On Wed, Aug 14, 2013 at 12:58 AM, Manuel Schneider < [email protected]> wrote:
> Thanks Lodewijk for bringing this up. > > I had several discussions in the past, mostly when it was about the > future of Wikimania, when I told people that Wikimania should have less > parallel sessions, longer sessions with more time between the sessions > and an "open space" as an additional track. > > We implemented this idea last year at the WikiCon and I think it worked > well. The concept is simple: > > * there are only 45 minutes sessions (with only one topic) plus a 15 > minutes time buffer for sessions not ending on time, people changing > rooms, grabbing coffee on their way etc. > > * this makes a schedule with a simple 1 hour grid > > * due to the 15 minutes allowance in each session we skip any coffee > breaks - there is coffee break available at all times, from breakfast to > dinner > > * instead, to give people some time to rest we added a 30 minutes break > where no sessions were going on half way between lunch and dinner. This > was not just a coffee break, it was meant to allow people to go outside, > catch some fresh air, have a nap or similar. > > * there were only three tracks of talks (okay, for Wikimania I would do > up to five - but no more) plus workshops (real hands on sessions, partly > in labs) which were longer (~ half a day) > > * there was one room near the coffee table with a pin board and an empty > schedule in front, where people could pick a card, write down a topic > and pin it on the schedule, to reserve the open space for a spontaneous > meeting - like the break sessions we were having at Wikimania > > Example: > http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiCon_2012/Programm/Programmraster > > I know that my ideas are not welcomed so much, I have been told so many > times that it would be inefficient use of everyone's time to reduce the > program so much, that there were so many great submissions we really > must put into the schedule and that we need many, many parallel tracks > just to make sure we have small enough groups in each sessions to be > realistic. > Still, I am not convinced by these arguments. > > * How many people could not attend sessions they wanted to attend, just > because they were in parallel / they couldn't make it due to something > else that kept them away? > > * How many sessions were too short and the time was up when they just > felt that they were starting to be effective? > > I am a strong believer that less is actually more. I would like to have > a less stressful but more effictive Wikimania. > Your ideas are welcomed by me :) I've been wanting fewer sessions at Wikimania for a long time. I know I kind of pioneered the "busy" program schedule in 2006, and that there are many competing interests (including wanting to include all the great presentation ideas)... but at this point I would much rather leave a lot of informal time and see what kind of meetups pop up over the course of the week. Another idea would be to focus on groups of lightning talks -- the 'activating africa' panel was a good model for this, with 8 or 9 talks in the course of the session. I think everyone feels a bit overscheduled at Wikimania and it might be nice to have more experiences in common -- which would mean fewer tracks. In answer to Lodewijk's question: no, I didn't go to any break sessions, but it's largely because I stood around talking to people instead, and spent two of the lunches preparing with my panel groups. You will be happy to know that this year I did actually go to quite a few talks and sessions, however! :) -- phoebe -- Phoebe Ayers Wikimedia Foundation | UC Davis Libraries http://phoebeayers.info
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