[WMCEE-l] What the meeting is good for?

Tue Nov 18 08:54:35 CET 2014

OK. So, let's do it on December - but please decide about it ASAP !!!

2014-11-18 1:00 GMT+01:00 Strainu <strainu10 at gmail.com>:

> Guys,
>
> This discussion does not seem to be going anywhere, so let me chime in and
> try to structure it a little.
>
> On one part, there are the people who feel that we are too different for
> practical cooperation, but who nonetheless call for some "natural" or
> narrow-focus groups to be formed. It is unclear to me what "natural" means,
> except perhaps language similarities, which is already the criteria used
> when creating Wikipedias. Having a lot of people together (in my
> experience, "a lot" means more than 6-8) leads to fragmentation of the
> group based on common interests and personal decisions. In that regard, the
> CEE meeting could not hurt this objective, provided that some target areas
> are identified beforehand and are accompanied by a serious retrospective
> after the event (which I personally have not seen so far for the previous
> meetings).
>
> Starting with the points identified by Juandev seems like a good idea to
> me. As to the retrospective, perhaps one person can take the lead on each
> of the topics and make a firm commitment that she will deliver a short
> report on the proceedings no later than 2-3 weeks after the event (or more
> if it's just before Christmas)?
>
> On the other hand, there is the problem of financing. The people from
> hu.wp have correctly pointed out that plane tickets are cheaper if you buy
> them in advance. However, if the difference is indeed only 20-30% we would
> have to consider if the extra cash is matched by the fact that it's easier
> for people with jobs to plan 3 weeks in advance than 3 months in advance.
> There was also the idea of having a CEE meeting in Zurich. However, my
> understanding is that the Zurich meeting is dedicated to chapters, and not
> all countries in this region have one. Also, plane tickets to Zurich might
> be even more expensive than to Kiev - they certainly are from Bucharest.
>
> Finally, there is the problem of the date itself (regardless of the
> financial implications). As I said before, having to commit 3-4 weeks in
> advance is much easier for me at least, and I suspect that for many others
> in our community, than committing 2-3 months in advance. Also, having a
> meeting in full winter might lead to unpleasant surprises from the weather,
> with flight cancellations and other issues. Of course, December is not
> risk-free, but it's still better IMHO. People from uk.wp can confirm or
> deny this. It is also easier for everyone if they enter the new year with
> some clear ideas of the possible collaborations that they might have in
> 2015. Last but not least, before we even consider a date further down the
> road, we need to be sure there will still be a willingness from the
> Ukrainian team (or someone else) to organize this meeting.
>
> Whatever you might think of these issues, I ask that we decide for sure
> the date (and hopefully the agenda as well) by the end of this week.
>
> Best regards,
>   Strainu
>
>
>
> 2014-11-17 22:14 GMT+02:00 Mykola Kozlenko <mycola-k at ukr.net>:
>
>> Hi Balasz,
>>
>> Actually, it's not 2x-3x-4x difference, it's at most 20%.
>>
>> I checked Budapest-Kyiv on Skyscanner, and the air fares are the
>> following:
>>
>> 1) December
>> inbound 18 December (Thursday) - outbound 21 December
>> * 102€ / 31 352 Ft (direct WizzAir)
>> * 161€ / 48 983 Ft (via Vienna)
>> inbound 19 December (Friday) - outbound 21 December
>> * 111€ / 34 236 Ft (direct WizzAir)
>> * 164€ / 50 183 Ft (via Vienna)
>>
>> 2) February
>> inbound 19 February (Thursday) - outbound 22 February
>> * 138€ / 42 056 Ft (via Munich or Vienna)
>> inbound 20 February (Friday) - outbound 22 February
>> * 85€ / 25 980 Ft (direct WizzAir)
>> * 161€ / 49 115 Ft (via Vienna)
>>
>> While there are indeed some price differences, they are really small,
>> max. 20%, a nd definitely not 2x or 4x. Kyiv is not particularly popular as
>> a winter destination, thus there is no significant price difference, so
>> there will be little to no additional cost for you and other chapters.
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Mykola
>> WMUA
>>
>>  --- Оригінальне повідомлення ---
>> Від кого: "Balázs Viczián" <balazs.viczian at wikimedia.hu>
>> Дата: 17 листопада 2014, 16:57:10
>>
>>  Mykola,
>>
>> As I wrote before, we have sufficient funds to attend. We even have
>> some to support the event itself if needed.
>>
>> As Samat said, we will not spend a single penny just because the
>> financial year end approaches fast, only if we see it worth it.
>>
>> Did I miss it or there is still no decision on the actual dates?
>>
>> Anyhow, a ticket for a plane in December costs 2x-3x or maybe even 4x
>> more than a ticket to a plane in February to put it simple. That is
>> the difference.
>>
>>  Balazs
>>
>>   2014-11-16 23:46 GMT+00:00 Mykola Kozlenko <mycola-k at ukr.net>:
>>
>> Concerning budgets, it depends from case to case - for example, for those
>> having APG grants or planning to switch to APG unused funds may be badly
>> viewed by the WMF. I did not have time to check what all chapters have put
>> in their budgets and whether they can easily reallocate these funds to the
>> next year, and you definitely know the WMHU budget better.
>>
>> However, I don't see how it can be done significantly better in February
>> 2015 than in December 2014. There were many concerns about the programme -
>> now almost all chapters have contributed to the programme, except exactly
>> WMHU - thus I would be happy if you could fill in the form at
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Meeting_2014/Questions%26Needs
>> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wik%20i/Wikimedia_CEE_Meeting_2014/Questions%26Needs>
>> , and after WMHU is ready we will have feedback from all chapters. We are
>> working on this from August, thus there should be no problem with
>> conference programme - we are ready to publish our suggestion in a day or
>> two (but we would be glad to get a feedback from WMHU first).
>>
>> What may be better in February is the availability of participants. There
>> is no magic solution however, and I don't think we will find a date that
>> arranges exactly everyone, as even for Wikimanias (planned a year in
>> advance) we have people who are unable to participate. If there is a real
>> problem that will prevent a lot of people from participate (religious or
>> national holiday, important local events etc.) we may consider switching to
>> a different date. However, if the issue is that some country would be badly
>> presented in December, very likely another country will be badly presented
>> in February, thus this is not the reason in itself for changing the date.
>>
>> If WMHU has significant problems with attending the CEE Meeting in
>> December, please explain us your issues (you can write me privately if you
>> don't want to publicly announce it here). If you have no problems wit h
>> coming in December, we would be happy to see your suggestions and ideas,
>> most notably via the page
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Meeting_2014/Questions%26Needs
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Mykola
>> WMUA/ CEEM 2014 team
>>
>> --- Оригінальне повідомлення ---
>> Від кого: "Samat" <samat78 at gmail.com>
>> Дата: 17 листопада 2014, 00:21:31
>>
>> I am not comfortable with the way of thinking, that if we have a budget
>> we have to spend it even if is not worth to do.
>> If there is allocated money for the CEE Meeting this year and we can use
>> the same amount of money much more effective next year, I am quite sure
>> that WMF would prefer to support the meeting next year, not this year.
>> Don't forget: our money comes from individual donations and institutional
>> funds, and donors expect that we use it the best way.
>>
>> Samat
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Nov 16, 2014 at 11:53 PM, Mykola Kozlenko <mycola-k at ukr.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Balázs,
>>
>>  What I mean under "allocated" is that you might have a sum of money in
>> the 2014 budget booked for the CEE meetup. This really differs from chapter
>> to chapter, as some chapters in the region are under PEG grants, some
>> already have APG grants, while others have 1% of tax for charities in their
>> countries. In all these cases budgeting rules and reallocation from one
>> year to another are extremely different - thus I can't generalise without
>> looking into budget of each organisation
>>
>>  In your case, I would like to know if you have a Jan-Dec financial year
>> or a Jul-Jun financial year, because if your financial year ends in
>> December, you will be unable to use your 2014 budget to support CEE meeting
>> if it takes place in 2015. If you are ready to support the 2014 CEE
>> meeting, please confirm what kind of support we can expect (or, for
>> example, if you will be ready to cover travel costs from Hungary to Kyiv)
>>
>>  Best regards,
>> Mykola
>> WMUA
>>
>> 17 листопада 2014, 00:46:15, від Balázs Viczián <
>> balazs.viczian at wikimedia.hu>:
>>
>> What do you mean by "allocated"?
>>
>> WMHU has no money allocated to support the event explicitly, but we do
>> have a budget to support events in general.
>>
>> This means that we can offer our financial aid if we see you're in need
>> of that and we see that the event worth funding. WMHU supported an earlier
>> CEE meetup with 1000 EUR for example.
>>
>> We do not have money explicitly allocated to travel to the CEE meetup(s),
>> however when we set up the budget for (general) travelling we did count
>> with attending all the events, including the CEE meetup.
>>
>> Balázs
>> 2014.11.16. 17:32, "Mykola Kozlenko" <mycola-k at ukr.net> ezt írta:
>>
>> Hi Vojtěch,
>>
>> I don't really like the word "donors" - that is not exactly correct.
>> Basically we need to find which of the following is more important:
>> * chapters that are already preparing for CEEM in December, or who have
>> already money allocated for 2014
>> * chapters who cannot attend CEEM in December or cannot be adequately
>> represented in December but will be able to attend in February
>>
>> It's not up to us to decide this - it's up to participants to decide.
>> However, so far most of chapters have confirmed that their representatives
>> will be able to attend - which we considered as fine. On the other hand, so
>> far only WMHU has raised concerns - thus we would like to know if
>> Hungarians have any particular problems or if they would still be able to
>> attend. If yes, we do hope that this meeting will work well for everyone.
>>
>> Just to remind, the link for preliminary registration is here :
>> http://goo.gl/forms/ZozAWFrMXl
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Mykola
>> WMUA
>>
>> 16 листопада 2014, 17:57:59, від Vojtěch Dostál <
>> vojtech.dostal at wikimedia.cz>:
>>
>>  Hi Mykola
>>
>> I, or anyone else, certainly do not want to put you in a difficult
>> situation. In the end, it is the organizer who is responsible for the
>> conference, not the participants. If you think that organizing it in
>> December is the best idea from your and your donors' perspective, then do
>> it - of course we will try hard to send our members to attend it, if
>> possible.
>>
>> best wishes
>>
>> Vojtěch Dostál
>>
>> místopředseda
>> Wikimedia Česká republika
>> Konopišťská 790/3, Praha 10
>> http://www.wikimedia.cz
>>
>> 2014-11-16 14:42 GMT+00:00 Mykola Kozlenko <mycola-k at ukr.net>:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> One particular problem is that we wanted to organise a CEE meeting
>> _2014_. As far as I can see, at least one chapter (WM Serbia) has allocated
>> funds for CEEM in their 2014 grant (
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round1/Wikimedia_Serbia/Proposal_form#Supporting_Regional_Cooperation
>> ), and I guess this may also be the case of other chapters with Jan-Dec
>> financial year. It would be very dissappointing for these chapters not to
>> use the funds they have already allocated, thus we would like to know:
>>
>> *Are there any chapters who have already allocated funds for CEE Meeting
>> 2014 on their budget?*
>>
>> The more they are and the more important sums they have allocated, the
>> less probable it is to move this meeting to 2015.
>>
>> For us (Wikimedia Ukraine) it is manageable to move it to February
>> (probably not to January as Orthodox Christmas holidays may last until
>> mid-January, and people are unlikely to work before 12 January or even
>> later), although we will need to renegotiate quite a lot of things. At the
>> same time, we should also bear in mind that we have Wikimedia Conference
>> (April 2015?) and putting CEEM 2014 just before it will reduce its impact.
>>
>> We already have a draft programme and draft schedule, we are making final
>> corrections and expect to publish them today or tomorrow.
>>
>> And while I understand that again we are making late start for CEEM 2014,
>> this year we actually started in August by thinking on what we expect from
>> this meeting, although I agree that it was once again a bit short notice. I
>> do hope CEEM 2015 will be prepared better in advance, provided that we
>> already have one bidding country at the moment (Estonia).
>>
>> Mykola
>> Wikimedia Ukraine
>>
>> --- Оригінальне повідомлення ---
>> Від кого: "Vojtěch Dostál" <vojtech.dostal at wikimedia.cz>
>> Дата: 16 листопада 2014, 14:41:01
>>
>>  Hi all
>>
>> I generally think that a CEE meeting, if carefully organized, can be a
>> valuable conference where a lot of work can be done and new bonds
>> established. International cooperation in eg. content creation or
>> organizing competitions is very popular with our communities and as such
>> should be encouraged. It is also a great opportunity to exchange ideas
>> within a culturally relatively homogeneous region - for example, Czech
>> projects are somewhat more likely to succeed in CEE countries than eg. in
>> South America or Eastern Asia which are culturally very different in terms
>> of academic relationships etc.
>>
>> At the same time, organizing a conference on such short notice is, to say
>> the least, unfortunate. Apart from high travel costs, there is also not
>> enough time to carefully plan the agenda. I know Ukrainians are very good
>> in organizing conferences and *I trust them that the conference would be
>> a great one* - but would it be worse in January or February next year?
>>
>> We could finally prove that CEE countries are able to organize conference
>> well in advance. Actually, that would be a very big achievement for the
>> conference organizers as it would also make the CEE countries better (more
>> trustworthy) partners for international cooperation or funding within the
>> Wikimedia movement.
>>
>>   Vojtěch Dostál
>>
>> vice-chairman
>> Wikimedia Česká republika
>>  Konopišťská 790/3, Praha 10
>> http://www.wikimedia.cz
>>
>>
>> 2014-11-16 13:11 GMT+00:00 Marcin Cieslak <marcin at cieslak.name>:
>>
>> On Sun, Nov 16, 2014 at 10:45 AM, Tomasz Ganicz <polimerek at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > Yes.. and the pardox of the situation is that the only "lingua franca"
>> > for the teritory is actually English :-)
>>
>> That's unfortunately true. For some older generation, it was Russian
>> to some extent...
>>
>> > + some countries are at the
>> > war at the moment or they have been quite recently.
>>
>> That's actually a very good reason to keep our cooperation working
>> despite this.
>>
>>
>> Having said that I'd love to come to the next CEE meeting, but I am
>> not sure I can get off work
>> (I do work weekends too) and it will be very difficult to get
>> reasonable travel costs
>> due to Christmas season starting with most airlines mid-December.
>>
>> //Marcin
>>
>> //Marcin
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-- 
Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz
http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek
http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/
http://www.cbmm.lodz.pl/work.php?id=29&title=tomasz-ganicz
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