Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2019/Survey results

Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2019
Belgrade, Serbia, 11–13 October
Broaden Your Capacity!

A post-conference survey was sent to the participants during the last day of the conference. We gave them 15 minutes in the last session to fill in the survey in order to increase the number of answers. Reminder was sent in the week after the conference as well.

CEEM Meeting 2019 Feedback Survey

Total number of answers: 65 (70.6% participation rate). 92 participants and speakers attended the CEE Meeting 2019 in Belgrade. Volunteers and organizing team will not be a part of the survey.

Information on participants who filled in the survey:

Age structure: 9.4% of participants are aged between 18 and 25, 43.8% of participants are aged between 26 and 35, 29.7% of participants are aged between 36 and 45, 17.2% of participants are aged above 46.
Gender structure: 65.6% of participants are males, 32.8% of participants are females and 1.6% prefer not to say.
Experience in the Foundation projects: 54.8% of participants are involved in Wikimedia projects for more than 10 years, 17.7% of participants between 3 and 5 years, 12.9% of participants between 1 and 3 years, 9.7% of participants between 6 and 9 years, while only 4.8% are active less than a year.
CEE Meeting attendance: 38.5% of participants attended CEE Meeting for the first time.

Learning Day

Out of the 65 participants who filled in the survey, 16 of them attended the Learning Day. More than half of them (53.3%) felt they benefited a lot from this training. 86.7% of them felt they gained new skills and techniques such as ability to resolve conflicts, ideas and techniques for motivating and retaining volunteers, appreciation skills and better usage of Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons.

The most useful parts of the training for the participants were (most common answers):

Conflict management
Motivating and Retaining Volunteers
All of it

The least useful parts of the training for the participants were (most common answers):

None of it
Culture of Experimentation for Wikimedia
Some part were very basic

Sessions (presentations & discussions) in main programme

Most useful

The most useful sessions: Up to 3 answers were possible.

Day 1	Day 2	Day 3
Lightning talks (43.1%)	How to organize a bad writing contest? A practical guide to failing terribly / Natalia Szafran-Kozakowska (29.2%)	Wikipedia in Strongly Polarised Societies. New Challenges / Tomasz Raburski (27.7%)
Diversity and Inclusion at Wikimedia Organisations, Events and Projects / Claudia Garád, Cornelius Kibelka (29.2%)	Wiki + Media / Wojciech Pędzich (24.6%)	Reimagining CEE Spring / Mārtiņš Bruņenieks (23.1%)
We Photograph Czechia: 10 years of experience / Jan Loužek and CEE & Wikimedia 2030 recommendations / Tanveer Hasan, Kaarel Vaidla have the same number of votes (24.6%)	Chapter strategy process: the case of WMPL / Michał Buczyński (23.1%)	CEE & Wikimedia brands / Brooke Camarda, Adora Svitak (18.5%)

Clusters of answers to what in the session was useful:

Networking and exchanging ideas and projects
Well structured and practical presentations
Learning new tools, resources and skills
Editor’s retention
Understanding the broader problem of the gender gap on Wikipedia
Opportunity to contribute to the region's vision of the strategy
Strategy process in Wikimedia Poland

Conclusion: Participants are really eager to learn from each other and network better in order to implement within their communities what they have heard at the conference. A lot of participants indicated that session about the strategy process was useful, but not super clear.

Suggestion for making session even better: more time for working groups and discussions, increase interactivity, avoid presentation with text-heavy slides, do more in terms of participants’ and speakers’ preparation.

Least useful

The least useful sessions: Up to 3 answers were possible.

Day 1	Day 2	Day 3
Listing public artworks and memorials into Wikipedia in Finland / Heikki Kastemaa (26.2%)	WikiEdit: Slovak Folk Culture / Radoslava Semanová (15.4%)	The art of writing learning patterns / Kiril Simeonovski (13.8%)
CEE & Wikimedia 2030 recommendations / Tanveer Hasan, Kaarel Vaidla (18.5%)	Cooperation of the Caucasian editions of Wikipedia / Oleg Abarnikov, Dmitry Zhukov (15.5%)	Radio to illustrate Wikipedia. Creative examples already put in practice / Francesc Fort (12.3%)
We Photograph Czechia: 10 years of experience / Jan Loužek and Working on gender gap on Wikimedia projects /Camelia Boban, Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight have the same number of votes (16.9%)	"Better Fewer, But Better" rule in Wikimedia communities / Pavlo Sokhan (10.8%)	Gendered language / Matej Grochal (12.3%)

For the answers about the reasons respondents mostly chose one of three prefilled options: ...I already knew this, ...it was boring/badly presented or ...I didn't understand it.

Workshops

Most useful

Day 1	Day 2	Day 3
Practical Tools for Wikimedia Commons / Simon Legner (23.1%)	Future of CEE - strategic approach / Kaarel Vaidla (44.6%)	Encouraging the spirit of new editors - A structured approach to mapping onboarding efforts / Christine Domgörgen (24.6%)
Workshop on Community health / Uladzimir Rusakovich (21.5%)	Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons / Jan Lochman (21.5%)	How to make sure the WMF Board has competent people in? / Dariusz Jemielniak (23.1%)
Beyond the basics: Intermediate Wikidata tools Asaf Bartov (20%)	Finding, selecting and onboarding new board members / Frans Grijzenhout, Tim Moritz Hector (20%)	A Universal Code of Conduct - with input from the CEE communities / Christel Steigenberger and Your first Wikidata Lua infobox / Tobias Schönberg have the same number of votes (21.5%)

Clusters of answers to what in the session was useful:

Practical tools to use later
Finding, selecting and on boarding new board members
Informative workshops and good discussions
Exchanging knowledge on tools and soft skills

Least useful

Day 1	Day 2	Day 3
Laser target your social media audience / KuboF Hromoslav (16.9%)	Future of CEE - strategic approach / Kaarel Vaidla (18.5%)	Your first Wikidata Lua infobox / Tobias Schönberg (21.5%)
Time management, priorities or delegation / Jan Lochman (12.3%)	Finding, selecting and onboarding new board members / Frans Grijzenhout, Tim Moritz Hector (13.8%)	A Universal Code of Conduct - with input from the CEE communities / Christel Steigenberger (9.2%)
Practical Tools for Wikimedia Commons / Simon Legner (10.8%)	Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons / Jan Lochman (12.3%)	How to make sure the WMF Board has competent people in? / Dariusz Jemielniak (7.7%)

For the answers about the reasons respondents mostly chose one of three prefilled options: ...I already knew this, ...it was boring/badly presented or ...I didn't understand it.

General evaluation

Programme

Criteria	Excelent	Good	Poor	Miserably	N/A
Overall scope and selection of the conference topics	38.5%	55.4%	4.6%	0%	1.5%
Consistency of the program	33.8%	60%	4.6%	0%	1.5%
Speeches and talks quality	27.7%	69.2%	3%	0%	0%
Session moderation	53.8%	33.8%	6.2%	3%	3%
Session format	58.5%	38.5%	3%	0%	0%
Number of conference participants and composition of the audience	66.2%	32.3%	1.5%	0%	0%

98.5% agree that in general the conference was useful.

I agree that the Conference	completely agree	agree in general	rather disagree	completely disagree	no answer
... was suitable for my background and experience	58.5%	36.9%	4.6%	0%	0%
... provided useful information for me	69.2%	30.8%	0%	0%	0%
... contributed to my understanding of the future of our movement	50.8%	32.3%	15.4%	1.5%	0%
... gave me the opportunity to exchange ideas with others participnts	81.5%	18.5%	0%	0%	0%
... led to clearly defined next steps for my further work	53.8%	33.8%	9.2%	3%	0%

During the Conference I found out... ...new ideas for realization (76.6%), ...ways to improve existing projects (67.2%), ...community interaction (53.1%), ...more about the projects I'd like to join (42.2%), ...how to manage projects (40.6%), ...more about Foundation (35.9%).

As a result of attending the conference, I'm going to try or learn more about (it was asked to mention two things):

Management (1)
Wikidata tools (5)
Wikisource (2)
Transferring knowledge and implementing other user groups' and commons' experience (2)
Onboarding editors and editors’ retention (5)
Getting the retirees involved (1)
Organization of local user group or chapter (1)
CEE chapters involvement in movement strategy (4)
Recruiting and onboarding new board members (2)
Community engagement (3)
Tools in general (1)
Organisation of conference (1)
Possible future cooperation (2)
Facebook ads (1)
Gender gap (1)
Create and use Lua boxes (1)
Universal code of conduct (1)
Improve use of WikiCommons (1)
Governance of an affiliate (2)
Hackathons (1)
Wikimedia Space (1)
Try photo editing (1)
Spread knowledge about various Wiki projects (1)
Avoid burnout (1)
Quarry (1)
Improve accesability to Wikiprojects of disabled people (1)
Starting a Wikiversity in Belarusian & adding Wikidata on Wikimedia Commons. (1)

Work of Programme Committee

I'm satisfied with the work of the Programme Committee	very satisfied	satisfied	less satisfied	unsatisfied	not applicable
Process was transparent.	47.6%	30.2%	4.8%	3.2%	14.3%
I’ve received information on programme timely	57.8%	25%	9.4%	3.1%	4.7%
Feedback was constructive.	42.2%	25%	3.1%	0%	29.7%
I've received feedback on my session timely.	39.7%	22.2%	3.2%	7.9%	26.9%
I've received necessary instructions before the conference.	60.9%	23.4%	3.1%	3.1%	9.4%

Organisation

I'm satisfied with organization and providing of...	very satisfied	satisfied	less satisfied	unsatisfied	not applicable
...hotel	49.2%	36.1%	6.1%	1.5%	7.7%
...food	56.9%	30.8%	10.8%	1.5%	0%
...venue	69.2%	29.2%	1.5%	0%	0%
...access to Internet	46.2%	41.5%	9.2%	3.1%	0%
...logistics	70.8%	26.2%	3%	0%	0%
...schedule	66.2%	30.8%	3%	0%	0%
...timing	72.3%	24.6%	1.5%	0%	1.5%
...breaks	80%	16.9%	3.1%	0%	0%
...social event	66.2%	23.1%	10.8%	0%	0%
...information before the Conference	83.1%	15.4%	1.5%	0%	0%
...information during the Conference	80%	20%	0%	0%	0%

100% were satisfied with the support from the Organisation Team. 87.7% gave score 5 and 12.3% gave score 4. 88.3% think that the process of organization was transparent.

Scholarships

89.8% of the respondents who received scholarship were satisfied with the scholarship process, 6.1% found it reasonable, 4.1% were unsatisfied.

Ideas of improvement

Program

I would have liked to hear a talk on such subject:

Education programs (3)
GLAM (2)
Recruiting volunteers (2)
More discussion on CEE identity, goals, strartegy (2)
Speakers invited from outside the Wikimedia community (1)
Minority languages in the region (1)
More Wikidata related talks (1)
More hands-on sessions/workshops (1)
More on sister projects (1)
More skill transfer around advocacy (1)
Less focus on learning but more on setting up collaborations (1)
Progress of Lexemes in different languages (1)
More tech talks (1)
Revenue streams and funding (1)
Engaging women & elderly per wiki-project, as those who are underrepresented (1)
Less "show off" presentation, more sharing (1)

Organisation

The following things should be done differently at the next Conference:

Information on sessions included in the Programme should be provided timely (3)
Dinner shouldn’t be in restaurants where smoking is allowed (3)
Internet connection (2)
Less presentation sessions, more sharing sessions, more practical workshops (2)
Names should be printed on both sides of the name tag (2)
Submission process should be longer (1)
Better help with transport to the airport (1)
Involve participants as volunteers (1)
More diverse food (1)
Two separate tracks / rooms for more experienced and less experienced participants (1)
A lot of reaching out to speakers beforehand (1)
Better process to choose the next year's host (1)