Grants talk:PEG/WM AT/WikiCon 2012

Questions

1. I might be too stupid (probably) but i didn't got the 2x2x 43 € for the Accommodation Hotel Dorfpark (what that 2x2 means?). And why 2 hotels? One is for VIP or is just that there wasn't enough space in the first one?

2. If there are 35 k EURO in sponsorship + 7k of contigencies = 42 k EUR, why the request is for 10k Euro? Béria Lima ^msg 21:56, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

1. the price is per night per person in a doubleroom. So we calculate 2 nights (fri - sun) times 2 persons per room times price per room (43 EUR). We have actually booked four hotels in total - two for participants a bit further away from the venue and two right at the venue, just to have enough space. We need to accommodate 200 people and the hotels have 38 + 35 + 25 + 19 rooms.

2. exactly for that what I have written there: contigencies. We don't know what (if at all) we get from local sponsors (that would be 5.000 EUR less if we don't find any) plus we don't know what might go wrong. A 10% contingency is what I would normally plan - now the request is a compromise. If we get the extra sponsorship we have more than that, if we don't get it we have less. We hope for the best. It is always easy to return money, but it is almost impossible to raise money afterwards. --Manuel Schneider^(bla) (+/-) 22:02, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

• Well - I have a bit mixed feelings about it - for example maybe you could resign from some expences like "fruit caffeteria", public transport tickests (participants can buy them themselves), or increase a bit participation fee (which is rather low) in order to balance your budget without asking for money from WMF? Polimerek (talk) 22:32, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

  Hi Polimerek,

  • "fruit caffeteria" - I am sorry, but there is no such thing in the plan. What we have planned is a regular coffee break and I hope we all agree that this is an essential part of any conference. The coffee break will be served at two "stations" where there is a coffee machine, small bottles of water and juice and a bowl with chocolate bars and fruits as a snack, some bakery has been asked for at a potential sponsor. The coffee breaks have been designed to be there the whole day without staff so we save all the service hours. The whole catering is a lumpsum we have negotiated (with the help of the university staff) with the official caterer of the FHV cafeteria, hence it is much cheaper than if we would've ordered catering from the outside. The sum for catering is 12.000 EUR for six meals and coffee breaks for 200 guests, this makes a cost of 10 EUR per meal per person which is obviously very cheap. So if we were "saving" the money for the fruits at the coffee break I don't see how we could make a major saving (if any saving at all as this is a lump sum).
    • Yes, there is such thing: 1 Cafeteria with Fruits, Chocolate Bars and Bakery :-) Polimerek (talk) 07:18, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
      • Yes, but it is nothing extra, just a part of a regular coffee break. Nothing we can take away (well, we could of course ask the caterer to not provide fruits but then we would need more bakery or anything else - nothing that makes sense to me or that saves money) --Manuel Schneider^(bla) (+/-) 07:29, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
  • the public transport tickets are part of our effort to make the barriers for people to get to the conference as low as possible. This is especially important as we try to tease people from the adjacent countries to cross borders, something a community event never did. The price is 550 EUR for 200 guests for three days. This makes less than 1 EUR per person per day or 2,75 EUR per person for the whole event. Just a single ride from the german station in Lindau to Dornbirn, a 20 minute ride on the commuter train, costs 3,90 EUR. We get this incredible cheap tickets due to our partnership with the university who arranged that special agreement with the public transport ticket. Additionally having these tickets is import for two other reasons: The participants sleeping in the hotels will need them to get to their hotel by bus, a single ride would cost 2,50 EUR. It also makes the event and moving less troublesome as people don't have to deal with foreign tariff systems and ticket booths. The second reason is the excursion on Sunday: People will likely need to use the public transport to get anywhere and having a group buying their single tickets sounds not practically to me. Apart from that: 550 EUR is a 1,1% of the total budget, so I don't see a major opportunity to save money here but making it a lot more expensive for the participants (compared to our expenses) and denying them a good experience.
    • As I agree that this is not so big part of the budget - I don't think if 1,5 EUR per day is any barrier for attendees... Are they really so poor? Polimerek (talk) 07:18, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
      • wait, it is 1,50 EUR per day per participant if WE provide the tickets as budgeted. If we DON'T provide the tickets the cost per participant will be much higher, that was my point. For 1,50 EUR they wouldn't even get a bus from the hotel to the venue. That's why we want to take care of it. Beside the good experience it is for the participants to not have to worry about tickets and give them the feeling of being taken care of. --Manuel Schneider^(bla) (+/-) 07:29, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
        • For you 550 EUR is nothing and using this money you provide in fact some more comfort to your attendess; if you could do it on your own money or money of conference donators this is OK - but we are talking about WMF money, which mainly comes from tiny idividual donations generally given tu support Wikipedia, not your attendees. 550 EUR is around 27 donations for 20 EUR each. We can spend these money for tickets in Austria for people who probably could easily afford it or for example to organise a whole event in Karachi or this is more than needed to organise Wiki Loves Monuments in Estonia... This is why I am mouning on such kind of extra and not so needed expences... :-) Polimerek (talk) 08:01, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
          • I understand your point but then we shouldn't do any conferences in Europe anymore. We are not asking WMF to support the whole event, just 10.000 EUR which is a a bit more than 1/4 than the whole budget. This is less than the catering. The rest ist covered by different entities. More important than the actual expenses I think is the value you get for it. We can easily make a conference at half of the cost by increasing participation fees, taking money for the sports hall and reducing the catering massively - but what does it help if we have less than a quarter of participants then and if they do not have a great time? Then the reason for the conference is mainly destroyed and having saved half of the money will be a real waste of money. Do it right or leave it. --Manuel Schneider^(bla) (+/-) 09:19, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
  • The participation fee is lower than last year, it was 15 EUR las year, we take 5 EUR per day / 10 EUR per weekend. We think that this is a good price as we want - in the contrast to the last years - invite the public and offer day tickets as well. So 5 EUR is a good price. 10 would be too much - would you pay a fee for 10 EUR just to have a look at some event you are not involved with? We have adjusted the fee to what people would pay to visit a gallery or a museum. Apart from that, talking about 200 planned visitors and an increase of 10 EUR (imagine we would take 20 EUR for the weekend instead) we talk about additional 2.000 EUR we would get - that's 4,1% of our total budget. That doesn't justify for me to double the barrier of people getting to the conference (I am mainly talking about the non-Wikimedians which will just drop by from the street).
    • OK. This sounds resonable Polimerek (talk) 07:18, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
  • We have the plans and budget from WikiConvention 2011. Our budget is almost the same size but we offer several benefits over last year's conference: There was only accommodation in youth hostels with at least 4 people in the room - we offer hotels and sports hall - we have the public transport tickets (which was not that important last year as the venue was in walking distance of Nurnberg main station) - we have a much better venue compared by the rooms and equipment we may use and the infrastructure there is (in-house cafeteria, built-in wifi which can host thousands of students) and the support we get from the university staff. Last year Wikimedia Deutschland invested much more money to the event (15.000 EUR direct sponsoring) and provided staff (project manager) for a long period of time which has not been calculated into that budget (which was about another 20.000 EUR). As we are doing the event in Austria this year we try to diversify our sources of income more, that's why we ask for a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, along with several other sponsorships.
  • Our team consists of people from all involved countries and most of us have solid experience in organising events like this, within Wikimedia and outside. Gustavf has been involved organising and volunteering the past two WikiCon events in Germany, Pakeha was involved in both Wikipedia Days in Switzerland, I have been involved in organising and implementing three Wikimanias, the two Wikipedia Days in Switzerland plus several other events within the Wikimedia movement and also outside the movement (especially open source conferences and trade shows). The plan we presented here has been developed since November 2011 from community ideas and has been adjusted and adopted to the needs and wishes of three chapters, the university staff and the local opportunities and circumstances. --Manuel Schneider^(bla) (+/-) 09:37, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
    • Sure, I do believe you are good guys :-) In general there is a problem with evaluating such grants. Local people know better local circumstances, habbits and prize leves. We can only read applications and when we are not sure if for example1 Cafeteria with Fruits, Chocolate Bars and Bakery or buying local transport tickets is really so necessary - we ask. Polimerek (talk) 07:18, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
      • Your points are absolutely valid. Don't get me wrong, your questions are ok, after having invested half a year in a team of about ten people to plan this event I have a strong opinion and therefore I argue a lot about why and how we did things and what we thought about it, because I am convinced we did a lot of thinking, discussion and also try to include as many options - especially in term of support and in-kind donations - as we think makes sense. Maybe you have seen my edit on the grant - we recently received the confirmation that the municipality of Dornbirn provides free guided tours for our participants - one showing the most famous and valuable buildings and sceneries of the city, one "critical" tour through the past of the city. We are still working on getting third-party sponsorship (financial) and more free offers for cultural activities for our participants. I regard this conference as being a "german-speaking Wikimania". Only 1/4 of the participants of course and only half of the length in days but also only 1/8 of the costs at max while the experience to the participants is similar. --Manuel Schneider^(bla) (+/-) 11:26, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Measures of success

Hi Manuel! Since editor trends is a priority at Wikimedia, you might want to consider phrasing a measure of success along these lines as well. Abbasjnr (talk) 04:29, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi Abbas, I think you are totally right but honestly, how should I measure that? If I can't measure a relevant factor easily I can't use it as a measure of success. Number of participants is easy to measure, also the numbers of non-Wikimedians which come by the registration desk and register there. Two factors are important for us then:

1. turn some of the non-Wikimedians into editors (but how could we track that?)
2. provide a good experience to Wikimedians by providing them a motivating environment, give the ability for exchange with other Wikimedians and provide a platform for sharing skills (so we have two potential results here: a better editor retention due to higher motivation and higher quality of content due to the new skills)

Any idea how to measure that? --Manuel Schneider^(bla) (+/-) 06:47, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Manuel, I think something like having a brainstorming session with the German Wikipedia community on the major challenges that editors face and possible solutions. These recommendations/output could then be sent to the relevant chapter(s) or WMF to see if they could act on them. Abbasjnr (talk) 15:23, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Manuel, please note that this the above comment was just a personal suggestion and whether you do it or not may not have an impact on the outcome of your grant application. Abbasjnr (talk) 16:52, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

I absolutely agree and have submitted a proposal to the program team to have a panel about those topics - http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AWikiCon_2012%2FProgramm%2FThemensammlung&diff=102181431&oldid=102148511 --Manuel Schneider^(bla) (+/-) 07:55, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Note to Asaf

Could we have this grant application moved from "draft applications". Abbasjnr (talk) 04:29, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Done, thanks. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 16:46, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Support

• Cross-borders conferences are always important and this one seems to be well prepared. However, in my experience nobody "drops from the street" - you have to be interested to participate and some people usually drop out due to personal circumstances. I think that providing 8 - 9K would be sufficient.Victoria (talk) 11:11, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Thanks for your support! --Manuel Schneider^(bla) (+/-) 12:26, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

GAC members who have read this request but had no comments

• As member of WM CH we have financed partially the project. --Ilario (talk) 10:38, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Progress

Dear all, thanks for reading and commenting on this grant request!

As there hasn't been any edit since my last response on April 18th - two weeks ago - I'd like to ask if we could move forward in the decision process and how this is going.

10.000 EURs from Wikimedia Austria and Switzerland has been provided, our local team is heavily working on securing sponsorhips from third parties, Wikimedia Germany is in negotiation and only seems to sort out the paperwork how they can support us. We would like to start the registration any time soon but we want to wait until we have at least the half of the budget secured, otherwise we would need to cancel the event. Therefore we are eagerly wating for responses.

Again, thanks for your effort, our team is looking forward your support. --Manuel Schneider^(bla) (+/-) 17:21, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I am sorry, just a minute after I have posted this Asaf sent me an e-mail that the grant request has been approved. So please escuse my nagging and thanks for your support - this will be an awesome conference! --Manuel Schneider^(bla) (+/-) 17:24, 1 May 2012 (UTC)t!