Special report

Wikimania 2022: no show, no show up?

Rising costs, the COVID-19 pandemic, and now a software disaster: Wikimania, the annual main conference of the international Wikimedia movement, is in deep trouble. How could that happen, and what conference do we actually need?

"Wikimania: The Festival Edition!"

If you own a dog, you will surely have walked it with a smartphone in your hand at some time. But as part of an online meeting, together with other dog owners? In 2022, the most important conference of Wikipedians made it possible.

Wikimania 2022 was supposed to be a very special festival: fewer presentations than last year, more group contributions and workshops, and only three tracks so that attendees would not be spread out over too many programmed events, resulting in larger audiences per events.

Additionally: watch outdoor games, talk about a selected dish from a specific country, dance and sing! Visitors would feel that they are spending fun time together.

When I saw the software for the first time, Pheedloop, I was excited. A neat and tidy user interface with many features including quite some customization: for the visually impaired, for people suffering from attention dysfunctions, for everybody. With a high chance that your language of choice would be available. Options for managing your personal schedule. Notifications, chat opportunities, mobile versions for Android and iOS...what could possibly go wrong?

"I have never attended a Wikimania that was such a disaster!"

It turned out that the software was not that perfect. For example, on the smartphone app, used with a tablet, scrolling did not always work; so I could only select a language from the upper half of the list (mais oui!). But the most important software failure was the video streaming. Especially on the first and second days, many programme items would not start, or started late, or the speaker could not hear anything, or they were cancelled altogether.

I still don't know whether Pheedloop was supposed to be the streaming platform itself, or whether it was only a platform to embed streaming/videos from YouTube, Zoom or Jitsi. You had to deal with two frames, the Pheedloop frame and the YouTube/Zoom/Jitsu frame. Links and embedding often didn't function properly. Sometimes clicking here and there worked, sometimes not. And usually, you had to operate several windows. The chat function on YouTube was deactivated; commenting was possible only via Pheedloop. Notes? Open a browser, use Etherpad!

A well-known Wikimania veteran from the US put it this way: he'd never before attended a Wikimania that was such a disaster.

Time investment? Revenue?

According to the Pheedloop counter, there were only about 300–450 attendees online at any time. A typical programme item saw 15–40 attendees. Maybe many visitors were frustrated by the technology, but there were other issues as well. For example, although the chat function for group chats worked really well, only very few people came to the group chats.

Reducing the number of programme items obviously did not make more participants visit the conference. And ...

if you had no dog, were not interested in watching other people eat, did not want to listen to music etc.,
considering that many items were cancelled (for technical or other reasons),
if some items were too difficult or specific for you,
and also given that there were no famous keynote speakers,

...then there was not much left to attract you to Wikimania 2022.

Few speakers means that few people drag their friends and fans to the conference. Not much hoopla on social media. According to the discussions at the Kurier magazine on the German Wikipedia, many Wikipedians glanced over the programme, picked a handful of items and only logged in at the given time of an event. Or they decided to watch the video later on YouTube.

And indeed, some of the programme items turned out to be a less than perfect experience. Some contributors had announced a workshop but actually delivered simply a one-directional presentation. Quite a few speakers read out a text. It was also remarkable how many contributions were labelled ideal for newcomers, although they were very unsuitable for beginners – for example, complicated discussions about UCoC enforcement. One 'workshop' (in reality just a presentation) was even labelled as ideal for newcomers and as a master class as well.

How to move on?

It is a huge challenge to organize a good online meeting. Ever since the first Star Trek movie in 1979 we have known that it is not very entertaining to watch grumpy people in confined spaces who are looking at screens.

Before organizing such an online event again, we as a movement should answer some questions.

What platform or combination of platforms serves our needs best? I understand why Pheedloop was selected, but even if it had worked better, I think we could improve the experience, especially for visitors using a smartphone. Streaming and chat should be possible on the same platform, for example.

What kind of programme items can attract many attendees and make them stay a little bit longer thereafter? Think of a shopping mall, where huge, so-called magnet stores lure the potential customers into the building and then also make them visit other, smaller shops. An online conference can benefit from a flashy kick-off event, maybe with a comedian who explains the software and the programme in an enjoyable way. Keynote speakers and similar attractive programme items should be scheduled in a way that visitors may want to stay longer (i.e. at the beginning of the day rather than at the end).

What kind of programme serves which types of target groups? An international online meeting should concentrate on topics that are relevant to a larger group of people from different parts of the world. So, a programme item should not be too closely related to one country or culture, or be too specific thematically. For example, I am looking forward to a presentation (plus question time) that informs non-Wikidatans of how Wikidata has progressed the previous 365 days. Other Wikidata-related contributions are generally better reserved for a dedicated Wikidata meeting.

Is Wikimania primarily a meeting for the movement, or a meeting for newcomers and partners of the movement? In my humble and personal opinion, it can work for either purpose, but maybe not for both simultaneously. Make up your mind and then create a meeting that is perfect for the target group selected. All other people are welcome, of course, but have to understand the chosen nature of the conference.

And yes, I take it personally when a contributor calls a presentation ideal for newcomers that is clearly not.

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Wikimania 2022 wasn't successful for me either. I was able to watch one of the discussions at about the time it was taking place, and it was very interesting. However, the other real time broadcasts of the discussions simply wouldn't work with the interfaces I was using. I therefore had to resort to waiting until a discussion was published on YouTube, sometimes several days later, and watching it then. Not really very satisfactory, especially as I was literally thousands of kilometres away from the nearest of the offline gatherings. Bahnfrend (talk) 01:32, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I signed up for Wikimania 2022 but I never really attended. I couldn't really figure out how everything worked and I didn't feel like going through the sheer frustration of it all. I was interested in potentially being a part of the hybrid IRL meetings too, but I'm Canadian and the two local ones for me were in the United States. I'm close-ish to the border so I kind of get it, but stuff like getting a passport are not the easiest at the moment even if it's getting better [1]. Thousands of km away is much worse, though. Clovermoss (talk) 01:37, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not surprised at this scathing report. I signed up but didn't 'attend' any of the online events because I suspected as much and I'm not a fan of online meetings anyway. There is absolutely no substitute for the genuine conference. No other kind of event can encourage the volunteers to feel more part of the Wikipedia they are editing, and offer them a venue for meeting their Wikifriends and discussing their projects properly in detail, and listening to those of others. It's no one's fault that COVID intervened to break the traditional annual event but it's time to get it back on track and with the original plan to make Bangkok its venue. The vast savings in money by not having to organise one four years in a row, should make the next Wikimania the greatest event ever, and allow not only for planning by experienced event organisers, but also a much greater attendance by volunteers and less monopoly of presentations by paid WMF staff on yet another junket. Every real Wikimania I have attended has been marred in some way by serious planning oversights by its amateurish but well intentioned and hardworking teams of volunteers. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:48, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Re Wikimania 2022. I was among those who looked through the program, found only a handful of sessions that interested me with "meaty topics", then discovered that they were all be held at 2am (or similar) in my timezone or clashed with a real-life commitment if during my daytime. So I never attending a single session of Wikimania 2022. I keep meaning to catch up via videos, but deep down I know it's not going to happen (too busy with other things). The problem with an online conference is that you remain in your home town with all the usual expectations of family, friends, bosses, colleagues, real-world volunteering, etc, to do the things you always do at the times you always do them. This does not allow you the luxury of sitting up all night attending an online Wikimania when you have to function in the real world during the daylight hours without being sleep-deprived behind the wheel of a car, finalising an important report, etc. But when you get on a plane to another city, many of the expectations of your everyday life disappear (or can be managed by not answering your phone and ignoring their emails, later blaming "local technical difficulties"). Being in another city means you are in the same time zone as Wikipedia and free to fully devote yourself to it. But, the opportunity to attend an in-person Wikimania is limited due to cost, visas, and other factors, so there is definitely a role for an online event, but I think the online and the in-person events should not both be branded as Wikimania and should not be trying to do the same thing, but treated as separate activities with separate organisers and and each free to pursue a different audience, a different purpose, in a different way. The online event might do better not to be done as an intensive 3-5 days (which is essential for in-person event) but as a series of presentations and other activities spread over a few months (or all year round) so attendees are more able to squeeze in a session here and there into their otherwise busy lives with sessions repeated across different time zones in different weeks, etc. It is clear that (even ignoring the technical platform issues) there are barriers to trying to replicate a traditional in-person Wikimania in an online format, and two of those are time zones and the competition for the attention of the Wikimedian vs the demands of their everyday life. Kerry (talk) 02:08, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

- I have the good fortune to live in New York City, big enough to have our own meeting, our "Wiki Worlds Fair" at a small museum and including a preliminary visit to a big museum and an evening at a beer garden. Not exactly a Wikimania culture crawl, but something. We even had visitors from distant New England and Canada, and some food on the big day at the small museum. Our presentations had neither the quantity nor the quality I have come to expect at a real Wikimania, but I learned a few things and had some fun. Unfortunate minor detail, we were in a small hall of nearly perfect acoustic reflection, making chitchat difficult between presentations. On the days we weren't doing much locally I was able to tune into some of the Webcast presentations, and wasn't terribly bothered when many of them could not be found. Perhaps I'll find some of those on Youtube or something.
- With all the worldwide academic and technical conferences held every normal year, I wonder whether anyone during the plague years has succeeded in mixing screen participants and physical participants on something like an equal basis. It seems a difficult task and if nobody has done it well, no use expecting success by the Wiki establishment with our usual technical bumbling. Jim.henderson (talk) 10:59, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  - It's a tough challenge, for sure. Even 2½ years into this ongoing pandemic, I've been to very few hybrid events where remote attendees are not disadvantaged in relation to in-person attendees. Given I'm disabled and less able to travel myself this is a continuing frustration for me. — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk; please ((ping)) me in replies) 07:19, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree, I've not been to any really successful hybrids events. Most were either primarily in-person (with livestreams of presentations to remote attendees but no remote networking), or primarily remote (with a few bunches of atendees effectively sitting in the same cconfrence room so only networking amongst people they already knew). For fully remorte events, the best organised was probably Open Publishing Fest, which has an excellent (open source) webpage and left it up to the organiser of each session to organise what software that session would use. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 00:47, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it was necessarily a matter of it being online (I personally rather enjoyed the 2021 Wikimania); rather, it was the lack of any sessions that really interested me (2021 seemed to have quite a few more technical sessions), the registration process being much less straightforward than last time and (while I didn't get the chance to try it myself) everything I heard about Pheedloop being rather negative (Remo (used in 2021) was, in my opinion, much better and allowed you to communicate with others in small, easy to create and farily loose groups, which often led to interesting and engaging discussions) that led to a pretty mediocre Wikimania. Remagoxer ^(talk) 14:44, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- I definitely agree on Remo over Pheedloop; I'm grateful that we just shared the Zoom link for our Queering Wikipedia session, or we would have had zero attendance. It would've been good to know in advance that no recording meant no streaming, as well. Still, the technical facilitator (Mikel Enecoiz) was super helpful, so no criticism on the on-the-day team. — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk; please ((ping)) me in replies) 07:19, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Let's hope that 2023 goes live again (I've been urging "Viva WikiVegas2023" for the North American conference in October or so of '23). One thing that held live attendance down, at least in some venues: the requirement to have had a Covid vax (and even, in some venues, a booster) before an editor could attend. That left me out, and probably others, kind of akin to felons not allowed to get into Canada to attend the 2017 conference (I at least cleared the bar on that one), so hopefully the vax "requirement" will be gone by the next live event if not sooner. The next major live conferences (and come on Europe, get a WikiConference Europe organized, maybe in London?) should have plenty of funding, because hopefully the foundation has been feeding the kitty for the last three years so that the next conferences will have a built-up four-year pool of funding to throw the mother-of-all-conferences. Viva WikiVegas2023! Randy Kryn (talk) 15:14, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Kudpung and Randy Kryn: Wikimania 2023 will be held in Singapore, which was chosen for reasons including its accessibility and state-of-the-art facilities. More info about the event will be published in due course. Bahnfrend (talk) 03:03, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. My comment was about a possible 2023 North American Wikiconference. Didn't know about Singapore for Wikimania, sounds interesting. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:08, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Well that sucks. I wonder whose brilliant idea that was. Been there often enough for academic conferences. It's just about the most expensive place in Asia even if I live 'only' a 3-hour flight away. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:36, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There was little incentive for me to attend the online Wikimania session given the scheduling to target different timezones, meaning that a majority of the time things were scheduled at bad times for me. Especially given that most things were recorded, I don't feel like I missed out that much, I'll just catch up on them later. We had a local event in NYC that was mentioned earlier, it was great. I got to hang out and socialize with people, did some editing and hacking and listened to some pretty interesting lightning talks. It was a pretty "low tech" event, which meant it emphasized the human connection over flashy technology. Other conferences like DebConf do a really job with low tech IMO, which we should try to learn from. Finally, I thought TheDJ had an insightful thread about hybrid/in-person attendance. Legoktm (talk) 04:42, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Software sucked, but i just watched the livestream on youtube so that wasn't a big problem. The bigger problem is none of the sessions were particularly interesting or had anything interesting to say (as far as i can tell, i really only attended one). The vast majority were highly focused on affiliate concerns and quite frankly seemed rather divorced from actual wikis (for example, compare the number of sessions presented by people who do wikimedia stuff as their job vs volunteers. It seemed a bit unbalanced). In in person conferences, a major part is the so called "hallway track" and social bonding. That doesn't happen remotely, so its critical that presenters have something interesting or unique to say - and this conference simply didn't have that. Bawolff (talk) 06:11, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
At least it's not just us: Virtual Access Apology, from Chicago Worldcon 2022 — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk; please ((ping)) me in replies) 07:19, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

My only experience with Wikimania was as a panelist. In that regard, I will say that despite the software issues; the staff did really good with what they had. I'm extremely grateful for that! –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 00:04, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

My own personal experience during Wikimania was terrible. I wasn't being able to attend any session on pheedloop particularly this is because of network, not streaming or the app misbehaving. Some times you will only have audio and no video and at some point you will not be able to join the live conversation. I suppose to volunteer on the trust and safety. But I couldn't because I can only be able to join any session successful via YouTube. I don't know the much effort being put to consider pheedloop whom I think the group did they homework better. But I strongly believe we can do better even with the experience we have now. But so also I will like to acknowledge the great effort by the core organizing team for allowing as money in-person event as possible. This is because the part I enjoyed most is attending the in-person event we held here. Musa Vacho77 (talk) 08:30, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, thanks for sharing all these impressions! I hope that I succesfully restrained from making accusations of any kind. It just turned out a less than perfect experience for many participants, and we can all learn for next events. I loved to read that local events emphasized the being-together instead of the technology, and Kelly admonished us to think of really different events. For example, I liked the monthly WMF staff conference ("metrics") especially because we lack a periodical kind of medium in the movement. In the old days, an organization had a monthly print medium to catch up with the latest developments. In our movement, the Signpost has that kind of role to a certain degree. Ziko (talk) 13:48, 7 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

August is a bad month to schedule online conferences. I went on a road trip and enjoyed the great out-of-doors and was lucky enough to avoid the worst of the heat waves. January and February would be better months for online. Seems Zoom is the YouTube of online conferencing, why not just stick with the software that's been proven to work and has mass appeal? These conferences have always, even before the pandemic, under-emphasized real-world issues of maintaining the content of the online encyclopedias and over-emphasized peripheral things like Wikidata and Wiki Education. Peripheral things I'd like to see added are fundraising and budgeting. Can someone link me to the recorded keynotes by Jimmy Wales and Wikimedia CEO Maryana Iskander? I think the responsibility for ensuring successful Wikimanias should fall on the CEO. Thanks. – wbm1058 (talk) 11:09, 10 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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