User:MLWatts/Call for Submissions draft

Wikimania 2016 in Esino Lario will be the twelfth in the series of annual international conferences which provide a unique opportunity for the Wikimedia community and our projects to come together, share their common goals, and develop better ways to work together on an international level.

Whether you are a community member of one of the Wikimedia projects (such as Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikidata, Wikisource, Wikinews, Wikimedia Commons, Wiktionary, MediaWiki or others), or a fellow open content creator or consumer, we welcome your proposal for a session at Wikimania 2016.

Important dates

• Call for proposals opens: ... 2015? ... 2016?

• Deadline for submitting proposals: ... 2016

• Notification of acceptance: ... 2016

Tracks

There will be several tracks of sessions during Wikimania 2016, to allow audiences to find different things to enjoy at Wikimania in parallel. Your submission should fit in one of the following categories.

User digest

A user digest presentation is a presentation which provides an overview of a topic. It is a sort of extended "State of the Wiki" which can browse all sorts of more specific topics: status of the organization (i.e. Wikimedia Foundation, chapters-affiliates-groups around the world), strategies related to territories (i.e. Iberocoop, Africa, Wikipedia offline and on mobile phone), specific projects (i.e. Wikidata, Wikisource), projects in the field of education (i.e. schools, high schools, universities, outreach targeting specific groups), partnerships with GLAMs, dynamics of the online community, research related to Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects, software development, events, legislation...

The idea behind general presentation is that people can be extremely informed in a specific field, but they can be newbies in another. The "user digest presentations" are conceived to provide an overview of a topic, and they do not expect people to have background knowledge on it. This kind of presentation is linked to existing groups (i.e. people working in education and partnerships with GLAMs). The evaluation of the user digest presentations will take into consideration the preparatory work of the applicant and the capacity of the presentation to acknowledge not only what is going on in one country or one linguistic projects but around the world and in different linguistic projects.

NB: User digest presentations will not go through the call for proposals.

Total number of sessionsː 24.

Critical issues

Presentations around critical issues are meant to present a topic more in-depth (problem, possible solution, critical analysis). Those presentations do not target newbies, and they can assume attendees have already a background knowledge on the topic. Those presentations are also meant to nourish discussions. Applicants are asked to specify who is the target of the presentation and what they would like the presentation to produce (i.e. decision, beta test, creation of a new specific project, collaboration with specific groups, application to the IEG or other grant). Those presentations can be also further discussed during meetups.

Total number of sessionsː 42.

Discussions

Thematic discussions are discussions with an objective; the objective is what determines their structure. Among the objectives there can be for example taking a decision, browsing possible solutions for a problem, making latent problems and issues emerging, considering a topic from different perspectives.

Total number of sessionsː 35 (each divided into 5 parts? Thus, length?)

Training

A training is a session meant to enhance skills. The idea of the training is that you come out of it with a new or reinforced competence (or at worst you come out it knowing who can answer your questions). Training can be on all sort of topics: how to contribute to a project (i.e. Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wikidata), how to get your group recognized by Wikimedia Foundation, how to organized an educational event in a high school, how to request a grant to Wikimedia Foundation, how to evaluate a project, how to take photos for the Wikimedia Projects, how to organize a contest, how to download and install kiwix, how to involve a museum, how to use QRpedia in a museum, how to adopt on open licenses or how to make others using them...

Total number of sessionsː 7

Length?

Presentation lengths

Each year, we receive a large number submissions for the programme. To accommodate as many of them as possible, we strongly suggest that you limit your proposed session's length to a maximum of:

• 30 minutes for User digest submissions;
• 30 minutes, including time for questions, for Critical issues submissions;
• discussions?;
• 90 minutes for training submissions.

You can request additional time, which may be granted if your proposal is particularly extensive. The programme committee may offer a shorter slot than you propose if time in the schedule is tight.

WMF submissions

Noticing that the Wikimedia Foundation sessions (those submitted and carried out by Wikimedia Foundation staff) have occupied a considerable share of the available slots in the last few editions of Wikimania, the Wikimania 2016 Program Committee decided to introduce a Non-WMF quota, limiting the WMF sessions to a maximum of [? 10-15-20 ?] % of the total number.

Although we relise that, given the existing submission-evaluation process, the success of WMF submissions has always been due to their high quality, we believe that this quality is in turn due to the professionality of WMF staff, who have so to speak a fundamental advantage over the average editors of WM projects, the representatives of local chapters, etc. The Non-WMF quota has been introduced in order to limit the over-representation which WMF has been awarded for this reason in the past.

Presentations becoming posters

Those submissions which are not accepted and are thus unable to get a slot in the programme timetable will be evaluated to possibly become a poster (panel?) or an informal presentation to be held in the Community village. If you are interested in this opportunity please indicate it in your submission.

Submitting your proposal

By submitting a proposal, you must agree that:

• your proposal's abstract and any slides associated with it will be released under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike Licence 3.0; and
• if accepted, the session will be broadcast and/or recorded and made available in audio and/or visual form under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike Licence 3.0.

If you object to these requirements (for instance, if you would prefer not to be filmed), please talk to a programme committee member before submitting a proposal.

Your proposal will be discussed and rated in public by the Programme Committee, and you will be notified through the contact information you supply of the committee's decision. If your submission is not added to the preliminary schedule, please do not be discouraged: Wikimania 2015 will have time set aside in the schedule for participants and attendees to participate in unofficial, self-organized talks and working groups. You will have many opportunities to bring topics forward on-site, as well as socializing and sharing ideas casually.

For a list of currently submitted submissions, see ... .

Acceptance

Authors will be notified of submission acceptance or rejection no later than ... 2016. If your submission is accepted and you need an invitation letter to apply for a visa to attend the conference, please contact ... as soon as possible. (Visa applications can take at least 60 working days to process.) Please identify yourself as a presenter and include your mailing address in your email.

By submitting a proposal, you agree that at least one of the authors will attend the conference to present it. If the conference registration fee will pose a hardship for the presenter of the accepted paper, please contact ... . A limited number of stipends will be available for accepted speakers who need assistance with travel and accommodation. Complete program and registration information will be available in ... 2016 on the conference website.