User:Alexmar983/sandbox/Wikimania2024 Report
Report of my participation in Wikimania 2024 as a grantee of Wikimedia CH.
Pre-conference
[edit]I partecipated in the tourist tours of the area (the town center in the morning and Nikiszowiec in the afternoon) and made some connections, though none relevant for the Wikimedia CH network.
At the request of WMCH, I monitored via Telegram the travel situation of User:Nokib Sarkar during his travel from Bangladesh. I shared with him also the contact of User:Epìdosis. We visited him at his hotel on the morning of August, 6th. He lost his phone charger on the train from Warsaw to Katowice, User:Epìdosis helped him (mine was not compatible).
Sessions
[edit]August 7th
[edit]Personal meeting
[edit]08:30-09:00: At the breakfast table right after registration, I reconnected with Miguel from WMPT and met in person the members of the Wiki World Heritage User Group, with whom I had organized a brief online tutorial in 2022.
10:00–10:25 : The formalization of certain concepts, which are somewhat familiar, is something I've always hoped to achieve in Italy. Perhaps one day, we will succeed in doing so somewhere.
10:30-11:00: The session was led by User:PMG, whom I discovered to be one of the most active users on Commons in these technical areas, which I usually have little time to explore. I tried to grasp how various tools are used for adding and editing structured data on Wikimedia Commons files—something I haven't taught to newbies yet but should start doing. Among the tools discussed were WikiCrowd, which semi-automatically categorizes images; AC/DC for mass editing categories; Depictor for enhancing image metadata; and PetScan for finding uncategorized images.
11:00–11:25: This technical change has been long overdue, as there has been persistent confusion among less experienced users regarding the supposed anonymity of IP addresses, which are far from private. The move is a crucial step toward a more privacy-conscious environment, eliminating the false sense of security tied to IP-based contributions. As someone who has long highlighted the privacy concerns with IP addresses, I felt it necessary to take a closer look at this update.
13:30–14:55: Live demo about the use of OpenRefine, I attended mostly the first part to monitor the interest. As as I said to some people before tha talk, the problem is that massive use of OpenRefine might induce more work for volunteer to refine such content.
Personal meeting
[edit]14:30-15:00: Meeting in the common space. I came across Valerio Bozzolan's initiative to monitor the use of free software among affiliates, which I fully support.
10:00–10:25: The speaker, a WMF project manager, read from the teleprompter. She explained how her team adopts a feedback cycle of evaluation (measuring the impact of projects) - iteration (applying changes to projects based on measurements) - adaptation (modifying strategies to adapt to new challenges) in the development of APIs, platforms, and tools for accessing Wikimedia project data. The use of experiments, surveys, and A/B testing to measure the impact of various alternatives allows for optimizing resource use and maximizing overall impact.
16:00-16:25: It's the theme on Wikidata statistics, also for monitoring the gender gap. I also had the chance to speak with the presenter during lunch on one of the conference days. There's still a lot of work to be done in this area, possibly even in Switzerland, with strong statistical support. I tried to shape similar initiatives for March in Italy, but it's a shame that much of this expertise remains underutilized.
August 8th
[edit]9:00 - 09:55: The concepts presented were quite established: the challenges within the academic publishing system, where researchers write and peer review for free, sometimes pay to publish, and university libraries face high costs for journals; the idea that researchers should contribute to Wikipedia as part of their third mission; and the suggestion that professors engage students in writing Wikipedia entries as part of their exams
Wikidata Query Service - the way forward for getting the most out of Wikimedia's knowledge graph
[edit]10:00-10:25: The issues related to the difficulty (or long-term impossibility) of scaling the Wikidata Query Service (WDQS) as Wikidata grows, which were discussed at Wikimania 2023, remain very much present. Lydia Pintscher, portfolio lead for Wikidata at WMDE, clearly outlined these problems and how they are being addressed, particularly through the well-debated graph split. This solution, which involves moving a significant percentage of entities linked to academic papers—into a separate Wikibase instance, will allow data to be combined via SPARQL federation. The graph split is expected to officially launch by the end of August, with plans to make it permanent by phasing out the single graph six months later. This is a highly divisive topic, both at Wikimania and within the wider community, with opinions split on whether it is the right choice. Even the administrators acknowledge that many use cases of WDQS cannot be replaced, so while the REST API for Wikibase, which is already in production and recommended, is part of the solution, a fully viable alternative is still needed.
10:30–10:55: The MediaWiki extension mw:Extension was disabled last year due to an unsolvable design flaw. I never followed the issue closely but I am involved in understanding what might happen in the future. I doscovered that the Wikimedia Foundation is working on its successor, and they aim to release a very basic first version in the coming months. Future development steps could include integrating maps or linking with Wikidata Query Service (WDQS) for data fetching, an option that has garnered significant public interest. I have also understood that there will be no backward compatibility with the old tool, transition to the new extension is goign to be challenging.
August 9th
[edit]10:00–11:05: Overall, the topics were quite standard, these are basic concpets for me. The most notable aspect was seeing the individuals chosen for the mini-presentations.
12:15–13:15: I wanted to attend but I could stay only for the first ten minutes, during the personal introduction.We had to meet to revise the presentation with d:User:Epìdosis.
Personal meeting
[edit]15:30-16:30: Discussion with d:User:DrThneed and d:User:Epìdosis about the theme of items of researchers in Wikidata and our scheduled presentation.
17:00-18:00: we discussed with User:Ilario and Daniel Mietchen what later evolved in this grant proposal. I have waited also the result to share this report, to point out that was a useful outcome as well.
August 10th
[edit]Personal meeting
[edit]12:00: Meeting with the members of the Board of Directors of Wikimedia Chile, mostly about Wiki Science Competition.
13:30-14:55: I partially followed this session, and the concepts didn't strike me as particularly novel. It's almost inevitable that people would discuss how AI could be used to enhance Wikipedia content for readers. User feedback mechanisms, for example, are already widely discussed and implemented across various online platforms.
16:00-16:25: Our was scheduled later in the event, which affected attendance because people were already leaving, chatting in the corridors or moving to the main room for the final event. However, I had productive discussions with interested participants, both before and immediately after the session. Given the specialized nature of the topic, it was primarily marketed to relevant stakeholders, who have always been its main target audience.
Personal meeting
[edit]17:00-17:10: Brief discussion with User:Hiperterminal (David) right before the final session regarding the current state of Wikidata and bibliometrics in Colombia, another follow-up of our presentation
17:00-18:30: It's not optimal for a profile like mine; I don’t feel comfortable staying in the dark passively for that long. I did pay attention to the description of the next Wikimania and the Coolest Tool Award.
FInal dinner
[edit]19:00-20:30: I stayed for less than two hours, during which I met José Ignacio Gallardo (User:Igallards7), who is involved in several projects, including the valorization of Swiss cultural heritage in Chile. I connected him via email with MWCH to explore potential future initiatives.
Other initiatives
[edit]- All other meetings are listed in the report.
- I have created the Commons category for Wiki Science Competition exhibition where the logos of the main co-organizing affiliates (that is also WMCH) were missing. We did our best to promote it on social media.
Final thoughts
[edit]This was my first in-person Wikimania and I am grateful to Wikimedia CH for the opportunity I was given. I better suited for more focused events, so I fear that I am the most productive attendee, it took me a couple of days to do proper networking.
I still think this event are important for in-person interactions, so I don't like the idea of presentations by people who are not physically present. In my opinion if we want to have on-line presence, that should be primarly for wiki activities and not meetings, at least not when people are the main chair.
In general, the logistic of the venue was not perfect. There was limited break between sessions, which meant that people would start entering before the previous one had finished. The rooms were a little bit small, making it difficult to reach free seats far from the entrance and I suspect also to take photos.
I am sorry for some event that I missed such as:
- Abstract Wikipedia and the dream of a Universal Language, 2024-08-07 - 11:00-11:25
- Keynote: Benefits, Challenges, and Approaches to Large Language Models in the Context of Language Diversity, 2024-08-07 - 17:15-17:40
- GLAM CSI (Contributor Study Initiative) Workshop on Documenting Wiki User Stories: From Insight to Action, 2024-08-08 - 15:30–16:55
- State of Wikifunctions , 2024-08-10 - 10:00-10:25
The opening and closing ceremonies were a little bit too long for someone like me who does not like to stand still for a long time and, from what I've heard, a lot of people felt the same way Wikimania has proven to be a valuable source of inspiration for activities, projects, potential collaborations, and for meeting Wikimedians with diverse experiences. However, I believe this is only effective with proper coordination. I regret not being able to do more to bring Swiss users together, but hopefully, this can be achieved at the next Wikimania in Europe. I can understand why Wikimedia CH has never organized one, but if they do, I have some ideas. Such an outpouring of energy should result in a more targeted and concrete outcome.