Wikimedia chapters/Reports/Wikimedia Österreich/July 2015

July 2015
Report

Community Support

Wikimania 2015

The WMAT team in Mexico

WMAT table at the Community Village

WMAT sent 6 scholarship holders, 2 board members and two staff members to Wikimania 2016 in Mexico. Additionally, we supported an editing contest and WLM in 2014 by sponsoring a Wikimania participation as prices. Hence, we additionally sent those two awardees too. With Mexico being a fairly remote location, the investment concerning travel support was considerable, but so are the positive effects:

Teambuilding: WMAT just as presumably most other affiliates does not invest a lot of money in teambuilding activities. Nevertheless, it is important for every organization to build trust, a feeling of belonging, strong inter-personal relationships and motivation in order to be effective and sustainable. In our experience Wikimania is a great bonding experience between volunteers, staff and volunteers with the Austrian team and in relation to the wider movement. Many participants report that meeting all these like-minded people at Wikimania provides them with motivation for the rest of year and that they draw on it in times of more conflict and trouble.
Projects: Wikimania is always a great opportunity to share ideas for projects and activities. WMAT shared experiences and ideas (e.g. by contributing to the "Coolest Projects" session, with the Pre-Conference workshop for explainer videos or with the Pre-Conference international volunteer supporters meet-up) but also got inspired by presentations of other during networking at the edges of the event (e.g. by the Wikimania Hackathon Showcase or discussing possible areas of collaboration with the CEE communities).
EU Advocacy: This year's Wikimania was very productive in terms of making progress towards a common understanding of EU advocacy between the chapters involved but also between the WMF and the respective chapters /EU advocacy group. The current developments concerning FoP and the presence of Julia Reda further added to the momentum. Wikimedia Austria's delegation included members of the EU advocacy group and Austrian volunteers who are also active in related organizations in Austria. Wikimania was an important catalyst to strengthen these bonds and intensify cooperation in this regard which will enable WMAT to achieve impact on these matters in Austria on a level that we would not be able to generate alone.
Common challenges: This year's Wikimedia Conference marked the beginning of a more systematic and sustainable approach to common challenges in the movement, e.g. governance, volunteer support, partnerships etc. We liked how these topics were integrated into Wikimania's Pre-Conference in order to get more stakeholders involved (who couldn't attend the Wikimedia Conference) and to follow-up on to-dos and milestones. We think that a similar or combined approach on overarching topics of future Wikimanias might also be a good idea to bring both conferences to a next level and increase their impact on the movement. Rethinking the ways we design the program part of Wikimania in future and finding ways to keep it attractive to volunteers and generating sustainable outcomes are the biggest challenges from our perspective when it comes to making Wikimania more than a great networking and teambuilding event.

Individuals involved: 13 (active editors: 9, volunteers from partner orgs: 2, WMAT staff: 2). - WMAT support: Travel costs and support, coordination.

→ Wikimania reports in members wiki (in German)

WikiDienstag

The WikiDienstag (“WikiTuesday“) is a weekly meet-up in the WMAT office. Volunteers share their knowledge and work together on improving the content of Wikimedia projects.

Topics in July: