Chris & Ellie: I don't think I would include 'WMF Travel/Accomodation' or general Wikimedia PR in the Wikimania overhead. * Staff have a budget for travel to events of all kinds; the Board has a budget for its meetings wherever they are held; and similarly the few committees that meet in person have a budget for those meetings. * The fact that these things happen to take place at Wikimania is, if anything, a slight cost savings: some of the logistics of scheduling and finding venues can be shared, it allows coordinating press events, &c.
Lodewijk, I agree: we should be able to find ways to limit direct expenses, and increase sponsorships. We could also increase the number of people who benefit from scholarships, or are otherwise able to attend. Focusing on direct expenses from recent Wikimanias: * 2014 budget: $250K revenue + a $150K WMF grant. Actual: $280K revenue, needed $320K from WMF to cover direct expenses * 2015 budget: $150K revenue + a $300K WMF grant. Actual: $100K revenue, needed $380K from WMF to cover direct expenses * 2016 budget: $290K? revenue + a $250K WMF grant. Itzik, what were the equivalent budgets for Haifa? From the post-mortem on Meta it looks like a $280K budget, and a $100K WMF grant. This included paying for the event coordinator, which is now budgeted separately. That was for the finest event one could hope for. Lodewijk writes: > 'wikimania direct' is quite expensive, to be honest, and much more than I > would have expected. However, it does include catering, which is always > an expensive chunk... Registration fees should at least cover the marginal cost of the event: catering & materials per person. > looking at these figures, I can agree that it should be possible to do it for > less, I'm less certain though whether the proposed splitting up would > significantly reduce the total costs for everything that is included here. The greater part of money spent on attending Wikimania is the out-of-pocket cost of flights and hotels. The cost of this for non-local attendees is 10-50x the cost of registration. Running many simultaneous local events has a greater total budget, if you look only at the budgets of the organizers; but a much lower cost per person. There are many more options for free venues and low-cost lodging when you're not scrambling to fit 1000 people in a small region of a city. And a smaller fraction of money spent goes towards jet fuel. For this reason, the same pool of scholarship funds would go farther. Finally, I don't think we should oversell the current Wikimania as a universal connector. I too want there to be a community thing that builds interpersonal connections and is accessible to every community member at low cost. But that thing cannot be a $2,000-net-cost week-long conference. Many people could never attend such an event, even if it were free. It is a long time commitment, and is inevitably mono or bilingual. Sam (who loves the current Wikimanias, and thinks they should continue! but doesn't think they are the pinnacle of what movement-gatherings could be) On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 5:52 PM, Sam Klein <sjkl...@hcs.harvard.edu> wrote: > That's most helpful, thank you both. > > On Wed, Feb 17, 2016 at 5:14 PM, Pharos <pharosofalexand...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> Thanks, Ellie and Chris, this historical experience should be very helpful >> for future discussions! >> >> Best, >> Pharos >> >> On Wed, Feb 17, 2016 at 5:06 PM, Chris Schilling < >> cschill...@wikimedia.org> >> wrote: >> >> > Hey folks, >> > >> > Ellie has put together a summarized budget including revenue and >> expenses >> > from Wikimania 2014 in London[1] and Wikimania 2015[2], which I've gone >> > ahead and posted to the summary pages of these conferences on meta. >> > >> > Thanks, >> > >> > Chris >> > >> > [1] <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2014> >> > [2] <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2015> >> > >> > On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 1:15 PM, Samuel Klein <meta...@gmail.com> >> wrote: >> > >> > > Itzik writes: >> > > >> > > > If we want to talk about the cost of Wikimania it will be great if >> the >> > > WMF and the local team will share the costs. >> > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2014/Budget >> > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2015/Budget >> > > > Maybe I missed something, but it's strange that such discussion >> takes >> > > place without a real budget breakdown. >> > > > To summarize 2 huge event to "1$ million USD" does not make sense. >> > > >> > > Agreed 1million%. It would be important to see a rough cost >> breakdown, & >> > > compare that to the best-budgeted Wikimanias. >> > > >> > > >> > > On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 9:52 AM, Tomasz Ganicz <polime...@gmail.com> >> > > wrote: >> > > >> > > > 2016-02-10 6:06 GMT+01:00 Samuel Klein <meta...@gmail.com>: >> > > > >> > > > > FUDCons >> > > > >> > > > Also it is hard to compare Wikimanias with FUDCons as it is >> > > > a) much smaller (usually bo more than 200 attendees) >> > > > b) divided by regions - for example in 2015 there were 3 FUDCons >> > > > (Argentina, India, Spain) and 2 Flocks (NY and Kraków) - so they >> are >> > > > rather like our Iberecop or CEE meetings than the global >> conferences. >> > > > >> > > >> > > Thanks. Similar to regional events perhaps, not Wikimania. Still >> worth >> > > comparing budgets perhaps, if available. >> > > >> > > But I was wondering about the trend over time: whether extensive >> funding >> > > during the RedHat days made the events less useful, in the years after >> > that >> > > funding was reduced. >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > > And also Fedora developers have many potential sources of external >> > > funding >> > > > - mainly from IT companies which uses free software and want to >> apply >> > for >> > > > their specific needs and for whom they quite often work. >> > > > >> > > >> > > True. But attendees to GLAM or education conferences also tend to >> have >> > > many potential sources of funding - mainly from archives or >> educational >> > or >> > > technical companies who curate knowledge or develop education tools. >> And >> > we >> > > have IT industry partners who are similarly willing to support >> > Wikimanias. >> > > Not entirely dissimilar. >> > > >> > > >> > > > But anyway, Fedora offers scholarships for attendees, see: >> > > > >> > > >> > > Yes, wiki conferences should as well - that part of conference >> funding is >> > > important. Even early Wikimanias with almost no WMF support had >> > > significant scholarship pools. >> > > >> > > S >> > > _______________________________________________ >> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: >> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines >> > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l >> , >> > > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> >> > > >> > >> > >> > >> > -- >> > Chris "Jethro" Schilling >> > I JethroBT (WMF) <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:I_JethroBT_(WMF) >> > >> > Community Organizer, Wikimedia Foundation >> > <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home> >> > _______________________________________________ >> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: >> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines >> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, >> > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> >> > >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines >> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, >> <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> >> > > > > -- > Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266 > -- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266 _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
