Wikimedia Summit 2024/Event report/Outcome Evaluation
Program
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Outcome evaluation - Program
PURPOSE #1 - Bringing people together to make significant progress on the design of the future Wikimedia governance.
68% of the Summit participants considered that the concept and the program of the event created an environment to make progress on the design of the future Wikimedia governance. According to the participants, the factors that contributed to this success were the general choreography of the event, the flow and design of the sessions and the professional facilitation on the main stage and in the breakout sessions. Most of the participants’ suggestions for improvement were related to the composition of the audience – the Summit being an affiliate only gathering, some participants felt that the voice of the communities were missing from the conversation – and the strong thematic focus on governance, limiting the space for networking and peer learning. Below is an assessment of how the desired outcomes for purpose 1 were reached.
✔ Participants engage with the content of the Movement Charter and share their input on the content of the Charter.
Participants engaged through the gallery walk and in the discussions in the breakout sessions with the Movement Charter, shared feedback on the document and generated suggestions for improvements.
In the survey, 83% of participants stated that the Summit helped them get a better understanding of the Charter and 92% saw it as an opportunity to contribute their views and perspectives on the Charter. While a majority of participants had already shared feedback on the Movement Charter before the Summit, 40 respondents (out of 117) said that the Summit was the first opportunity for them to engage with the Charter.
✔ Participants understand the implications and expectations that the proposed governance model(s) would have on their work, their organization and the movement.
The desired outcomes for the Summit were published 9 months before the event. At that time, there were many uncertainties around the status of the Charter by the time of the Summit. The latest version of the Charter available for the Summit wasn’t the final version of the document and was only shared with the Movement a week before the event. Therefore, the program team didn’t design the program to specifically discuss the consequences of implementing the Charter but rather to discuss its content at large.
Through the conversations in the breakout sessions, participants could engage with the content from the perspective of their affiliate and discuss the consequences that different amendments would have for them as well as for the movement. In the open comments, many participants mentioned having a better understanding of the implications that the Charter would have on their affiliates after the Summit.
✔ Participants have a clear understanding of how the Movement Charter could come into effect. They understand the expectations and/or implications regarding their participation in voting and ratification.
At the Summit the MCDC was given ample space on the program to share the next steps and the role of affiliates in ratification. Additionally, the MCDC hosted a session on ratification in the open space on the last day of the event. 72% of participants stated that the Summit led to clearly defined next steps, and 67% said the event helped bring clarity on the next steps for our Movement Governance. However, there were many uncertainties at the end of the event around which Summit statement may or may not be integrated into the final version of the Charter, and the MCDC felt that these expectations could have been better managed during the event.
PURPOSE #2: Discussing the future of global affiliate gatherings, because Wikimedia Summit 2024 will be the last of its kind.
A conscious decision was made by the Summit steering committee and the program team to focus the program of the event on the governance conversations and on the purpose 1 described above. However, the organizers didn’t want to wrap up the “last Summit of its kind” without starting a conversation about future affiliate gatherings and initiating the next steps towards a transition of responsibility. A conversation around the purpose and format of future affiliates meetings was started before the event with an affiliate survey and an online call to discuss the results, and pursued in a parallel track at the Wikimedia Summit. While the details of the future of affiliate gatherings remain to be worked out, many inputs have been collected before and during the event to start working on a new concept, and a group came forward to take on that task.
✔ Participants have responded to and received the data from the survey on the needs and purposes for future affiliate gatherings.
A survey on the future of affiliates gatherings was shared with 161 affiliates between November 2023 and December 2023 to collect input of the purpose and format of these meetings in the future. Most of the affiliates represented at the Summit (88) responded to the survey, and all of them received the results and an invitation to discuss the data during an online engagement session.
✔ Participants discuss the purpose of future affiliate gatherings.
Three sessions (#1, #2, #3) were designed at the Wikimedia Summit to gather input on the purpose and format of future affiliate gatherings. Around a third of participants joined at least one of these three sessions, while the other participants continue to attend the governance track. This may explain why 35% of the participants didn’t feel like they had the opportunity to discuss future affiliate gatherings and share their affiliates’ views during the event. It is noteworthy that the level of satisfaction with the session design for Purpose 2 is lower than for Purpose 1 (45% very/somewhat satisfied versus 82% for governance session), which may be due in part to the fact that many participants did not attend this track.
✔ A group of affiliates make a commitment to designing a new concept for future affiliate gatherings.
After attending the three sessions from this track, an initial group of 9 affiliate members decided to start designing a concept for future affiliate gatherings and scheduled their first work meeting. While not everyone was able to join the conversation at the Summit, 59% of attendees felt that the Summit provided clarity on the next steps for the future of affiliate meetings with the creation of this group.
Logistics
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Outcome evaluation - Logistics
The objective of the conference team in charge of the organizational aspects of the event was to provide a logistical framework to allow participants to entirely focus on the programmatic purposes of the event. Based on the lessons learned from 2022, this year the conference team particularly focused on ensuring greater equity between different participants. This was done among other things by increasing the visa support and adjusting the registration timeline accordingly, and accommodating all participants in one hotel, with the organization of an easy transport between the venue and the hotel.
Below is a summary of the feedback received from participants on the organizational aspects of the event. Generally speaking, participants showed very high levels of satisfaction for all logistical aspects of the conference.
Communication
Apart from the event platform, a dedicated Wikimedia Summit page on the Meta wiki provided information about the event, and a Summit Telegram channel was created for communication among participants. The Telegram channel was divided into a main chat, Berlin Questions and a Travel Buddy sub-category (allowing participants with the same itinerary to travel together).
Onsite participants were very satisfied (88%) with the pre-conference support and communication and even more satisfied (91%) with both during the conference itself. However, there were significant differences between onsite and online participants. While 68% were very satisfied and 18% somewhat satisfied with the onsite onboarding and support, only 15% were very satisfied with the support for online participation and 23% were very satisfied with the information provided regarding online participation. Compared to the fully hybrid 2022 Wikimedia Summit, satisfaction of online participants dropped significantly, with 50% of remote participants in 2022 saying they were very satisfied with the support provided for online participation.
Travel and Visa support
This resulted in a high number of approved visa applications and excellent feedback from survey respondents, with 90% stating that they were very satisfied with the visa support they received. Timely provision of relevant documentation, guidance and follow-up communication to track the process were cited as reasons for satisfaction.
On the other hand, WMDE’s travel guidelines (length of stay for travelers with visas), the lack of organized transport between the airport and the hotel as well as the booked itineraries were cited as areas for improvement.
Venue and Catering
The overwhelming majority of participants were very pleased with the conference venue, which was the same as in 2022 (77% very satisfied and 20% somewhat satisfied). Having multiple breakout rooms, separate areas and an outdoor area was highlighted positively several times in open comments.
Similar to the previous Summit, the catering and the party on the Saturday received less approval (but are still rated as satisfactory). Opinions vary widely on the range of vegan and vegetarian dishes on offer. Some participants were dissatisfied by the organizers policy of providing vegetarian and vegan food only. We would like to emphasize that this isn’t due to a lack of understanding of international culinary diversity, but rather a conscious commitment towards more environmental sustainability.
Hotel and bus shuttle
The event accommodation received much better feedback than it did in 2022. Learning from the 2022 experience, we put a lot of effort into finding a hotel with the capacity to accommodate all the participants, including the WMF representatives. We have also arranged a shuttle service between the hotel and the conference venue in the mornings and evenings of the conference days to reduce the stress of traveling by public transport. The majority of respondents (88%) were satisfied with this convenient transport option.
Online platform
The virtual event platform created for the 2022 Wikimedia Summit was used again. It served as the central space for all communication with participants in the months leading up to the event. The platform was developed and operated by an external event agency (KWERTZ GmbH, Berlin) and was fully GDPR compliant.
69% of the respondents were (very/somewhat) satisfied with the online platform. Half of respondents were very satisfied with the support chat (23% were somewhat satisfied) and also rated the information provided and document management positively. Differences were to be seen between ratings from online and on-site participants.
Comparing this year’s answers from online respondents to those in 2022 we see less satisfaction with aspects such as quality of streaming or usage of online chat.