedia organisations have granted the event.

2.336,73 EUR to Wikimedia Foundation (gave 10.000 EUR)

2.336,73 EUR to Wikimedia Deutschland (gave 10.000 EUR)

2.336,73 EUR to Wikimedia Österreich (gave 10.000 EUR)

1.168,37 EUR to Wikimedia CH (gave 5.000 EUR)

Additional requests and related proposals

Will you be requesting an extension or were you granted an extension?

No, the project has been done and ended successfully. There will be another conference next year, WikiCon 2013, run by a different team which may seek support via a Grant again.

Please link to related grant proposals here:

n/a