Grants:TPS/Thryduulf/Wikimania/2016/Report

Welcome back from Wikimania 2016!

Participant

Thryduulf (talk: meta · en.wp · wikidata)

English Wikipedia, Wikidata

Outcome

I cannot point to a single experience or creation as a result of Wikimania, although I have disseminated the knowledge and experiences I gained in variety of on and off-wiki discussions, principally at the regularly scheduled London and Oxford Wikimeets. The collaborative discussions regarding Wikidata that I was involved with (the Wikidata meetup and the Wikidata+GLAM session) were very productive and I believe that my comments will lead to aspects of other people's work being improved or added to. As one concrete suggestion that I made, I understand that Andy Mabbett was planning to add optional highlighting of data pulled from Wikidata in (English) Wikipedia infoboxes.

I am in the process of helping to organise a reunion of volunteers from Wikimania 2014 in London (tentatively scheduled for 27 August), some of whom are still active in the movement and so I will be sharing again there. I hope to be involved with organising another Wikimania or similar event in the future and so some of what I learned this year was related to the volunteers which will be of direct relevance at the forthcoming event.

Connections

In addition to remaking and strengthening friendships and acquaintances from past events (this was my third Wikimania and I'm active in UK events) I met a number of very interesting people for the first time from a variety of fields. Briefly summarising just some of the many new relationships, in approximate chronological order:

Isarra from the software development side was a very intersting person to talk to and I learned much about what she does and hope to be able to collaborate with her in the form of (beta) testing the new skin she is developing. On a lighter note, I now understand her running for English Wikipedia Arbcom in the 2014 elections on the "I like pie" platform!
Jason.nlw, the Wikimedian in residence at the National Library of Wales (an institution I visited as part of a university course in about 1999) and I managed to have several very interesting conversations and I've assisted on Wikidata since my return. Although I don't have any immediate plans for a direct collaboration the possibility is certainly there.
Hawkeye7 is someone I've interacted with online for several years and the chance to finally get to meet them in person was a fantastic opportunity and productive conversations were had on several occasions. Again we have no immediate collaborative plans, but when the right task presents itself we are now more equipped than before to work together and progress it.
Kalliope, whom I almost literally bumped in to at the Sunday evening music concert, was a lovely surprise as I hadn't known she was attending. I worked with her during my time on the English Wikipedia Arbcom in 2015 and, to a lesser extent, continue to do so as a functionary. I was left feeling even more confident and positive about the community advocate team and the work she and the team do and can better explain that to others. Fortunately I haven't needed to call on her since Wikimania, but when (hopefully if) the need arises I will do so with confidence.

Anything else

I took several hundred photos while I was in Esino Lario, and others in Varenna, Lecco and Milan afterwards. and I will be uploading many of these to Commons once I sort out personal (principally technological) issues. These will be placed in an obviously named subcategory of Commons:Category:Photos by Chris McKenna but I cannot promise them by any given date (although if the WMF wants to solve the problems for me I wont say no!).