Wikimania/story

The story of Wikimania: facts, trivia, little known organizational details. Please help edit.

Accomplishments and outcomes

• Wikimania is a strikingly international conference, with participants from 100+ countries routinely.
• Most participants are multilingual. Though the main language of the conference has been English to date, there have been various multilingual tracks and sessions over the years, including in Spanish (Wikimania in Buenos Aires and Mexico), French (Wikimania Montreal) and Chinese (Wikimania Taipei, Hong Kong and Singapore). The virtual Wikimanias of 2021 and 2022 as well as Singapore 2023 supported a wide variety of language presentations.
• There have been 18 Wikimanias as of 2023, which is notable because Wikipedia itself was only 22 years old in 2023 (and that accounts for the pandemic intervening in in-person events.)

• Wikimania provides a venue for various movement groups, volunteers, board members, staff, and project leaders to connect with one another, share information, and debate difficult topics face-to-face. The Board of Trustees of the WMF routinely holds one of their annual meetings at Wikimania, and other groups take the opportunity to meet as well.
• Topics that have been represented on Wikimania program each year since 2005 include Wikipedia research; GLAM, libraries and higher education collaboration; and outreach/training techniques.
• Many Wikimanias have had a theme; the earliest years did not.
• Other open knowledge and society "fellow traveler" groups routinely show up at Wikimania as well, including groups like Creative Commons, OpenStreetMap, the Internet Archive, and various FOSS projects. There have also been 'sister' conferences that have happened in parallel with Wikimania like WikiSym (Gdansk 2010) and WikiConference North America (in Montreal 2017).
• One Wikipedia has been shut down during Wikimania: Klingon Wikipedia, in 2005, after a discussion during the board of trustees session.

Ideas from Wikimania

Many ideas and projects have been started or improved at Wikimania, ranging from feature requests to development at the hackathon to outreach ideas. Just a few of the projects that began in a Wikimania hallway conversations include:

• #1lib1ref, from a conversation at Wikimania 2015
• the internationalization of Wiki Loves Monuments
• Wikidatacon (came out of a Pink Pony session)
• the GLAM Wiki movement, which owes inspiration to an influential visit to the Library of Alexandria during Wikimania 2008
• Wikimedians for Sustainable Development (from conversations in Stockholm 2019)
• The CEE regional collaboration
• Wikispore
• the inspiration (and connections between collaborators) for writing the book "How Wikipedia Works" (at Wikimania 2006, Brad Patrick told Phoebe Ayers she should write a book about Wikipedia).
• sitelinks being replaced by Wikidata, a conversation that was started in 2012
• many, many tickets, feature requests and bugfixes over the years
• Humaniki, during the hackathon at Wikimania 2019

A few of the projects that were formally launched at Wikimania include:

• WikiProject Women in Red, at Wikimania 2015
• Semantic mediawiki, with a presentation by Denny at Wikimania 2005; this idea eventually became Wikidata

Highlights

From the Wikimania program

Since 2005, Wikimania has featured an adjoining hackathon, generally held before the main part of the conference. Sometimes there are additional pre-conferences as well, focused on GLAM, education, movement governance, or other topics. This is followed by the main conference program, which is generally 3 or 4 days of talks, discussion sessions and workshops.

Some highlights that show up often on Wikimania conference programs:

• Workshops: there are always many workshops ranging from beginners to advanced. Wikimania 2012 in London had an entire track of workshops for people totally new to Wikipedia who might want to learn editing and more.
• Recognition and highlights of technical developments and tools; the first coolest tools awards ceremony was in Stockholm 2019
• Wiki loves Monuments winners and highights ceremony (many years)
• All Wikimanias provide talks about what is happening in various geographical and topic-based communities. For several years, Wikimania featured a "coolest projects" presentation led by Deror Lin, that condensed these project highlights down into just a few minutes per group.

  coolest projects of the Wikimedia Chapters, Wikimania 2018 in Cape Town

• meetups for every conceivable group (every year a different mix of groups, from functionaries to wikimedia usergroups and various interest groups). Informal iterest group meetups over the years have included higher education, libraries, GLAM, commons photographers, wiki research, wikidata, wikicite, Wikisource, and much more.
• Research findings about the Wikimedia projects, including the summary of research highlights for the year, from Mako Hill and collaborators (most years since 2007) and the research track (in several years, notably in 2019)
• The wikiwomen events at Wikimania, which now include lunches, discussions and talks, and in 2023 was an entire summit, started out with a lunch meeting with 12 or so people at a single table in Taipei
• many people have given keynotes at Wikimania, including important cultural leaders in the Wikimania locations. Some keynotes have included Larry Lessig (Cambridge, 2006); Luis von Ahn (Buenos Aires, 2009); ...

Non-program highlights

What happens outside the formal program is equally as important to build bonds between Wikimania participants and lead to ideas. An incomplete list of a few non-program conference highlights:

• The fantastic hacking gardens in the Haus der Jugand 2005 and again in 2012 in London at the Barbican
• watching a world cup match with all of the locals in the town square in Gdansk
• also in Gdansk, staying up much too late and watching the early northern sunrise over the town river
• staying up even later in Buenos Aires and going to all-night bookstores
• video and arcade games at the closing party in Montreal, 2017
• playing calvinball in Harvard Yard, Cambridge 2006
• The views in Esino Lario, 2016
• cultural performances including the symphony, dance performances and musicians
• wiki jam sessions with musicians in the hallways in Montreal, 2017
• late night karaoke in Singapore, 2023
• Visiting and talking to librarians in the new Library of Alexandria, Alexandria 2008; also running sock-puppet making workshops for children in the library in 2008.

Events

The parties!

Deror Lin and attendees at the Haifa beach party

• The closing party has been a feature of Wikimania since the very beginning. Each party is different. One especially memorable party was the sunset beach in Haifa, for Wikimania 2011. Entertainment at parties has included djs, live bands, dance performances, and cultural performances).
• Wiki-karaoke has a long history, but probably found its best expression in the very popular Karaoke party at Singapore 2023. However, sometimes we write and perform our own songs, notably the world premier singalong of "I will revise" at Alexandria.
• The closing party of Wikimania 2006 in Cambridge, MA was held at the MIT museum, and featured the "Web 1.0" pitch contest judged by internet luminaries, including the iconic "1-800-Internet" pitch from Aaron Swartz, Mako Hill, SJ Klein, and (former Wikimedia ED) Brad Patrick.

Other events

There are often a wide range of other events, including tours of cultural institutions, tours of the local place, and meetings at external venues, as well as social events. A few of these events have included...

Locations, logistics and technology

The venue and technology

• Choosing the venue for Wikimania is often one of the most difficult jobs for the year's organizing team. Wikimania has been held in a wide variety of venues over the years, including:
  • university campuses (Cambridge 2006, Hong Kong, ...)
  • youth centers (Frankfurt 2005, Taiwan 2007)
  • performing arts centers (Gdansk 2010, London 2013)
  • conference centers (Singapore 2023)
  • mountain villages (Esino Lario, 2016)
  • fully online/virtual! (online 2021 and 2022)

• We haven't always had existing wifi in the venue; sometimes we have had to make our own. In 2005, the team taped routers to the wall. In several years, the venue has had to upgrade their wifi system just for us.

Wikimania 2005 internet solutions

food

Wikimania is a chance to highlight local food. Some food standouts from past conferences include:

• Unusual snacks in Taipei
• fika snack breaks in Stockholm, 2019
• very inexpensive falafel sandwiches for sale outside the venue in Alexandria, 2008

Decorations and swag

• Wikimania swag over the years has included t-shirts (most years starting in 2006) but also water bottles (Sweden 2019, Singapore 2023); tote bags (many years); the wiki mini puzzle balls (Taipei 2007), and backpacks (Mexico 2015).

• Wikimania related decorations over the years have included all sorts of signs and banners, but sometimes other things too, like the Wiki puzzle ball (Taipei 2007); and the cardboard "W" (Singapore 2023)!

the Wikiball, at Wikimania Taipei

• The Wikimania "WM" swoosh logo in blue and red was designed for Wikimania 2006 by Ben Yates, an American Wikipedian from Michigan. (Ben has sadly since passed away; he contributed various designs to Wikipedia, and also did the illustrations for "How Wikipedia Works" by Phoebe Ayers and Charles Matthews). It has proved to be a lasting logo in part because it is easy to hand-draw on a directional sign when need be!

the Wikimania standard logo

People

Wikimanias have ranged in size from a few hundred attendees to over a thousand. Most Wikimanias have been in the 600-800 attendee range.

• There have been two wedding celebrations held at Wikimania - Darya and Avner in 2015, and Yamen and Nassima in 2023. Both couples met because of Wikimedia work!

• Even more wiki-couples first met at or because of Wikimania <3 Now there are wiki babies too! The first wikibaby in attendance at Wikimania (I think) was Anthere's youngest son in 2006.

• Jimmy's "Wikimedian of the year" started to become a regular feature of Wikimania after a few years. The award has expanded to feature many awards in various categories to recognize people in our movement.

• On a sadder note, the "in memoriam" section has become a regular feature of Wikimania plenary ceremonies as we realized that there were many people to honor and remember each year. An effort is made to make sure every Wikimedian who has passed that the community is aware of is honored. This number now includes two people who were multiple-year organizers of Wikimania as well (Deror Lin and Austin Hair).

• There are only four people who have been to all of the Wikimanias. However, many more people have been to all but one or two. Each year many Wikimedians also join the conference for the very first time.

• The conference is organized by a local team working with staff each year. Most of the Wikimania teams have a lead organizer, who helps coordinate work and volunteers in all of the various teams, including programs, scholarships, communications and logistics.

• There is a Wikimania steering committee who oversees the conference from year to year and helps provide advice and support.