Wikimania Handbook

Past years 2005 (Frankfurt, Germany) 2006 (Boston, USA) 2007 (Taipei, Taiwan) 2008 (Alexandria, Egypt) 2009 (Buenos Aires, Argentina) 2010 (Gdansk, Poland) 2011 (Haifa, Israel) Next event 2012 (Washington, DC, USA) Future events 2013 (Hong Kong) 2014 (TBD) Organization Handbook checklist Community group

How to run a Wikimania: past practice, best practice, and general guidance

So, you want to organize a Wikimania conference? This guide should give you lots of tips on how to organize Wikimania and where to get help for stuff not on here. It's a work in progress; please feel free to add to it if you see anything missing.

Please note: This is not a set of official requirements for Wikimania. However, it is a collection of best practices that have been developed over the past several years, as well as a comprehensive checklist of the areas to consider when running a conference. The goal of this guide is to help each new team in planning the best conference they can.

Ideally this guide will also prove useful to organizers of other Wikimedia and community events, not just Wikimania. Feel free to adapt and remix it.

• See also:
  • checklist .
  • User:Phoebe/Wikimania
  • wmteam:The Ideal Team (not visible for everybody)
  • wmteam:The Ideal Timeline (not visible for everybody)

What is Wikimania?

Hopefully you already know what Wikimania is, but if not, Wikimania is an annual global conference devoted to Wikimedia projects around the world (Wikipedia and the MediaWiki software). The conference is a community gathering, giving the editors, users and developers of Wikimedia projects an opportunity to meet each other, exchange ideas, report on research and projects, and collaborate on the future of the projects. The conference is open to the public, and is a chance for educators, researchers, programmers and free culture activists who are interested in the Wikimedia projects to learn more and share ideas about the Wikimedia projects.

However, this short description does not capture the complexity of what Wikimania can be. Because this is a community-generated conference, each team is free to re-imagine Wikimania.

Who is Wikimania for?

This question has been repeatedly debated over many years. First and foremost Wikimania is for the Wikimedia community to come together. But beyond that, you may want to consider whether your Wikimania will be a venue for:

• new editors, readers and "fans"
• journalists and film-makers
• business meetings of various groups (chapters, Wikimedia Foundation committees, etc)
• people from other non-Wikimedia wikis and/or related movements (free culture, OER, etc)

This is a question that each team gets to focus on and decide. Who do you want Wikimania to be for? The answer to this question will help determine the kinds of activities that you include (such as whether there is a session for new editors); and perhaps the total size of the conference (which could in turn determine such things as venue, accommodation options, etc.)

Conference theme

It is helpful for the core team to think of a conference theme. Is there an area that you would like your Wikimania to focus on?

Are you ready to host Wikimania?

The best way to tell whether your community group is ready to host Wikimania is to try bidding for the conference, as described below. Reading and discussing the bid requirements, as well as this handbook, will give you a good idea of whether you are ready to host the conference.

Wikimania is a lot of work and requires a substantial commitment over time, but it doesn't have to be daunting. It is a true "team effort" and you will have the support of collaborators from all over the world, as well as the thanks of the entire Wikimedia movement!

Bidding

Overview

Just like the projects it celebrates, Wikimania is very community-run and is dominated by the community. The Wikimania planning process begins each year with an open bidding process where different community teams submit their own bids so that they can bring Wikimania to their area. These bids are then fleshed out and developed over a few months. In the end, the bids are all reviewed by a Wikimania jury of Wikimedia Foundation members, community representatives, and former organizers, who then decide which country will host the next Wikimania. Once the bid is awarded, that team can go ahead with planning the conference.

The process of bidding is time-consuming but good preparation for planning the conference, and preparing a bid can help a team decide if they are ready to put on the conference. The bid must show a comprehensive and realistic plan for hosting the conference, including a core team of committed volunteers, a proposed location, and a budget. The bid must convince the jury that the team is ready and able to host a great Wikimania.

• Wikimania 2012/Official requirements for bidding cities
• Wikimania 2011/Official requirements for bidding cities
• Wikimania judging criteria
• Wikimania 2013/Judging criteria

Making a bid

Preparing Initial bid

Before you propose a venue to host wikimania, check the following aspects:

• Discuss with your team member the pros and cons of the location, have several location proposed and chose the city in your local vicinity and the venue therein. Each city would probably have several optional venues, so choose the one most suitable:
  • Closest to hotels/dorms/restaurants/shopping areas
  • easy to reach by public transportation
  • easy access from hotels/dorms to venue by public transportation
  • venue has enough halls and rooms to hold several tracks of the conference, and a main hall big enough to hold plenary sessions.
• Once choosing the venue contact the venue and make sure what are the available dates.
• If planning on using nearby dorms – make sure which dates are available.
• Team members who live or work near the venue, and are able to get to the venue once a week at the early planning stages and several times a week at the late planning stages.

After choosing the venue, choose the dates of the conference based on the following:

• Dorms and venues are available
• No religious holidays which will prevent groups from attending the conference
• No local national holidays (which will result in restaurants or suppliers not working during the conference)

After choosing the location and the dates you may apply your initial bid.

Preparing Complete Bid

Preparing your bid:

• Background info on the country, the city
• Information on the venue
• Proposed itinerary
• List nearby accommodation options
• Explain transportation options to the venue, and between accommodations and venue; check flight costs through sites like expedia
• Cost of living (costs of food)
• Nearby interesting sites
• List weaknesses of your proposal and how you are planning to solve them
• Draft budget (have at least one price quote for each subject in order to make sure the budget is reasonable
• Make sure the local city or authorities, and also state government are supporting the conference. Approach them, requesting support letters.
• Obtain support letters from various supporters (local companies, local universities).

Use bids of previous years, and wikimania sites of previous years (http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org, http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org, http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org, http://wikimania2010.wikimedia.org, http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org) for tips and ideas

It is best to divide the areas of responsibilities between the team members so it is clear which team member is responsible for what.

Judging process

Team

Overview

The local team is by far the most critical component to any successful Wikimania. The team is the group of people that will implement the conference and that will make sure everything is taken care of. Part of the planning team -- what is usually called "the core team" -- will need to form at the bidding stage and stay involved throughout the year, coordinating the entire operation. Some team members -- the "additional team" -- will only become involved with specific parts of the conference -- for instance the scholarships committee. Foundation staff will generally fall into this type of role. Finally, some team members may only become involved at the last stage of the conference -- just before, during and after the conference. These team members may be volunteers who come from the hosting institution or other local groups (such as a local university).

Finally, the team is split into online-only (or "remote") volunteers and in-person volunteers. Remote volunteers can handle a lot of tasks -- the program is a good example -- but in-person volunteers are crucial to running the logistical side of the conference. Many of the core team members need to be in-person. It is helpful to have a number of in-person volunteers who are local to the conference site -- that is, living in the same town or very nearby.

• http://wikimaniateam.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Ideal_Team
• http://wikimaniateam.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Ideal_Team

Team roles

Describe and refine the team roles before the event itself.

possible roles

• Team Lead- Consider having at-least 1-2 team leads, people either who have some experience in organizing events or managing people.
• Team member (Back office related)- OTRS, Press, email contact.
• Team member (Visa, Travel related)- Two people would be ideal helping, checking Visas, and answering travel related queries.
• Organizer(Internal/External)- Decide if you want to hire an outside organizer or enlist a professional or if you want to take the lead on the operations.
• Negotiating/financing/sponsor- A dedicated team member who specializes in negotiating with vendors, and arranging sponsors is an idea asset to have on the team from the beginning. Might be an outside paid professional or a volunteer.

the below is copied from wmteam:The Ideal Team: see also discussion & reasoning @ wmteam:Talk:The Ideal Team Note: this list is just a suggestion, may need reworking and refining

role	description
Project manager	Budget management works with Comptroller who handles accounting (office) Provide timeline and make sure it is respected Human resources management (define and enforce roles, who does what, who does not do what) final cut
Volunteer coordinator	Plans for staffing needs; support for each other group Identifies & screens staff & related timelines Fills in any gaps
Secretary	Regular scheduling reminders Oversees mail/otrs answering Tracks progress of all groups Limited time/week, but extremely reliable (not to get drawn into other roles)
Program manager	heads the program committee Program timetable Coordinates with communications on releases Coordinates with Tech & Logistics on room/hall needs
Social liaison	Parties Outings Fun events, tourneys Building an enthusiastic social team Coordination with satellite parties & calendars
Speaker coordinator	Relationships with speakers Coordinates with Program manager Coordinates with Registration coordinator Manages speakers sponsorships and special needs
Technical coordinator	Oversees & schedules sysadmin and programming work, coordinating: Server setup, during the year and onsite CfP software setup Software for volunteer coordination / allocation Calendaring software for showing/editing the program Registration software (see Registration) Define tech team needs with Logistics & Program coordinators
Registration coordinator	Development of the registration system (technical) Managing registration questions/issues/problems, off and on-site.
Logistics coordinator	A/V - streaming Catering Accommodation Venue allocation
On-site : Stage liaison	Make sure people are where they need to be Double-check on props, materials, timing
Communications manager	Community announcements Website delegations & updates (see Designer) Basic copy for press Follow up on statistics during and after
Press liaison	Liaises with larger press group Deals with press inquiries and assignments
Sponsors manager	Find sponsors Ensure communication with sponsors Follow up during and after the event
Scholarships coordinator	Manages attendees scholarships Works with applicants to manage expectations & schedules

Recruiting volunteers

• best practice for recruiting volunteers:
  • in person- Try and enlist local Wikimedians in the area, feel free to look for volunteers and other interested supporters in the vicinity. A good option to always consider is a University, or a college in the area to recruit volunteers.
  • online - Recruit interested volunteers for OTRS, email, design related tasks and other consultation. Feel free to announce on the mailing list, VP or email individually.

Wikimedia Foundation staff

• what to expect from WMF staff - Get a clear idea of what you want from the staff and the Foundation before you visit. Discuss the issues before visiting before hand. Also consider talking to previous organizers.
• Work on a checklist and a Wishlist of what you would want from the staff.
• The core team will usually visit the Foundation offices to meet with WMF staff at some point in the fall after being awarded the bid. What to expect from this meeting.

Professional planners

There is no specific guidelines on whether or not a team should consider using a professional conference planner for managing some or all logistics planning; this is a decision that is up to the team.

• An outside planner would handle the bulk of issues with the actual organizing. If you decide to go with one, ensure that you go with someone with a proven track record and experience. This might be the most important decision related to the organizing that you will make, so feel free to check with any references/past clients.
• Don't consider handing the management to an amateur or someone with little experience, they might become a liability for you. Get a professional with a track record in organizing large events.
• Negotiate with Planner before-hand-It might also be possible that the planner might help introduce or arrange sponsors for the event. Discuss all the options.
• If you plan to do it yourself, consider offloading some tasks to an outside planner/manager, even part-time help would make you free to dedicate more time to certain tasks.
• Consider asking friends, family member with experience in organizing large events to help out. Go over them with some suggestions, and ask for their feedback.

Partnerships

• past partnerships (berkman etc)
• possibilities for partnerships
• partnerships with other conferences: WikiSym etc.; best practices for this.
• The ideal reason for getting a partner would be sharing some of the financial or organizing burden. Negotiate and discuss all the options with a proposed partner. Make sure you're not taking on excess weight.

Planning meetings

• Start out with a meeting to dedicate team member to each task.
• Have weekly report on the progress made by the team member for their task.
• It is ideal to start out with locating sponsors and partners at the earliest possible options, preferably should be the focus in the Early planning phases.
• Have at least one or two weekly meetings from the beginning, it would be advisable to get to know the other team members well in case you don't.
• Early meetings can be casual- during dinner, for coffee, etc.
• During the crunch period (a month before the event)- spend more time together and discuss ideas, problems with other team members.
• Tensions will probably run high towards the crunch period, always keep your cool, and try and be as accommodating as possible with your team members.

• A proposed schedule
  • Early planning (4+ Month period)
  • Mid Planning (4-2 before the event)
  • Crunch period (Month before the event)
• see also: internal communications

On-site team

• You will need volunteers for on-site tasks; these people may not have been involved in the planning process.
• You would need a volunteer co-ordinator from your team. Ideally it should be someone who has been included in the planning process from the beginning.
• The Volunteer co-ordinator should be an ideal manager, someone with experience in handling and managing people. Always ideal to have someone approachable and friendly but not easily side-tracked.
• Recruit volunteers from a University, college, institution in the vicinity, announce on the mailing list, try and locate local wikimedians in the area, (a watchlist notice can be useful).
• Be considerate of Volunteers,and always remember to thank them for their contribution.
• Another problem might arise from having too many volunteers, keep a tight and limited group.
• Keep some backup contacts for volunteers on hand, in case some of the volunteers decide to back-out.

Historical information

• Ideas for how past teams have met this challenge

Sponsorships & Budget

• see also: Sponsorships & budget checklist (needs work)

Overview

Money is required to make any conference run!

Funding for Wikimania comes from four main sources:

• Sponsorships by companies and organizations
• Sponsorship by the Wikimedia Foundation
• Registration fees from participants
• in-kind donations from companies and organizations (such as a free or reduced price venue)

Processing a large amount of money -- both paying conference vendors and receiving sponsorships and fees -- is required to run a Wikimania. In order to handle this money, teams must have a financial structure set up. Some Wikimania teams have created non-profit organizations for the purpose of handling the money, and some teams have worked through existing organizations (like a chapter or outside partner).

Financial reporting is also required, both internally and back to sponsors and the Wikimedia Foundation. Guidelines on reporting and budgeting are below.

There are also many types of costs that the conference will entail. These expenses are typically divided into two types: fixed expenses and variable expenses. Fixed expenses include conference infrastructure, things like the cost of the venue rental -- these expenses stay the same no matter how many attendees you have. Variable expenses however are the costs for individual participants, and change depending on how many attendees you have -- for instance, the cost of food. Variable expenses are usually calculated "per-person"; each additional attendee will entail a certain cost. Multiplying variable costs by the number of attendees, and adding this to the fixed costs, equals the total cost of the conference that will need to be balanced by sponsorships and registration fees.

Bid budgets should take into account both fixed and variable costs. The bid budget should also reflect core (absolutely necessary) expenses and potential extra expenses (such as for a field trip that might only happen if funding is received). Budgets should also contain a contingency. It is normal for bid budgets to change if for instance in-kind sponsorship is received later in the process. However, careful track should be kept of such changes and the team should always have an up-to-date budget and more than one person that understands it. All team members that handle money should understand the importance of keeping careful track of the money, obtaining good receipts and records of any money spent or received, and being financially responsible.

Obtaining sponsorships is a core part of every Wikimania team's job, but it can often be quite difficult and time-consuming. Assigning at least one person the job of handling sponsorships is important. The Wikimedia Foundation will work with teams to pursue big or international sponsors and can help work with sponsors on behalf of teams, but it is up to every team to pursue at least local and in-kind opportunities and to make sure that materials that make it easier to get sponsorship (such as up-to-date press kits, websites, budgets and other information) are available.

Financial structure

• information on various financial structures- get information from past teams, look at the past budgets.
• get a professional or someone with a financial background to go through the budgeting process with you.
• Try and get quotes from vendors when possible, keep the guessing to a minimum.
• Plan for contingencies, plan for emergencies, and then keep an extra amount on-hand for any price-fluctuations with vendors.
• Assign someone with a financial background to manage the budget and finances.
• Keep a designated Treasurer, someone you highly trust and who would be available through out the planning and execution stages.

Budget planning and reporting

• Initial (bid) budget - try and make it as detailed as possible, this is what everyone else will look at. This is where you show the competence of your bid and your capabilities as a manager/organizer.
• Interim budgets - For any fluctuations, price-changes or sudden expenses.
• reports to WMF - Keep the foundation involved on any major changes after the first financial report.

Sponsorships

Sponsorships is one of the most important things to consider for an event. Many institutions, companies, Universities would love for a chance to be associated with an international event like Wikimania. You have to be good at selling the idea of Wikimania to a sponsor. Consider that the sponsors has no idea about our community, or the conference except for Wikipedia, its up to you to inform them and educate them about what benefit the conference might have for them. Focus on the international recognizability of Wikimania, offer past sponsor info and past stats.

To locate sponsors, start out with looking for companies, Institutions located or based in the area. Look for a related industry like Tech or Education. Always prefer a large known firm to a smaller company, the chances of a large sponsor backing out are low compared to a new, unknown company.

Get multiple sponsors, co-branding is also an option to consider with a large sponsors. Try and get vendors to offer discounts for sponsorship and promotional opportunities.

• international
• local
• need: Kul, Barcex (2009), Saper (2010)
• kit; levels

Budget team best practices

• Get at-least two people focused on Financing/budget related side of planning from the beginning. Include them in the process from the beginning.
• One of them needs to take care of all the quotes, invoices, receipts.

Historical information

• Ideas for how past teams have met this challenge

Program

• see also: program checklist (needs work)

Overview

The "program" comprises all of the activities during the conference that attendees engage in -- whether it's listening to academic presentations or participating in a trivia contest. The program is a crucial component of the conference experience.

It is also an area where there is a great deal of leeway for the local team to determine what they want the conference to be. At the same time, there are certain "traditions" (such as the Wikimedia Foundation Board panel) that have been established over the years and planners are welcome to continue these traditions. The program is typically an area where there is a good deal of remote and international help as well as local participation. This is in fact a good area to assign to a team of remote volunteers, as long as there is a liaison to the core local team.

While the program is often considered "the fun part" of the conference, it has many complicated components that often depend on one another. Careful scheduling of program deadlines well in advance -- and sticking to that schedule -- is an important part of planning the conference.

Deciding the overall types of program activities that will be included needs to be done at the very beginning of conference planning, as this will determine how long the conference is. For instance, if you want to have two days of business meetings and hackathon before the main conference, this will add an additional two days to the time for which you will need a venue, accommodation, etc.. You also need to decide early on in the planning process the length of the formal program. Although every Wikipedia to date (2011) has been 3 days long for the actual conference, there is no particular reason why this could not be longer with fewer simultaneous tracks and so fewer "clashes" between talks/sessions that people want to attend.

The program team is often split into several groups -- for instance, the people who are planning the parties and social events and the people who are in charge of the core "academic" program. While these groups can work independently, there needs to be very good coordination between all of the groups and the core team. Several areas, such as the attendee party, the keynote speakers, and Wikimedia Foundation events, will require the input and possible leadership of the core team.

Program components

• core conference program
• Wikimedia Foundation presentations -- board panel, executive director, etc.
• fun activities and social activities (incld. pre & post conference
• show the cultural identity of the represtenting city/nation
• party
• business meetings/chapter meetings
• hackathon
• ask if the participants want to do anything particular for the event like build a collage or installation, try and support any such activity if possible. (Wikimania 2010, had an installation made from empty pipes outside the venue.)
• etc.

Poster session

Some Wikimanias have had a poster session. These have a specific set of requirements to do well.

Open space/unconference

What is open space, requirements, etc.

Team Building exercise

Consider a large team building exercise at the beginning, its a great way for people to bond and get to know each other.

Cultural exhibitions

The 2010 Wikimania introduced an element of cultural exhibition, with the screening of a film and performance of a symphony concert. The idea is to have something that the entire community can enjoy together.

In 2010, the Wikipedia-related documentary Truth in Numbers? was screened, and there was a symphony concert celebrating the host city and the cultural impact it had had and continues to have on the world.

Other options could be to have a call for submission of videos, with some of the videos screened at the event and a winner could be picked by the audience.

Other Ideas

Quiz

You can consider having small quiz sessions to give out merchandise. The questions could be related to Wikipedia or encyclopedic. Wikipedians might enjoy the chance to see how encyclopedic they are. Have an overall Quiz progression through the event, with ladder matches and competitions between winners to crown a single winner.

Submission system and timeline

Program review, scheduling, and speaker management

• example schedule outline

Keynotes

• keynotes and invitations to send out

Parties and events

For some the parties are the most important part of Wikimania. Parties are a great way for people to meet and get to know each other, provided you have at least part of the venue quiet enough for conversation. Try and organize at least two such events. Look for venues in the vicinity, if negotiated before-hand discounted rates could be arranged. Consider the safety and distance to the Accommodations, make sure the venue is not located too far off for the parties. Also, must provide non-alcoholic options to everyone. During the day time, coffee shops or similar venues could also be considered where Wikimedians might stick around and meet each other. The most important aspect is to facilitate social interaction between all the participants.

On-site program needs

• Program needs to coordinate with tech & venue
• Onsite printed schedules, signs
• Moderators!!!!
• Someone from the organization (e.g. the moderator) should stay in each room and get a copy of all presentations slide to make sure that they'll later uploaded to Commons or wikimaniawiki.

Program team best practices

• Program team / committee best practices
• program committee; wikimania-program@lists
  • international committee! not just local team

Historical information

• Ideas for how past teams have met this challenge

On-site logistics and attendee services

• see also: logistics checklist (needs work)

Overview

This is the "physical" part of the conference -- dealing with on-site services, including the venue. This is the part of the conference that affects the experience of attendees and their comfort: where they sleep, what they eat, and how they get around. People usually remember this part of the conference -- if they don't have good sleeping arrangements, that can spoil the rest of the experience.

These details are not very glamorous but they are a crucial part of planning an event. In addition, this is the part of the conference where budgeting becomes very important, since small differences in the cost of a meal can add up to big changes in your overall budget.

The final part of attendee logistics are on-site services, which include registration check-in, information services, childcare, presentation logistics and teams to deal with any emergencies. When several hundred people converge in one place, there will be issues that will need to be dealt with, and the on-site team will be the ones dealing with them.

The team for this diverse set of areas may consist of several individuals, many of whom will typically be part of or will work closely with the core team. These team members generally need to be local, so that they can conduct in-person negotiations, site visits, etc. However, the logistics team will also need to coordinate with every other team -- since logistics will be the ones setting up registration tables, helping the tech team get access, assisting the program team with room assignments, providing and receiving budget information and so on. On-site services will be coordinated by this team, but may actually be provided by a "last-minute" larger crew of volunteers who may come from the venue, a local university, the local meetup group, etc. Many people will be required throughout the conference to provide these services, and these people will need to be coordinated by the volunteer coordinator, which should be an assigned position (*not* the lead organizer).

Venue coordination

• venue coordination and planning
• venue requirements for Wikimania (presentation rooms, auditoriums, lounges, etc)
• coordinating with tech & program teams

On-site "war room"

• The venue should have space for an on-site planning/organizational space where the organizers can congregate and do work. This room should be open ONLY to organizers. It should be stocked with:
  • printer
  • paper
  • scanner
  • pens
  • snacks&drinks
  • whiteboards
  • (network)cables
  • wired! network connectivity (the wifi runs the risk of overloading)
  • powerstrips (there's never too many powerstrips)

See also Wikimania_2011_lessons#Venue

Lounge/social space

Wikimania 2007 lounge

Wikimania 2010 patio setup - with couches AND beer, and a view of the waterway :)

This is one of the unusual requirements of Wikimania, compared to most conferences -- Wikimedians love to hang out :) Nothing makes a big group of Wikimedians happier than having a quiet area with access to wifi, coffee (or beer) and couches on which they can sit and discuss plans for world domination (and/or improving the projects). In fact you could probably host all of Wikimania successfully just by giving people a big room with enough couches in it. This social space may be in the venue itself or it may be in the accommodation space. Ideally, it's somewhere that everyone has access to. Other requirements include:

• big enough so that many people can hang out here
• easy access for long hours -- preferably pre- & post- (especially post) conference, as well as during
• access to food and drink
• comfortable - not too noisy
• flexible - so attendees can set up their own tables, exhibits, podcasting sessions, etc.
• with power outlets and wifi

Accommodation

Accommodation is one of the biggest headaches for Wikimania, since we would like both on-site and very cheap housing for our participants -- a combination that is often quite difficult to find. It is preferable for Wikimania attendees a) to sleep on site or as near the conference site as possible and b) ideally be sleeping in 1 location.

Options

• Bulk booking in advance at hotels- Many Budget priced hotels would consider subsidized rates for bulk booking especially in off-season or when negotiated in advance.
• Dorms- University, schools or other Institutions can provide lodging depending upon the season and availability.
• Hostels-There are lots of Hostels that offer lodging for highly subsidized rates.

See also Wikimania_2011_lessons#Accommodations and Wikimania_2010_lessons#Accommodation

Food

Lunch at Wikimania 2006

• Coffee, coffee and more coffee. If it is hot weather, water is essential.
  • Even in an area where it's not normally hot at the time Wikimania is held, plan for heat. Every Wikimania since 2007 has been hot.
• Always have water around - also between coffee breaks. You should make sure with your caterer that water is always available. Some might just remove everything after breaks, due to misunderstanding or costs.
• Snacks.
• Food service- Professional catering is ideal in most cases, especially if prices are competitive and negotiated before-hand.
• Account for various dietary preferences:
  • Vegetarian options.
  • Many editors avoid pork for religious/cultural reasons.
  • Always advisable to have Kosher/Halal options.
• Catering staff won't necessarily speak good English, so labels for the food and it's ingredients would help a lot for those with specific dietary needs

Transportation

Every locations differs in terms of its requirement for transportation. Some things to consider regardless of the venue

• Distance to and from the Airport
• Distance from the Venue to the center of the city.

If the distances are high, prices and bulk deals could be arranged before-hand with a transport option like a Taxi company to provide pick up service for the event.

Handouts to attendees

A welcome pack including:

• program
• conference information
• map showing venue, party venue(s), accommodation sites, location of nearby museums, transport links, recommended cafes/restaurants, Churches, temples, mosques and synagogues
• listings, brochures, pins, stickers and other knick-knacks.
  • Another option to consider is co-branding with a sponsor or finding a sponsor to provide the material altogether, sponsors can include their promotional material in the pack.
• tshirt - remember Wikimedians come in many sizes, and children in the creche expect their Tshirts too.

Childcare

• An ideal option to consider, but do bear in mind the security and safety of Children. Providing materials for children, babies is a thoughtful option to consider.

Wikimedians want childcare; there are always a small group of attendees with children (and growing every year).

• best practices for providing childcare

On-site services

• Information desk
• lost and found
• tech help
• presentation room help

Security

A high proportion of Wikimania attendees will have laptops or netbooks with them, depending on the level of local crime this may necessitate on site security to ensure that people only leave the venue with their own laptops. In Buenos Aires several computers were stolen and security had to be implemented with guards checking every computer that was taken out of the venue and in and out of certain rooms.

As a precaution, laptops should be labelled as part of the registration process.

Insurance and emergencies

• about event insurance
• how to set up an emergency team
• emergency info for participants
• first aid and health teams

Printing and production

• You will need to print and produce a good deal of material:

• signs
• conference books
• tshirts, etc

This is an entire area of logistics in itself. Some things will need to be produced well before the conference, and some right at the end.

Logistics team best practices

• logistics team best practices

Historical information

• Ideas for how past teams have met this challenge

On-site technology

Overview

Unsurprisingly, everyone wants great wifi at the conference! Perhaps surprisingly, this is remarkably hard to get at conference venues. In addition, since Wikimania is a global conference with a world-wide audience, recording sessions and making them available (during and after the conference) is important.

These technical areas require pre-planning and are complex enough to need a dedicated team.

Attendee wifi

this may not be the ideal solution, but sometimes you need guerilla networking. Wikimania 2005

.

For many attendees of Wikimania, WiFi is the only connection to the outside world (which we can't live without) since we are traveling internationally and our cellular devices don't have service or would cost a fortune due to roaming fees.

Consider that you have about 600 visitors, so you need to be prepared for many devices. Most contractors would never consider that every Wikimania attendee will have at least one device that wants an IP and potentially two or three. With this in mind, a /23 (510 devices), or even a /22 (1022 devices), subnet (instead of the usual /24 with 254 hosts) should be considered. Additionally you could limit the DHCP lease time to 1 or 2 hours so that addresses can be reallocated often.

A wifi access point can - according to vendors - handle up to 20 concurrent devices. In practice you can support around a hundred people with one AP as they are mostly not using wifi all at the same time. Consider getting cheap wifi gear and more of those. There are only three wifi channels which don't have overlaping frequencies (1, 6, 11), so you can have up to three wifi gears per room. Put them into three different corners of the hall and limit the radio power so they don't interfere with wifi in the next room or in the lobby.

Graphical representation of Wi-Fi channels in 2.4 GHz band

Additionally you might also put up 5 GHz wifi (802.1n) but these are not licensed in all countries.

• List of WLAN channels

Bandwidth on the wifi is less of a problem, much more important is to support enough concurrent users in big halls and to avoid interference. Therefore also check with the venue if they have wifi - maybe even in their office - and switch them completely off.

Recording/streaming of sessions

Do it yourself

Streaming and recording is what we really should support on every Wikimania, but it needs a lot of resources.

For a minimal setup you will need (per lecture room):

• a camera (DV with Firewire)
• a PC (with Linux and Firewire)
• one person handling the camera and monitoring the streaming

The simple setup uses an Icecast server which is hosted somewhere in the internet (Manuel has done that in the past for free). With a few command line tools you can grab the camera input from Firewire (dvgrab), encode it into Ogg/Theora (ffmpeg2theora) and push it via HTTP/ICE2 to the streaming server (oggfwd). You can simply run dvgrab and ffmpeg2theora in a second instance to record the lectures onto the local harddrive in a different format. This can be started and stopped by the person handling the camera before and after each lecture, so you get separated files. If you have an additional volunteer you can collect the recordings from the computers immediately after, adjust the beginning and end, convert and upload them soon after the lecture has ended.

Sound

To improve the sound check that your cameras have a separate audio input or play with ffmpeg2theora so it uses the audio from your soundcard instead. If you use the camera make sure you can switch of Auto-Gain. Get a small mixer - you might already have one to adjust the microphone volume in the hall - and use the recording output from there as sound input. The camera person should use a headset to verify the sound is good at all time, a VU meter in the mixer would be also helpful to be able to stick with a certain level.

Better Video

If you can afford, get a second camera for a static position that captures the whole lecture scene while the first camera will be guided and captures close-ups of the speaker. You will need a separate camera person for this.

Per video mixer you can mix the two images from both cameras to provide a more lively scene and better vision to the viewers. A good video mixer can also capture the VGA input from the projector - the projectors mostly have a VGA output where you can capture the image they are showing. This way you can also mix in the slides shown during the lecture which improves readability and overall quality of the video greatly.

Contractors

If you are able to get a contractor make sure:

• streams can be watched with open source tools (eg. no flash)
• recordings will be provided in a free format (either Ogg/Theora or raw DV)
• when the recordings will be provided and to whom
• That the recordings will be released under an appropriate license

The last item is important, in the past we had problems that contractors have promised to provide a DVD with all recordings which we never received, despite asking several times.

A contractor should be able to provide all the equipment and staff as outlined above, especially the "Better Video" stuff. A typical Wikimania will need a team of ten people (five concurrent lectures) to do all this. Including the rent of the equipment 1000-2000 EUR per day is a reasonable price for this.

Kaltura, an open source video portal and streaming company is also working with the Wikimedia Foundation on video editing on Wikimedia Commons. They have offered to do streaming for free, provide staff and equipment.

• need: Manuel Schneider (streaming/recording); wm2009 team too

Upload

The videos must most of all be uploaded for future usage; this is even more important than live streaming.

After videos have been edited (basically, just split and named properly), it's suggested to upload them to the Internet Archive at the highest resolution you have (raw DV is ok, there's no size limit), one video/session per item, for instance via the S3 API or the very reliable bulk uploader. This way, videos will be converted to several formats and will be available immediately for streaming and download.

Ogg videos in reasonable bitrates can then be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons for backup and inclusion in the wikis' pages (such as session pages and schedule); to circumvent the size limit a sysadmin will be needed, see commons:Help:Server-side upload for instructions (it's way easier if you provide them in correct format, as archive.org produces).

Technology team

Know your peers

Be on the site early, if possible visit the site a few months prior to Wikimania to check the following:

• internet uplink:
  • existing - can we use it?
  • do we need to buy our own uplink?
• cabled network:
  • there must be at least one RJ45 socket in each lecture hall, connected to a central network rack
  • do we need to bring extra switches? how many switches, how many ports, where can we put them (power, uplink nearby)?
  • do we need extra cabling?
  • how do we get access to the central network infrastructure during the conference?
• wireless network:
  • is there any wifi already in place we can either use or shut off?
  • where can we put our own wifi gears, how to hook them up to the cabled network, where is power?
• audio:
  • do the lecture rooms have amplification available?
  • how many microphones are available (wireless?)
    • needed: two for small rooms, four in the big halls
  • mixer available? - recording output needed for streaming / recording!
  • if we need to rent more equipment: Do they have a contractor for that?

Make a list of all important persons and their mobile numbers, know when they are available during the conference and where to find them:

• facility manager - helps you with locking / unlocking doors, power issues, lights
• audio technician - in case there is a problem with the local audio equipment
• IT manager - to get access to server / phone cabinet with internet uplink, switches etc.

During the conference

You need at least one person in the local team who exactly knows the venue and has access to all the information listed above. This person has to be immediately available in case of emergency. Radios assure the communication between Wikimania office and the rest of the local team while they are around.

Additionally one or two volunteers who can jump in wherever needed: To exchange the batteries of a microphone or reset a wifi gear that has locked up.

Spare parts

• check the batteries needed in the wireless microphones - have a lot of spares
  • we [who??] exchanged the batteries - just in case - every morning to prevent them dying during a lecture
  • have one set of batteries in each lecture room - the session chair should take care of them
• have one or two extra wifi gears available
• an extra set of network cables is always needed
• bring as many power strips as you can find

• best practices for an on-site tech team

Historical information

• Ideas for how past teams have met this challenge

Registration

• see also registration checklist (needs work)

Overview

All your preparations are made in vain if people can't register for your awesome conference! Registration is a headache. Fortunately, you can draw on the experiences of past teams.

In order to register people for the conference, you need to have:

• a registration system set up
• a list of the information that you want to collect from attendees
• registration fees decided and a system for payment set up
• enough information about the conference so that people want to register!

The timeline for registration should be set at the beginning of conference planning and based on the date of the conference, especially if you are offering tiered (early/late) registrations. Registration needs to be in good time for people to be able to book holidays, get cheap early booking deals on flights and get travel visas. However, registration is also dependent on information from many parties (see below). It is helpful to set up registration infrastructure as soon as possible so that when all the variables fall into place it can be easily switched on.

Once everyone is registered, the registration team isn't done -- there is an on-site component to registration as well. All attendees will need badges and will need to be checked in.

The registration team will need to work closely with the budget, scholarships, program, press and logistics teams. The budget team should determine best practices for handling money and where the money should go, as well as setting registration fees. The scholarships team and registration team will need to coordinate about how to register participants who are also applying for scholarships. And the program team and registration team will need to coordinate about how to register program speakers, as well as how to register the long list of VIPs and guests that the program team will have: everyone from Jimmy Wales to the local dignitary. And the registration team will need to work with the press team for issuing and keeping track of press passes.

Finally, the registration team must stay in close contact with the logistics team, who will provide cut-off dates for registration (for instance, no more registrations after x date so that we can order the food), as well as information about accommodation (which may or may not be a part of the registrations process). The logistics team will need an updated and accurate count of registrations throughout the process; it's probably helpful for the registration team to get in the habit of making a weekly report to the core team throughout the registration season.

Registration systems

• overview
• registration checklist
• what a registration systems should do

• receipts
• flexibility to waive fees
• good reporting

• buying vs making: registration systems of the past

Registration site

• Who to take code from / write it from scratch??
• When to open registration
• Where to host it
• How to modify it
• Paypal buttons
• Other payment means
• I18n of registration site
• Management system for registration data

Visas

Probably one of the most time-consuming and complicated thing to consider. As Wikimanias get larger, the number of countries represented also increases. Some familiarity with Visa Procedures would go a long way, consider grouping countries by their Visa Requirements. Use similar options for all the visitors from a single category. Also, consider having a dedicated team member checking and following through on progress of Visas.

• Visas, invitation letters

Badges

• This sounds simple but is always more difficult - people's registration details change, people turn up on the day wanting to register, the printer breaks, someone made a typo (you'll be blamed even if the attendee goofed), someone is registered as a normal attendee but want a speaker/organiser/press/... badge, etc. - be prepared to create new badges on-demand at registration.
• Need to include the name of the conference, a logo to prevent easy duplication/faking, the Username, and give each attendee the choice of which of the following other information they want displayed

Firstname

Surname

Username

Home Project(s)

• Ideally you want the details printed on both sides of the badge
• Font should be as large as you can fit on the badge - but notice that some people have very long names and user names (over 40 characters is not unknown in attendees).
• Badges need to be attached to Wikimanians. This is usually done by hanging them round the neck on a lanyard with an option for clipping them to clothing. Pins are a bad idea (difficult for some clothes, potential for injury, less visible).
• Use different colors and text labels for different type of Attendees: Organisers, Volunteers, Speakers - and most important: Press.
• Make a small booklet with the schedule and most important information (such as venue layout, nearby shops / pharmacies, shuttle schedules) and put this booklet inside the badges, so it can't get lost. (Great idea from Wikimania 2011.)
• Not all information on the badge is of equal importance. Use different font sizes to easily identify the important bits (e.g. name).
• Landscape badges have more space for (large print) names
• username@homeproject is quite long to read - consider separating onto different lines
• You (or your funding sources) may wish to add sponsors' logos to the badges too.
• Some (generally 2-3) attendees will not want their photo taken, and will ask for an extra badge to indicate this. Sometimes we have included this either on the badge or as a sticker to apply by attendees on registration.

Registration team best practices

• Have an onsite and an offsite registration team. They can be composed of local volunteers, organizers, staff- an ideal option is to consider a mix of all for the onsite registration team.
• Important to have a public facing registration team. Preferably people with a high degree of familiarity with the area, to offer advice, directions or guidance.
• Co-ordinate with the offsite team regularly to keep track of issues, new registrations, cancellations etc..

Historical information

• Ideas for how past teams have met this challenge

• Registration must start well before the deadline for attendees to apply for visas, especially if the host countries visa process requires one to register before getting a visa.

Scholarships

• see also scholarships checklist (needs work)

Overview

A scholarship -- or individual grant of money -- provides a way for Wikimedians of limited means to travel all over the world to the conference. They are a crucial part of making a Wikimania a success.

Scholarship money can come from several sources: in past years, individual Chapters, private organizations, and the Wikimedia Foundation have all sponsored scholarships. Organizations may be approached specifically for sponsorship of scholarships or scholarship money may be part of a general fund.

Scholarship recipient criteria can vary; for instance, individuals may be selected for scholarships based on participation in the Wikimedia movement (e.g., a chapter officer or long-time editor), a role in the Wikimania conference (e.g., organizer or program presenter), geography or other demographics (e.g., developing countries or women), or need (e.g., students). The amount of individual scholarships may be fixed or variable depending on individual need.

The Wikimiedia Foundation generally takes the lead on coordinating the general funding for scholarships with the help of a very dedicated committee of volunteers. It typically takes a dedicated coordinator and committee to coordinate the scholarship process and review applications. Scholarship applications and funding needs to be done well in advance of the conference and be coordinated with the registration and program processes and timelines. Additional complications to running the scholarships process for Wikimania include those that come with running a global conference -- for instance, scholarship recipients may need visas to the country Wikimania will be held in, which means that they must receive their scholarship far in advance of the conference. In some cases, the scholarships team has taken the additional step of assisting scholarship recipients with travel or buying travel tickets directly. Assigning scholarships is complex but worthwhile.

Scholarship application systems

• Who to take code from
• When to open and close scholarship application
• Where to host it
• How to modify it
• Assembling an international scholarship review team
• Scholarship review process
• How to mass-mail participants
• I18n of scholarship site?
• Running chapter-funded scholarship side programs

Wikimedia Foundation scholarships

The Wikimedia Foundation sets aside money every year explicitly to fund the costs of select volunteers to attend Wikimania. The number of scholarships has varied year to year, based on funding as well as location of Wikimania, as well as the designation of full versus partial scholarships. In years past, these scholarships have been open to anyone to apply, and can either be a full scholarship or a partial scholarship:

• Full scholarships: awarded round trip travel, dorms accommodations, and registration
  
• Partial scholarships: subsidized up to $425 (300 euros) of travel expenses
  

Goals

The Wikimedia Foundation chooses to support these scholarships with the following goals in mind:

• To make Wikimania a successful and productive international conference
  
• To support the Wikimedia projects by encouraging participation
  
• To enrich the conference with attendance by a diverse group of participants in the Wikimedia movement
  

Roles

Review Committee

The scholarship process is started in late fall, the year before Wikimania, with the establishment a scholarship review committee. The committee consists of ~8 individuals from various Wikimedia communities around the world. One of those committee members should be from the Wikimedia Foundation, one should be from the chapter hosting Wikimania, and one should also be the technical adviser (i.e., run the application system). Typically, members from last year's scholarship committee are invited to remain and additional recruitment is done on an as-needed basis.

The review committee is primarily responsible for the front-end of the scholarship process:

1. Determining the criteria for scholarship recipient selection (e.g., establishing the weighting of the different selection criteria, outlining questions on application), and
2. Assessing and scoring the scholarship applicants (e.g., going through a database of applicants and assigning scores based on pre-determined selection criteria)

Tasks:

• Participate in periodic online meetings with scholarships program manager and other committee members (Oct-Jan)
• Review and edit communications material (e.g., Scholarship wiki, application questions) (Nov-Jan)
• Screen scholarship applications for spam (Jan-Feb)
• Rate final round of scholarship applicants (Feb)

Scholarship Program Manager

This individual from WMF is the chief contact for the WMF scholarships. S/he is in charge of selecting and organizing the review committee and ensuring the scholarship sites and communications are all coordinated and executed. S/he will receive the applicant scores from the review committee and is responsible for the final selection of scholarship recipients. S/he will also work with recipients in coordinating travel to/from Wikimania.

In 2011, this person was Jessie Wild. For contact see User:Jwild.

Local/Host team

The host of Wikimania should set aside one individual to be involved on the scholarship team. This individual would preferably serve as the tech coordinator of the scholarship process, as well - assuming capacity - as a representative on the review committee. The benefits of having this individual be the technical lead is to facilitate coordination between the (1) scholarship applications, (2) Wikimania registration, and (3) Wikimania presentation applications.

Another major time investment of this individual is answering questions, historically via OTRS. This person is ideally situated to answer these questions given their (1) local knowledge (e.g., visa questions), (2) close interaction with the Wikimania planning team (e.g., timing, accommodations), and (3) familiarity with scholarship rules (e.g., expenses covered).

Timeline

The timing obviously can flex based on when Wikimania is occurring. Roughly:

Date	Activity	Owner
October-December	Set-up scholarship committee Determine selection criteria Outline specific timeline / key dates Finalize scholarship application Test scholarship application	Review committee Scholarship program manager
October-December	Set up scholarship application site Enable repository for storing applications and interface for scoring applications	Tech coordinator
January	Scholarship application is open Advertise Scholarship applications (e.g., Central Notice; mailing lists; blogs)	Tech coordinator Scholarship program manager Local team representative
February	Scholarship application is closed	Tech coordinator
January - March	Scholarship committee reviews applications and rates based on selection criteria	Review committee
March	WMF selects scholarships based on committee's recommendation and special considerations	Scholarship program manager
Mid-March	Scholarship recipients are notified (~3 weeks to accept/decline)	Tech coordinator Scholarship program manager
April-May	Scholarship recipients work with WMF and travel agency to book flights	Scholarship program manager

Chapter scholarships

Some chapters provide their own scholarships for different reasons. There are several options to deal with that:

• Chapters give money to the WMF scholarship pot. This is quite simple and straightforward, nothing special needs to be done. But the chapters won't be able to influence who is getting scholarships.
• Chapters provide additional funds for scholarship attendees of their own choice. This way the chapter can influence to whom they give their money. This might be useful if a chapter wants to enhance participation from its own country or helpful for the WMF scholarship team as chapters might know their local Wikimedians better to be able to rank them. This kind of scholarships needs to be coordinated with the scholarship team, all applications following a certain criteria will be forwarded to the chapter. The chapter decides and informs the scholarship team which applications it will accept and fund. The other applications will go back to the WMF pool and may be funded by the regular scholarship program. The Wikimania organisers can decide to invoice the chapter directly for these scholarships while providing discount codes for the registration, so scholarship recipients don't have to pay in advance.
• Chapters do their own scholarship program which is completely independant. There isn't a lot to deal with by the scholarship or organiser team. The problem is though to avoid duplicate applications and scholarships from the seperate programs.

Scholarships from other organizations

Scholarships team best practices

• best practices for a scholarships team
• committee/team
• need Sara/Cary to help with this

Historical information

• Ideas for how past teams have met this challenge

External communications

• see also external communications checklist (needs work)

Overview

People need to know about the conference to make it a success! That is where communications come in.

You will need to publicize the conference widely and have a great conference wiki that is up-to-date and makes people want to attend. This is a good job for a combination of remote and in-person volunteers. In addition, you will need a team that is available to answer questions from potential attendees, speakers and volunteers, both in public forums (like the mailing lists) and private ones (like email through OTRS). While this is something that is ongoing throughout the conference planning process, it will become a full-time job just before and during the conference.

Finally, working with the press is a crucial part of the conference. Wikimania is always well-covered by the press, and the conference is a great opportunity to promote Wikimedia and the local Wikimedia community and to make announcements and give interviews. While not every Wikimania has had a dedicated press conference, dealing with the press (including issuing press passes, a press kit, and explaining and promoting the conference) is a job that every team must take on. This is a good area for the local team to partner with Foundation staff and other Wikimedians who routinely deal with press and public relations.

Conference wiki

• Who to ask to open wikimania 20XX.wikimedia.org for you
• Remember to ask for Translate extension to be enabled when the wiki is created.
• How to import last year's pages and templates into there, organize translations etc.
• How to gain admin permissions there
• What it must contain

• It wouldn't be advisable to have a new wiki for every year, but consider having a centralized wiki for every year, or run each wikimania as a project within meta. The resources from the last year could be added and used by the next team.
  • however, past practice is in fact that there has been a new wiki for every year, following the format wikimaniaxxxx.wikimedia.org. There are pros and cons to this.

Sitenotices, mailing lists and more

Dedicated team member to handle the communications, back-office operations. Feel free to ask for help for Site notices, Watch-list notifications etc. to recruit volunteers in your local vicinity. Assign someone to manage the mailing list discussion or keep track yourself for any queries or requests. OTRS and email queries also need to be answered. Other team members could also be recruited to help who might be located remotely, the only requirement should be their availability and communication with the team member, it is advisable to have one person from your team overseeing this side of operations.

Mailing lists to be present on and where applicable also manage

Many Wikimania mailing lists already exist. Some are public and some are private. For the private lists, the "new team" takes over the list every year. Multilingual coordination is acceptable and expected, especially on the private lists; there is not a need to start a new list just for your language. International planners subscribed to these lists expect to get messages in lots of languages.

Public lists

• wikimania-l
• foundation-l

Private lists

• wikimania-planning-l
• wikimania-program-l
• wikimania-scholarships-l
• wikimania-core-l
• internal-l

CentralNotices

• How to put up Wikimania-related CentralNotices
• Who to ask for it
• Where to prepare them

OTRS

OTRS is an e-mail ticket system set up for all of Wikimedia. See the list of queues (and people with access) on the Wikimania team wiki.

A dedicated team member checking the back-office operations like keeping track of issues reported on OTRS and following up is an ideal option. It would be advisable to consider someone familiar with OTRS, if the language difference is not an issue consider asking volunteers located remotely to help.

General documentation about OTRS is available on the OTRS wiki and is not presented here to avoid duplication.

• How to get permissions to OTRS queues?

  Have a senior member of the Wikimania team contact an OTRS admin to request an account for you, providing your name and e-mail address.

Logo and permissions

• where is the official logo, how to get trademark permissions

Translations

• Thus far, English has been the most widely spoken language at Wikimania. Please consider having english translations available for any materials, directions, announcements, followed by the second most widely spoken language.
• Consider using Meta in advance to get translation in some of the most widely spoken languages for directions, banners, important material that might be needed.
• If the host country is not English speaking it is normal to have some elements of the welcome and closing ceremonies in the host language. Thanks to local sponsors, helpers and volunteers do not need translation into English, the Wikimania crowd are quite capable of clapping at the appropriate moments.
• Buenos Aires was a bilingual conference in English and Spanish. Organisers contemplating a similar approach are advised to look at what was done on that occasion. In particular:

1. Clearly mark on the program which language each event will be in and whether translation will be available.
2. Include languages in the threads so that people who are more comfortable in one of the conference languages can choose to mainly participate in that language.

Press and press conference

• If your team has someone familiar with dealing with press then get them material and directions before-hand. Alternatively, an option to consider is enlisting outside help to manage press relations for the event. Get a local PR agency or a PR person to do a press release, go over the material and be available to the media for questions, etc..

Communications team best practices

• Best practices in building a communications team

Historical information

• Ideas for how past teams have met this challenge

Internal communication and planning tools

Overview

How do you coordinate all of the moving parts of the conference? It is a job that can feel overwhelming at times. This is where good internal communication is crucial. Making a communications plan up-front and sticking to it will help you run the conference smoothly and efficiently. Good communications includes making sure that all team members know what is going on, what their responsibilities are and how to get the answers to questions; making sure that planning meetings are well-documented for the sake of those who join your team later; and making sure that planning documents (including budgets and timelines) are up-to-date and accessible.

Good communications makes it possible to get additional volunteers, since people are more likely to help if they can figure out what is going on and if they know what the areas are where their assistance is needed. It can also help the lead organizers feel less stress, since if you have a good plan that is well communicated (and all your team members communicate back to you) you will know exactly at what stage of the planning process you are in and what needs to be done next.

Finally, good communication is required in a few circumstances -- for instance, for reporting back to the Wikimedia Foundation and other sponsors. All of your funders will require clear, prompt and detailed communication about the state of the conference and how their money is being put to use.

Internal communication

mailing lists

• wikimania-planning-l for all volunteers - everyone can sign-up there
• wikimania-core-l for the core team

Wiki

• http://wikimaniateam.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Planning tools

Planning the conference is like planning any major project, and typical project management tools will be helpful.

• GANT charts
• Timelines
• Regular planning meetings
• Mailing lists
• Roadbook (a roadbook is a document that centralises everything in one place, from registration particulars to phone numbers of hotels attendees are staying at, to list of speakers). The roadbook can be on a wiki, but it must be easily printable so that organisers who are running around can have it in their hands while running around.
• Volunteer Handout: a document with contacts, timetables, assignments for each team of volunteers.

Historical information

• Ideas for how past teams have met this challenge

After the conference

Overview

After the conference is done, you will feel giddy from lack of sleep, have lots of adrenaline from running around, and be happy from the knowledge that you've finished a huge accomplishment! You can congratulate yourself and your team on a job well done. But you're still not quite done. After you get a little rest and have a celebration meal, there will still be activities you need to complete.

Immediately at the end of the conference, you'll need to make sure the physical space and attendees are taken care of. Is there a place to store extra supplies, like extra t-shirts; is the space cleaned up; is technical equipment removed? For attendees, a certain number will likely be staying after the conference; do these people have a central place to gather? You don't need to plan activities for attendees after the conference, but it can be a nice touch and is a good job for local volunteers (but not for the lead organizers -- who will be exhausted at this point).

After this stage, the next most immediate thing to take care of is the conference "post-mortem", which should be done as soon as possible after the end of the conference while the whole experience is fresh in everyone's mind. The post-mortem very simply means that you analyze each area of the conference (you might use the breakdown of this handbook) and have team members report on what went wrong and what went right. The post-mortem serves two purposes: knowledge collected from the session will help future teams decide what to do, and it can provide a kind of closure to the experience for the team.

You may also want to collect attendee feedback about the conference, either online or in person at the end of the event.

The next crucial set of things to do after the conference is to finish your reporting. You will have receipts and final bills to account for, and you will need to make sure all of your accounting is finished. You will then have to submit reports to the Wikimedia Foundation and any of your other sponsors that require them. You may also choose to post a final report for the community.

Lastly, attendees will want to see the videos of sessions that were recorded and any other program notes (such as presenter slides) posted online for later viewing. This is a process that may stretch for several weeks (or even months) but a timeline for this should be developed and followed by the technical and program teams, who will respectively be in charge of these areas.

The very last thing to do is to share your experiences with the conference on this wiki and in the handbook. A representative from your team will also be invited to join the Wikimania bid jury for the following year. Congratulations, you ran Wikimania!

Final reporting

Post-mortems

Sharing the conference

Historical information

• Ideas for how past teams have met this challenge

Appendices

Contacts

• list of contacts for various areas

Checklist

• See Wikimania/checklist

Timeline

From http://wikimaniateam.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Ideal_Timeline

A timeline for Wikimania planning.

Immediately after winning the bid

Venue and accommodation

• Contact venue and book it for the dates of the event.
• Contact hotels and rooms, negotiate prices and book sufficient rooms.

Website

• Placeholder webpage with information

Sponsors

• Early sponsor inquiries -- in-kind venue and lodging sponsors if possible

Program

• Early keynote invitations possible.
• Identify list of interesting speakers, topics, community discussions

Staff

• Core team recruiting
  • Query bid team for interest & availability for further planning

12 Month out

Budget

• Complete draft budget based on proposal received.
• Recruit Sponsors

9-7 months out

Templates finalized

Registration

• Fee schedule & calendar set
• Online registration opens for community
• Visa invitation templates (speaker, vip, other)
• Attendee invitation templates (vip, other)

Program

• CfP system set up
• Set content themes
• Begin speaker invitations

Communication

• Placeholder website w/dates
  • First draft of calendar of related events
• Year-specific logo design
• First save the date! notice, blog posts
• Call for participation (papers, &c) to community
• Call for participation (wide broadcast)
• Translations started of the above
• Translations of CfP system

Materials

• City-specific draft docs (bid team followup)
  • directions, local events/outings sheets

Logistics

• Initial venue walk-through
• Draft A/V, projection, wireless, mic needs w/ venue staff

Budget & finances

• Final budget, overall
• Recruit Sponsors

Staff

• Continue recruiting core team members
• Recruit reviewers for program submissions
• Look for high-reliability volunteers : local crash-space, people w/ summer availability

Scholarships

• Set scholarship timeline
• Announce early scholarships & provide applications

6 months out

Draft "how to find local sponsorship" kit (and translate)

Communication

• Basic website launch
• Email teasers, sig designs
• Web banners & buttons for supporting sites
• Translation of banners & slogans
• Translation of registration announcement, interface

Registration

• Early call for registration, specify dates & prices
• Registration opens.

Social

• party venues contacted

Sponsorship & Budget

• Get early quotes
• Sponsorship (ongoing, corporate & other)
  • Support for travel scholarships
  • In-kind support for materials, food, printing

Scholarships

• Early scholarship acceptances; finalized

Materials

• Design : framework for print materials

Program

• Call for papers underway
• Program committee reviewing papers; finding final reviewers
• Draft speaker list finished; invitations continue
• Acceptance of early submissions, workshops, &c.
• Draft schedule

Staff

• Recruit more translators & designers
• T-shirt design for planning committee
• Draft poster/late-submission reviewers
• Draft volunteer-emails

3 months out

2 months out

6 weeks out

4 weeks out

Logistics

• Final run down of the location
• Venue/program adequation fine tuned

2 weeks out

• A/V test if applicable

10 days out

• Go to Tahiti The North Pole to cool spirits down

Program

• finalize moderation schedule

Logistics

• program should be printed
• blank badges should be printed

1 week out

[HD1] 3 days out

[HD2] 2 days out

Registration

• names on badges should be printed - badges finalized
• testing badge printers
• test registration system
• training registration desk people

Program

Hacking Days

[HD3] day before

• Registration opens
• Accommodation registration opens
• A/V installation (if applicable)

Day 1

• Sample schedule:

 7:30 - volunteers/staff training
 8:00 - Check rooms, stock with water
           Registration begins
 8:50 - Stage manager - check for all moderators, speakers
 9:00 - Program starts
           A/V coordinator - roll all streaming video/audio

Day 2

Day 3

day after

• cleanup
• Chapter meetings? Board meeting?

2 days after

• cleanup
• conference debriefing (post-mortem)

week after

• send thank you notes

after

• comparing with commons:Category:Wikimania 2009 presentations, review the contents of [[:commons:Category:Wikimania 20xx presentations]].