Talk:WikiConference India 2025/City Selection

General Discussion

The city selection process will now be open till 30th October 2024. This is to allow community members enough time to show interest. The final city choice will be announced a few days later. Thank you. Soni (talk) 10:49, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

City Discussion - Kochi

Suggesion are welcome --Ranjithsiji (talk) 09:00, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I like Kochi ! Kasyap (talk) 05:41, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

+1 for Kochi Tiven2240 (talk) 06:07, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

User:Ranjithsiji, Could you clarify how many volunteers are interested in supporting WCI in Kochi? So we can understand how many Wikimedians are willing to volunteer locally (versus Endorsements and Supporting the venue choice). Soni (talk) 18:30, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

1.  Strong support I support "Kochi" location suggestion and willing to extend my support for any tasks that can be carried out remotely. Chinmayee Mishra (talk) 18:42, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

We have now 20 active wikimedia volunteers working team under user group for this bid preparation. we can try to expand this to 50 wikimedians from different part of kerala. we have community and FOSS organisations/Institution partners in the kochi. We celebrated the wikidata birthday at Last KochiFOSS meetup attended 80 people. Ranjithsiji (talk) 19:54, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

City Discussion - Bengaluru

Kindly provide your suggestions here. Thanks. --Pavan (CIS-A2K) (talk) 18:17, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

@Pavan (CIS-A2K) Could you clarify how many volunteers are already interested in supporting WCI locally in Bangalore? And how involved the local Wikimedian community (Karavali Wikimedians, as well as any others) will be for this? Soni (talk) 10:52, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Hello @Soni,

CIS-A2K believes Bengaluru is a favourable host city for WikiConference India 2025 from both logistical and budgetary standpoints, and we have expressed interest in indicating this. While we haven't actively promoted the event among Bengaluru Wikimedians, some Wikimedians have shown interest, as reflected in our support section. (By the way, the Karavali Wikimedians User Group, works primarily in Coastal Karnataka and northern Kerala, including Mangaluru and nearby areas, not in Bengaluru.)

If Bengaluru is confirmed, we have plans to engage more widely with the local Wikimedia community in Bengaluru. In addition to that, We will tap into our broader community cohort, including participants from Train the Trainer (TTT) and other A2K initiatives, to collaborate with us. We plan to manage all logistics with the support of the A2K team and the existing core team. Pavan (CIS-A2K) (talk) 12:14, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

City Decision

Hi all,

Thank you for your interest. After discussions and looking at all the criteria, the City Selection Group for WikiConference India has decided that WCI 25 will be held in Kochi, Kerala. Thank you to both the cities and all Wikimedians who shared their opinions!

For this process, we had made an overall rubric of ~15 questions to judge both cities on, based on the submitted proposals. Weighted factors include volunteers willing to support the conference, strength of supporting community, overall cost and connected-ness of cities, local infrastructure or any other significant concerns. For transparency, we also informally checked with the WMF Conference team to check for major issues.

After our internal discussion and judging, Kochi got 235 points out of 300 (78.33%) while Bengaluru recieved 230 points (76.67 %). The WCI25 Core Organising Team are excited to work with Wikimedians of Kerala for hosting a successful WikiConference India.

Thank you,

On behalf of City Selection Group

Soni (talk) 08:31, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the update. nice city to host the event. Balajijagadesh (talk) 08:44, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Congratulations to the Wikimedians of Kerala User Group on Kochi's selection as the host city for WikiConference India 2025! It’s exciting to see support from open-source, open-knowledge communities, and Wikimedians coming together for this event. Thanks also to the City Selection Group for their thoughtful process. CIS-A2K is happy to provide support, as mentioned earlier! Pavan (CIS-A2K) (talk) 09:41, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

This is fantastic news. Congratulations! Kochi is the perfect city to host WCI25. Brahmavadini (talk) 10:17, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you so much to the City Selection Group for your work and the thoughtful decision in choosing Kochi as the venue for WikiConference India 2025. This is a proud moment for the Wikimedians of Kerala UG, and we look forward to collaborating with the COT to make the event a success. I have shared this news with the community channels and mailing list.- ❙❚❚❙❙ GnOeee ❚❙❚❙❙ ✉ 07:10, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

City Selection Rubric

For transparency, the following was the process followed by the City Selection Group -

• We consulted one WCI25 team member (from Comms Support) with prior experience to help draft this initial rubric. Then the 3 members of City Selection had one voice call to clearly decide and finalise the rubric.

• As part of the rubric, we consulted one member of WMF Conference and Event Fund program Team asking for any serious issues or dealbreakers on WMF end. They said both cities are good in that regard.

• The final rubric had ~15 questions. Each question was either a Yes/No evaluation or a points based evaluation.

  For the Yes/No questions, if a city would not meet that criteria, it would be automatically disqualified.

  For the points question, all three members of City Selection Group would rate both cities from 0 to 5/10/15 points accordingly. After all three members evaluate, we total all the points.

• We met on one voice call to evaluate both cities based on the rubric. There was a brief discussion on every subpoint, after which every member independently wrote down their evaluation.

The full rubric we used was as follows -

1. Which Wikimedians will be supporting the event locally? What is their past experience in organising similar events? (15 points)
2. How many volunteers are already willing to support WCI? (10 points)
3. What is the size and strength of the overall supporting community? (5 points)
4. What is the level of detail in the current proposal? (10 points)
5. What is the expected overall cost of the event? In terms of hotels, travel etc. (10 points)
6. What is the expected quality and availability of hotels/vendors etc? (5 points)
7. How connected is the venue city to the rest of India? (10 points)
8. How connected is the venue city internationally? (5 points)
9. What is the likelihood of negative weather during WCI? (5 points)
10. How is the local transportation infrastructure? (5 points)
11. Are there any concerns for Health and Medical Perspective? (Yes/No)
12. Are there any concerns for Safety Perspective? (Yes/No)
13. Are there any concerns for WMF Perspective? (Yes/No)
14. Are there any concerns for Human Rights and Freedom of Speech Perspective Perspective? (Yes/No)
15. Are there any concerns for Cultural Perspective? (5 points)
16. What are the potential positive impact from hosting here? Both to hosting community and overall? (15 points)

Soni (talk) 06:52, 3 November 2024 (UTC)