Grants talk:Conference/Jaqen/Italian WikiCon 2017

Logistics

It's appropriate for such an event to be funded by an entity other than WMIT, to reduce bureaucracy. As for the location, you may want to first scout for potential attendees and survey their preferences: I don't mean just about the city/region, but also for the kind of venue. For instance I suppose the ideal venue would be something like Linux Hotel (there's nothing like that in Italy, but a couple hostels exist which might offer similar services); there are various venues outside the cities that are used for summer schools and the like (and are often completely empty in the low season), such as palazzo Feltrinelli; many groups use former monasteries and farms. Nemo 11:34, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Thank you Nemo! We were looking for a place like Levico, which is small, has a railway station and has hotels that are used to host conferences. In low season, prices should be affordable. We will ask for some estimates in the next few days. --Jaqen (talk) 14:26, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Community

I'll note that the original WikiCon was born because of an active community, not the other way round. The biggest effort will be to connect the existing sense of community and build on that, before the event is really planned. Nemo 11:34, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

And this is the main reason why I don't really feel like endorsing this proposal (although I must say, I totally trust the people involved and know it's gonna be a great event no matter what). What concerns me, and some of you know because we discussed this in Esino, is specifically the fact that a "community" seems to be missing here. "30-35 Italian very active editors" in Esino? Where? Please provide usernames? When you take out Wikimedia Italy members, people who edit quite rarely these days like myself, and people who joined very very recently, I don't know how many people were left. I don't think you'd build a "community" around workshops and editathons. You can build one when you know its members, their motivations, their needs, what they are doing, and show them how much their work has achieved, and how much it can still achieve when efforts are put into significant directions. I don't know how this event can help with any of this. Just my 2c though. I wanted to say this somewhere because having worked with so many other communities, I'm concerned by the state of ours, to the point that sometimes I wish I could just stop caring. --Elitre (talk) 18:09, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

@Nemo bis: @Elitre: I recognise the difficulties, but I believe that meeting is fundamental in an effort of community building. An event like this is first of all a big meetup. And it is not made only of workshops and editathons, but also of unscheduled meetings, talking during meals, going around in the evenings, etc. And -obviously- there will be time in the program to discuss what do we need as a community, or to be a community. That may not be enough, but, -imho- it's a right direction.

30-35 is an estimation which was given to me by Yiyi. If I remember correctly it was given to him by Marta. I don't have usernames and it may well be an overestimation. I wouldn't exclude from the count WMI members just because they're WMI members, though. --Jaqen (talk) 10:53, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Own wiki

Really? :o Can't you use Meta, or Italian Wikipedia at worst? Wordpress can easily transclude wiki pages by the way. Nemo 13:31, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Probably we can use meta or itwiki, but a domain could be useful as a redirect (e.g. wikicon.de) and for virtual emails account. --Jaqen (talk) 08:30, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Values and currency

Just fixed an error for line "3.2" in the table: the numbers should be right now. However, you should consider using the comma as decimal mark for values in Euro, since it is the convention for almost all European countries (except Ireland, see English wikipedia). --Giuseppe (talk) 23:49, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Change status to 'proposed' to submit for 8/2/16 Project Grants deadline

Dear Jaqen,

Please note that if you intend to submit this proposal for the August 2 deadline of the current round of Project Grants, you must change the status from draft to proposed. If you have any questions, our final proposal clinic is from 1600-1700 UTC on August 2.

Cheers,

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 05:15, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Thank you Marti! However, we intend to wait and change into a proposal for Conference & Event Grant, as discussed. Cheers! --Jaqen (talk) 13:50, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Oops! Yes, of course! I posted reminders on all drafts last night just before bed and I included yours as I went down the list without even realizing it. My apologies! --Marti (WMF) (talk) 14:33, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Sandbox + letter of intent

This page was originally created as a Project Grants. Since the creation of the new Conference & Event Grants we are adjusting the page in this this sandbox. In the meanwhile I've posted our letter of intent. --Jaqen (talk) 11:45, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

I've moved the old Project Grant request here. --Jaqen (talk) 14:05, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Comments from the Conference Grant Committee

Questions from James Hare

Overall I am pleased with the proposal. I do have some specific comments/questions however:

• If you could find a way to expand to include people from nearby countries, such as Italian-speaking Swiss, that would be useful. I am encouraged by Wikimedia Austria’s support for the conference. I am concerned about “the event will mostly be in Italian,” to the extent it risks shutting out people who would otherwise be able to participate. (Though I am sympathetic to the idea of including people who do not speak English.)
• I would like to see some insight as to the issues affecting the Italian community and how this conference could address them. Right now the rationale largely rests on “we have not had one,” which I suppose is true but this fact does not automatically lead to a useful conference. What are the issues facing the Italian editing community (whether linguistically or nationally), and what can they do at the conference to address those issues? This is brought up in the event program section of their proposal but it seems like an appended laundry list of ideas, rather than something properly woven into the narrative of the proposal.

Thank you, harej (talk) 02:08, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Hi harej, thank you for your comments!

On the first point, you have to consider that most of the people from the nearby countries (and close to the Italian border) do speak Italian; so there are few or no problems at all for the Slovenians or the Swiss from the Italian-speaking area for instance. On top of that consideration, we plan to have several panels in English, hopefully with the participation of organizers of international events related to Wikimedia (e.g. the Wiki Loves Monuments competition). These technical panels will be interesting for any user. Then, such a meeting is made to create bounds and to meet users from different geographical areas, so I doubt that anyone will be shut out in any community meeting!

Secondly, I feel that the Italian community strongly needs such an event, not only because some Italian users weren't able to participate at Wikimania at Esino Lario because of... language barriers. I do not want to write here a history of Italy, but there are big cultural and even languages differences between the Italian regions: Italy is after all a young country, and Italian is the common tongue for many Italians. So, there is a need to build up an Italian Wikimedia community, as it is now dispersed between several projects (some of which with a small number of users), and several regional groups. It is uncommon for Wikimedia users to meet on a national scale in Italy, even if some regional groups of users that meet regularly. Besides the projects in Italian, the geographic area centered on Italy has many minor language projects (e.g. Sicilian, Neapolitan, Ladino, Slovenian, Piedmontese, Bavarian, Lombard, Emilian-Romagnol, Latin, ...), that are lively communities on their own, but with an enormous potential of echanging experiences as they share similar interests and issues, but with very sporadic contacts, or none at all. The same can happen for Italian projects with a reduced participation, e.g. Wikivoyage, Wikiversity, Wikibooks. Such a national meeting will be the occasion to assist to technical panels or simply to share experience, in order to grow up inside Wikimedia projects. --Ruthven (talk) 09:30, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

WMF Comments

Hi Jaqen, please accept my apologies for the delay in posting comments and a funding decision on this request. We would like to support Italian Wikimedians to gather together for a conference, but we are not able to fund the full amount you have requested. We understand that having an offline meeting is important to your community, and we appreciate that you have given several examples of the types of topics and trainings you will focus on, however for the level of funding you have requested we like to see more specific goals for an event that are informed by either surveys or online discussions where the community highlights the most important issues and opportunities they would like to focus on. We know you have been planning this event for some time, and you have been very responsive to our requests for more information about who might attend and what they might learn. We can fund up to EUR 7,000 for this event. Part of the reason for this level of funding is that we do not generally fund full travel scholarships for all active Wikimedians to attend events. You may decide to offer travel stipends or partial funding to active Wikimedians, and reserve full scholarships for a few people. You may also consider shortening the event to lower the cost of accommodation and meals. Some communities have charged registration fees to (for example to people with fewer than 100 edits) to cover the cost of meals, supplies and venue costs, and they have offered participants the opportunity to purchase an event t-shirt rather than give them away. If you would like to proceed with this event with a grant for EUR 7,000 please let us know how you will change the budget, the event plan or the system for travel reimbursement to work within a lower budget. We appreciate all of the hard work you have put into this proposal so far, and the patience you have shown in the face of delays. --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 11:47, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi Kacie, I would add that Wikimedia CH has recently supported the event (it was communicated to the organizers) offering a set of scholarships. Wikimedia CH has taken time to evaluate it, but with a different result. It seems to me correct to report it for a question of transparency. Wikimedia CH considers that there is a sense to support one of the biggest community and mainly an event created by the members of the community with a bottom-up approach. Wikimedia CH was also one of the first supporters of Wikimania Esino Lario when it was considered a big challenge and almost a crazy idea, in this case we consider that the organizers have a sufficient expertise and that the Italian speaking community needs more support within the Wikimedia community. If there is the possibility to review the plan and to re-submit it, Wikimedia CH would be more than happy to help for this improvement. --Ilario (talk) 17:42, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you Kacie, I'm discussing new budget and dates with the organizing team. We will get in touch with you soon. However, I am pretty sure that less scholarship would mean less participants, so I need to ask you if WMF is willing to contribute with up to 7,000 EUR even if less active editors were involved. Thanks! --Jaqen (talk) 21:53, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Event posponed

Hi, since we have received no answer to the grant request we have decided to postpone the event. We will decide a new date if we receive a positive answer. --Jaqen (talk) 15:31, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Can you please explain what happened in the meantime? Thanks. --Elitre (talk) 11:07, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi Elitre, we postponed, after the answer to the grant request, first of all because we didn't have enough time to organize the event. After that decision we worked to find new dates due to the availability of the location, and this is in november. Second, we did a drastic "spending review" on the budget, and we hope to bargain a greater support from the chapters (expecially WMIT). --CristianNX (talk) 13:17, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Questions for WMF

@KHarold (WMF): As anticipated by email, we would like to know if we can use some of the WMF money approved for scholarship (1. Travel & Accomodation) for:

• Valerio Bozzolan: room for Friday 17th and Saturday 18th (40 €) and round trip by train Turin - Trento (ca 100€). Valerio is going to give two workshop about bots.
• Settimio Martire: round trip Milan-Trento by train (ca 50€). Settimio is going to be the main photographer of the event. He received a partial scolarship from Wikimedia Italy which is covering accommodation.
• Raphael Mair: room for Friday 17th and Saturday 18th (40 €). Raphael is a member of organizing team and a speaker
• Simone Aliprandi: room for friday 17th (ca 78€) and travel one-way Trento-Pavia by car (ca 100€, including motorway fees). Simone, a lawyer, is going to talk about Copyright, panorama freedom and Wiki Loves Monuments.

Valerio, Settimio and Raphael are also community members. Simone isn't. We are available for any further clarification. Thanks! --Jaqen (talk) 07:22, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Hi Jaqen, this request is approved. We hope the conference is successful. Cheers, --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 08:09, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you Kacie! --Jaqen (talk) 08:35, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Meals

Hi @KHarold (WMF):, we are planning to have only 2 coffee breaks, on Friday and Saturday afternoon: lunch won't be late we will not need a break in the morning; on Sunday afternoon people will start leaving so we will not need another coffee break. We would use the money that we will save this way to strengthen the 3 lunches. This means we will spend less for 3.3 and more 3.2, without changing the total money we will spend for meals. --Jaqen (talk) 15:12, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the update. --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 18:44, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Friendly space policy

Per Grants:Conference/Guidelines, Grantees must adhere to the Friendly space expectations and have some type of Friendly space policy for in-person events. AFAIK, WMIT doesn't still have a FSP, so I would expect the general one to apply. Unfortunately, I haven't seen any information about it yet, as in, participants haven't been reminded that they will need to comply, and I have no idea how organizers will take care of the enforcement. (FYI, KHarold (WMF) .) Elitre (talk) 10:07, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Friendly spaces poster itWikiCon

Hallo Elitre, we have prepared a FSP poster in italian wich will be printed in several copies and exposed in every room of the venue. Before every speech we will remind briefly its main points. --Civvì (talk) 10:43, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Grazie! C'è un typo "AMMESSIi", e il testo sul giallo sembra Comic Sans e quindi scherzoso ;) Ci vediamo presto. Elitre (talk) 19:45, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Thank you Elitre for asking about the Friendly Space Policy, and thank you Civvì for your quick response. It is great to see that you have a poster in Italian - I think there is a category on Commons for FSP materials, so I will add it to that category. --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 22:48, 16 November 2017 (UTC)