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Wikimania jury

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Wikimania overview
Organization
Next event
  • 2025 (Nairobi, Kenya)
Future events
  • 2026 (Paris, France)
  • 2027 To be determined
Past years

2007  |  2008  |  2009  |  2010  |  2011  |  2012  |  2013  |  2014  |  2015  |  2016  |  2017


The Wikimania jury is the bid selection committee for the annual Wikimania conference. Jury members are selected each year by the Wikimania Steering Committee, and it bears the responsibility of reviewing bids from local volunteer groups and making a recommendation about who should host to the Steering Committee and the WMF.

The jury runs a process that includes both public and private discussion and deliberation. Past committees have been composed of past Wikimania organizers and board, advisory board, and staff representatives.

For future jurors

Being on the Wikimania bid selection committee requires:

  • Review the bid criteria and schedule.
  • Evaluate presented bids according to the published bid criteria. (English is typically the language for bid submission and discussion.)
  • Identify any outstanding problems or issues with the bids, communicate them to fellow jury members.
  • Be available by email to schedule meetings, discuss bids.
  • Attend 1–2 meetings (generally on IRC online chat and/or Google Hangout) prior to bid deadline. Identify questions for bidders.
  • Discuss the bids in the two weeks after the bid deadline. (Typically includes 2 or more IRC meetings, email, wiki pages, Google Docs.)
  • Be available to answer questions from the community and the prospective hosts.

Important qualities for jury members

  • Familiarity with Wikimania requirements and "feel"
  • Past attendance of Wikimania
  • Involvement in Wikimania planning or execution
  • Past experience in event planning in other contexts
  • Ability to absorb complicated, unfinished, wiki-based documentation, and verify specific details (Jury members often research flight costs, venue, cities, and past work of bid team members.)
  • Showing respect for the hard work that community members have put into their bids
  • Showing respect for cultural differences
  • Ability to neutrally evaluate bids without preconceptions (like "we could never have wikimania in x place")
  • Ability to assume good faith, even during disagreements, for fellow jurors' reasoning
  • Ability to keep community members informed and welcomed to comment on the bids and process, and to make sure that their comments are taken into account
  • Ability to work through disagreement to find consensus (Note: the jury always disagrees, and must meet and discuss until they come to consensus (including on how best to decide) and present a decision.)
  • A desire to see Wikimania succeed and continue to be an awesome conference

Time commitment

  • The time commitment is focused in the time around the bid deadlines. Bid jury members should be prepared to spend a few hours per week working on the process during this period. It is important to meet deadlines, since community members are depending on the result. All bid jury members should be available for and engaged in deliberation and meetings.

In sum: this is an important, interactive, and occasionally difficult job. Doing a good job helps ensures the future success of Wikimania.

Questions? Past bid jury members and moderators are listed on the respective Wikimania pages (e.g. Wikimania 2009). You can also contact the WMF Events Manager for more details --EYoung (WMF) (talk) 19:02, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

-- phoebe 23:51, 4 November 2009 (UTC) (bid jury member for 2007, 2008; bid jury moderator for 2009, 2010)[reply]

For future jury moderators

  • To-do:
  • make up schedule
  • schedule IRC meetings (one or 1.5 weeks in advance seems good)
  • get gmail addresses from all jury members: you'll probably be sharing documents (note: etherpad might be an alternative to this in the future?)
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