Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Conference Fund/WikiConference North America 2026

Why Alberta?

@Econterms @Pharos @Rosiestep @Peaceray @Xeno Alberta is probably the worst province to do WCNA in this current political climate. Why do it there? LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contribs)} 01:24, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

Because they were the first & only to volunteer for 2026. Chelsea Chiovelli is spear-heading this & she is Edmonton. We heard no objections to Edmonton during the preparation of the proposal. Others at Wikimedia CA seem to be on board with this.

We decided that having it in Vancouver, BC, might spoil the chances for Wikimania.

I am personally supporting this due to its proximity to the northwestern US. Peaceray (talk) 01:36, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

No one objected because no one knew of anything before it was set in stone. I'm definitely objecting to this. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contribs)} 01:41, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

I respect your comment, @LilianaUwU. My usual view is that Wikimedians should go to a variety of places and see things ... it's part of our mission. I will reflect on your objection. We want it to be friendly and safe and comfortable. -- econterms (talk) 02:11, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

The grant application was submitted by WM-CA. Louis is the Executive Director. Would someone please ping him? I don't know his username. Thank you. --Rosiestep (talk) 04:05, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

@Louis Germain (WMCA): Peaceray (talk) 05:49, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

Hello, and thank you for your message @LilianaUwU.

Wikimedia Canada is proud to be hosting WikiConference in Edmonton in 2026 after hosting the 2023 conference in Toronto, and the WikiConvention francophone 2024 in Quebec City.

We have one staff member and one board director based in Alberta.

Over the past few years, we have been working hard to strengthen and energize the Wikimedia community in Western Canada. We are fortunate to count the University of Alberta and MacEwan University’s Faculty of Fine Arts and Communications among our partners. We also collaborate with Campus Saint-Jean, home to one of the largest francophone communities in the province.

In addition, we have partnered with Art+Feminism to organize contribution workshops, as well as the Wikipedia Edit-a-thon on Edmonton’s Queer History, held in collaboration with the University of Alberta and the MacEwan Centre for Sexual and Gender Diversity.

The work we are doing in this part of the country is essential, and we are proud of it. Regardless of the political climate, we believe it is our duty to support contributors in this region, and we will continue to do so. This is why WikiConference 2026 will take place in Edmonton.

I also would like to clarify that we did circulate a survey to gather input from the community in North America. It is possible that you may not have come across it.

As a reminder, one of Wikimedia’s core principles is neutrality. We are proud to be an apolitical movement, and in this context, it seems even more important to collaborate and remain engaged in regions that may present more challenges. Wikimedia must continue to be a driver of positive change.

With kind regards,

Louis Germain

Executive Director, Wikimedia Canada Louis Germain (WMCA) (talk) 12:27, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

Fair. I no longer object. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contribs)} 21:33, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

@Louis Germain (WMCA), could you share where you circulated the survey? Sdkb ^talk 04:07, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

The survey was shared in the WCNA 2025 and WMCA Telegram groups, sent to our newsletter contacts, posted on our wiki, and featured in an article on WMCA website. Survey is open since July 22nd until next week. You still have a few days to answer if you want to express yourself. Louis Germain (WMCA) (talk) 12:06, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

@Louis Germain (WMCA), to be clear, the survey begins, "We are hoping to bring the WikiConference North America (WCNA) 2026 to Edmonton, AB, Canada". And at no point does the survey ask for feedback on that location or suggestions for other locations or even other miscellaneous comments. So "we did circulate a survey" is not exactly a rebuttal to the criticism @LilianaUwU is making that no feedback was sought until the location was decided. Also, I note that every venue mentioned above (except for the WCNA Telegram group, which few people are still following) is WMCA-specific, which might help explain why you've received only 27 responses. If you'd like to reach a broader audience of potential attendees, emailing those who attended WCNA last year might be a good start. Sdkb ^talk 20:25, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

Personally, I'm wondering whether the remoteness of the location compared to somewhere like Vancouver may impact the budget for scholarships. Will reduced lodging costs offset the higher flight costs? (It's great that one person [previously mentioned as a reason for hosting there; now redacted] can drive there, but one of the pieces of feedback you're likely to hear if you circulate a survey asking for location feedback to those beyond Canada is that many people who could fly directly to Vancouver would have to do a layover to get to Edmonton.) Although the number of proposed scholarships is the same as for 2025, the proposal is a mix of partial and full scholarships rather than all full scholarships. Sdkb ^talk 20:32, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

Here is a list of non-stop destinations from YEG/Edmonton International Airport. Presumably they fly nonstop to YEG as well.

• "Non-stop destinations". Edmonton International Airport. 2024-09-05. Retrieved 2025-08-29. 

Peaceray (talk) 18:50, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

Here is some information about distances.

• "The closest and farthest cities from Edmonton (AB)". CityExtremes. Retrieved 2025-08-29. 

Peaceray (talk) 19:33, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

As much as everyone wanting a conference location that is easily accessible and doesn't eat a big chunk into the budget, at the end of the day it is heavily reliant on local volunteers and staff who expressed an interest in supporting the logistics of the event. While Vancouver may seem like an attractive alternative to Edmonton, we currently do not have sufficient level of local resources to successfully deliver WCNA in Vancouver. It's easy to point fingers and say "I want to see the event being hosted at X city" but nothing is achieved unless there is local organizing committee, as previous WCNAs have demonstrated. I also want to challenge the perceived "remoteness" of Edmonton. It is the capital city of Alberta and the airport serves all major cities in Canada and most gateway hubs in the US. Furthermore, using mock flight booking for October 2025 to represent off-season pricing, the flight cost of flying to Edmonton is comparable (New York, Houston, Toronto) or less expensive (Salt Lake City, Seattle) than flying to Vancouver. A few exceptions where it's more expensive to fly to Edmonton than Vancouver are (based on random spot searching) Boston, Los Angeles and Indianapolis. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 04:08, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

Endorsement from econterms (talk)

• I'd love to go to Edmonton! I support this proposal. I think it draws well from things that work in the past North American WikiConferences. And we haven't had a WCNA within 2800 km of Edmonton, by my calculation. Try to guess which is closest to Edmonton: Indianapolis? San Diego? or Toronto? --econterms (talk) 02:02, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

Endorsement from Rosiestep (talk)

I support this proposal for WCNA 2026 Edmonton. Since its establishment in 2016, WCNA has been held in western North America only once, in 2016, in San Diego. Edmonton will provide an opportunity for new perspectives for local and traveling attendees, which will contribute to the way we approach Movement Strategy 2030 initiatives. The budget is well-considered and in line with other events of this magnitude (250 attendees). I'm grateful that Wikimedia Canada has volunteered to host WCNA 2026 and chosen a city where it already has multiple partnerships. I'm looking forward to participating as a committee member and as an attendee. WCNA 2026 Edmonton: looking forward to it! --Rosiestep (talk) 14:24, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

Endorsement from Peaceray (talk)

For the sake of fairness, it is paramount that we start gathering elsewhere than just the United States, as it is clear that many North American & Caribbean editors live elsewhere. I support Edmonton because it is relatively close to Cascadia bioregion, the area that the Cascadia Wikimedians support. This would be the first time WCNA will have occurred in the northwestern quadrant of the continent. Peaceray (talk) 19:27, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

Endorsement from OhanaUnited^{Talk page}

This will be only the third time that Canada will host WikiConference North America and second time that the host city is in the west coast. There is limited capacity to support a regional conference of this size in the Caribbeans and Latin America (except Mexico). And given the current uncertainty around tourist visa and foreign visitors entering into the United States, it is logical that the next event will be held outside of the United States. For these reasons, I support having the 2026 conference in Edmonton.

--OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:42, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

Feedback on your proposal

Dear Louis, dear Sophie, dear team,

Thank you very much for submitting your proposal to host WikiConference North America 2026 in Edmonton. It is great to see this conference continue and to have Canada as the host country. After carefully reviewing the proposal and budget, and considering feedback from colleagues who have attended past editions, I would like to share several observations and suggestions.

Objectives, focus, and audience

I appreciate the plan to highlight AI and GLAM, and I agree that these themes resonate well with past attendees. At the same time, the current objectives remain fairly broad and would benefit from clearer, more specific goals. For example, what concrete outcomes define a “stronger movement in North America,” and how will success be measured? I encourage you to think beyond the conference itself and to describe the intended legacy or long-term impact.

As you’re refining objectives, I would encourage you to consider that WikiConference North America is an excellent setting to bring users with extended rights together to share skills and problem-solve. This is something you could leverage in both scholarships and programming. You may want to consider reserving a portion of scholarships for users with extended rights or slightly weighting those applications as part of the review rubric, and exploring programming in partnership with these users. For instance, since you are considering an AI track track, it could be valuable to explore the impact of generative AI on extended rights tasks and tooling. I can connect you with some WMF staff who could support you in developing this angle.

I appreciate the emphasis on engaging Canadian Francophone communities and participants from provinces and territories with less Wikimedia presence. Strengthening outreach to the Caribbean and Mexico, regions historically underserved by WCNA, would also be a meaningful step, especially given Canada’s comparatively easier visa process.

Program design and evaluation

The proposal would benefit from a stronger plan for evaluation. At the moment, objectives and metrics are not well aligned, and the post-event survey is not clearly connected to desired outcomes. I encourage you to specify what success looks like and how it will be measured beyond basic participation numbers—for example, documenting collaborations formed, skills gained, or follow-up activities sparked by the conference. If internal capacity for evaluation is limited, consider budgeting for external support.

Budget and logistics

The budget is generally reasonable, though a few items would benefit from clarification:

• Please explain the rationale for the different room-night allocations (5/4/3 nights). Based on our experience with WCNA 2024 and 2025, and the flight schedules for Edmonton, it is unlikely to have someone staying only 3 nights.
• Also, why did you decide to have two hotels? Am I assumingly correctly, that there is no single hotel (within budget) that could host the whole group of scholarship recipients?
• Do the hotel quotes include breakfast?
• My colleague Erin (from the Travel Team) suggested increasing the airfare budget item from 500 to 550 USD.
• Budget item “Organizer meeting” – are those 40 USD per person a daily delegate rate from the hotel or the venue?
• What are the plans for the evening reception? (budgeted at 12,5000 USD)
• I think we have talked about it briefly in a call, but I wanted to confirm with you that you would not like to livestream or record the sessions – is that correct? What does the “Additional A/V Costs if applicable” (500 USD) include?

Overall assessment

The proposal is very strong and thought through, and I’m confident in the organizing team’s capacity. The location and thematic focus offer strong opportunities to engage Canadian organizations and to attract new contributors. Strengthening the conference’s objectives, evaluation plan, and outreach strategy, especially toward Francophone, Caribbean, and Mexican participants, could help demonstrate clear impact and ensure balanced scholarships.

It would be great if you could add some details and elaborate on the points mentioned above, and resubmit your proposal with these changes on Fluxx (the proposal is now open for editing). The deadline for submission is September 29, after which it will be reviewed by the volunteer Conference Fund Committee, with a final decision expected by mid to late October.

I would be happy to schedule a call, if needed, to discuss any of the feedback.

Best regards, ---Cornelius Kibelka (WMF) (talk to me) 17:42, 18 September 2025 (UTC)

Hi @CKibelka (WMF),

Thank you for the positive feedback! We've updated the proposal in Fluxx. I also wanted to provide a bit more detail regarding your questions and the clarifications needed:

Evaluation and follow up

We have not always been consistent with post-conference surveys and feedback collection, and this is an area we are committed to improving. We plan to review post-conference surveys from other user groups and organizers to improve our own (the Wikimedia+Libraries Convention 2025 had a great survey apparently!), and ensure that we gather relevant data, that we can track and use effectively.

Since the WCNA is a major event for the North American community, it would be interesting to include questions about the participants’ sense of belonging to the community before and after the conference, and whether the event helped spark new projects or collaborations. These projects could then be tracked through an on-wiki category for example, as well as follow-up questions in the pre-conference survey for WCNA 2027 about whether projects have continued, grown, or folded.

On top of the regular Telegram group, promoting the monthly NARWHAL call and newsletter would give participants a sense of community beyond the once-a-year conference.

Programming

Regarding your suggestion about users with extended rights, it’s a great idea–we can definitely identify them better in the scholarship application form. I attended the recent Toronto WikiClub meetup, and we had quite a long discussion about that. I now have a comprehensive list of topics they’d like to explore in more depth, including comparison of tools within Wiki, translation and AI, conflict resolution, and neutral point of view. Splitting part of the program into two tracks, one geared towards users with extended rights, and a more general one could be a good solution for this. Happy to connect with the WMF staff as well!

Regarding the outreach to the Caribbean and Mexico–indeed, it is a region that is chronically underrepresented at the conference. We do not have a lot of representation from Mexico in the user group, but we want to make sure we have at least one Spanish-speaking and one French-speaking person in each committee. Back in Toronto, we worked closely with @Lunita28mx and @Omar sansi, and we will be working together again. We will also be connecting with @Shanluan AfroCrowd and Wikimedians of the Caribbean User Groups, as well as other users, to work on improving representation.

Budget and logistics

* Room nights: 5-night stays are only for core group organizers as most will stay Wednesday to Monday. Participants will most likely arrive on Thursday. Flight schedules for next September are not available yet, but looking at this year, we can see that there are flight options compatible with a departure on Sunday afternoon (Atlanta, Los Angeles, Montreal, New York, Seattle, Toronto, Washington DC…), so it is compatible with a 3-night stay. We did budget for some 4-night stays in case there isn’t any flight option for that day. We chose this option as it is the most budget-friendly. However, we are happy to extend all stays to 4 nights if that is what the WMF prefers and is willing to cover the additional cost.

* Hotels: Indeed–it was the best compromise for the budget, comfort, and location. Both hotels are managed by the same group and are less than 300m/0.2 miles from each other. Breakfast is included in the rate.

* Airfare: adjusted like Erin suggested.

* Organizer meeting: this was indeed unclear... It’s a dinner-meeting held on Wednesday night for the core committee–it’s a good time for us to review everything and make sure we are ready for the next day. The budget reflects nearby restaurant prices.

* Evening reception: we are currently working with our local committee and partners to find the right venue. We are hoping to secure a non-profit rate with the venue, and offer drinks and small bites to the participants.

* Additional AV costs: indeed, the conference will not be live-streamed or recorded. The Additional A/V Costs budgeted are for slide advancers, extra mics, and projectors we may need. The rooms are already well-equipped, but we might need extra equipment depending on panel sizes etc, that we will only know later when we work on programming.

Hope this helps! Happy to answer any other questions you may have.

SophieWMCA (talk) 13:12, 26 September 2025 (UTC)