Thanks for pointing that out Pine. I believe WikiConference North America will be on October 18 to 22 in Columbus, Ohio.
On Tue, Apr 3, 2018 at 10:41 AM, Pine W <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Victoria, > I hope that you are OK with discussing this announcement on Wikimedia-l, > which seems to me to be the most applicable mailing list for my questions. > I have two questions and one comment. > > I think that I understand the desires here. However, it is unfortunate > that a likely side effect of this scheduling is an increase in total costs > and time spent traveling for those who will attend this conference and WMF > All Hands, and additional costs from the lengthening of the All Hands > conference. Since there are so many options for remote collaboration for > WMF staff for follow up to All Hands discussions, and the additional costs > for these combined changes sound likely to be in the tens to hundreds of > thousands of dollars, I am less than enthusiastic about this aspect. Can > you explain the cost-benefit analysis further, and why remote collaboration > options at much lower cost are inadequate for extending the conversations > from All Hands? > Please ensure that the dates for this conference don't conflict with Wiki > Conference North America. > The cap of 50 participants, as stated on the MediaWiki page, seems to me > to be low given the stated goals of the conference. Have you considered a > higher cap? > Thanks, > Pine > ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine ) > -------- Original message --------From: Victoria Coleman < > [email protected]> Date: 4/2/18 4:46 PM (GMT-08:00) To: "Staff > (All)" <[email protected]>, MediaWiki announcements and site > admin list <[email protected]> Subject: [MediaWiki-l] > Announcing the Wikimedia Technical Conference > Hi everyone. > > This is a time of important change for technology and the Wikimedia > movement. We are evolving our platform to better support, grow, and prepare > the movement for the future to realize our strategic goals of Knowledge as > a Service and Knowledge Equity. > > Our vision is to host a different type of event in 2018 — to make informed > decisions in the evolution of our platform while building our technical > community engagement and enhancing our product vision. We want to be able > to gather and discuss to determine our future direction and that of our > shared platform; to communicate more broadly our product vision and to > build a solid and stable base for our volunteer developer community. Future > years will have have different focuses and themes. > > We also want to learn from our experiences during previous technically > oriented events to improve our focus, enhance outcomes, and to give > ourselves the time and space to have informed, substantive, and timely > conversations — this all starts with the overall theme of the event. > > The January 2018 Developer Summit (in Berkeley, California) event had a > broad goal to look at ways that technology can support our strategic > direction. A concrete outcome of those discussions was acknowledging the > need to evolve our core platform for the road ahead. In light of that > outcome, we will hold future events with themes that reflect our evolving > priorities and opportunities to support and enhance the Wikimedia movement > with technology. Therefore, our next technical event will be focused on > Platform Evolution. > > We will hold a 4 day conference with topics that pertain to the Platform > Evolution goals that we want to achieve in the next 3 to 5 years with a > shared understanding of the product vision around those goals while also > enhancing technical engagement within the Foundation and embracing and > empowering our large community of volunteer developers. > > Day 1: Product driven discussions on the how’s and why’s of our shared > goals. > Day 2 & 3: A deep dive into specific technical ideas, concerns, and > outcomes around the newly formed Platform Evolution cross-departmental > program. > Day 4: An unconference / ‘get stuff done’ format along with sessions on > building and sustaining our developer community. > > We are also moving the time of year that we’ll hold this new event. The > previously established timeframe had been in January, typically adjacent to > the annual Foundation All Hands gathering, to allow for co-location of > events. However, feedback from both the DevSummit and All Hands > participants indicates that both events need more time to accomplish their > goals. All Hands is a once-a-year event that many teams use to come > together, face to face, for working meetings; as well as the entire > Foundation getting together for meetings. Going forward, we will decouple > the DevSummit from All Hands, to give both gatherings the time and space > that all attendees need to be productive and successful. > > This first of the event series will take place in Q2 of our fiscal year > 2018-2019, in October 2018, and will be held in Portland, OR, USA. This > timing was chosen to give us the opportunity to formulate plans, proposals, > and programs in time for the Foundation annual planning cycle which starts > in January 2019. > > Since we have a new focus and want to expand upon the successes of the > Developer Summit events from years past — we will now call this gathering > of like-minded technologists the Wikimedia Technical Conference (WM > TechCon). Stay tuned for more information on the formation of the program > committee and the participant’s selection process, as we are making quite a > few changes based on the feedback collected from previous events. > > Make sure to follow the event’s mediawiki page <https://www.mediawiki.org/ > wiki/Wikimedia_Technical_Conference/2018> for more details. > > > > Best wishes, > > Victoria Coleman > > Chief Technology Officer > Wikimedia Foundation > 1 Montgomery Street, Suite 1600 > San Francisco, CA 94104 > > +1-650-703-8112 > > [email protected] > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > MediaWiki-l mailing list > To unsubscribe, go to: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ > wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ > wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> > _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe>
