Talk:EduWiki Conference 2014/Planning

Please could the Conference Committee be involved in the process of planning for this event? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:55, 4 April 2014 (BST)

Mike, do you consider that committee to be active? The main page lists no meetings since 2012 and there appear to have been no actions at all for nearly a year now, even by email. Surely it has not been meeting in secret? I can't check as the mailing list archives are not open. There are a number of volunteers still listed as members, but if the group has not been closely involved with the preparations for Wikimania for some time already it is presumably somewhat moribund. There have certainly been no committee reports to the board for a long time. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 22:42, 4 April 2014 (BST)

I consider it to be dorment pending a use. The last thing it was involved in was with organising WikiConference UK 2013. It's been excluded from being involved in Wikimania organisation, and my attempts to have it involved with the organisation of EduWiki 2013 didn't get anywhere. EduWiki 2014 would seem like a good reason to revive it, providing its help is welcome here. But perhaps Harry, as the standing chair of that committee, could comment here? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 10:09, 5 April 2014 (BST)

"Excluded" is ever so slightly more strident than I would have been, but other than that, I agree with Mike's assessment. The Conference Committee is more like an ad-hoc working group compared to the Education and GLAM Committees, in that it is active when it has something to do. There seems very little point in it meeting when there are no conferences or other major events being organised, as it would have nothing to discuss. The 2013 AGM was one of the best examples I've seen of staff and volunteers working together in an equal partnership to accomplish something that was much better than either party could have produced on its own, and it should be a model for the future. I'd love it to have a role in organising EduWiki. There is considerable expertise within the volunteer base that could be channelled through ConfCom, and I'm sure the education people would rather focus on the programme than the nuts and bolts of organising a conference. But (without wishing to criticise any individuals, because the past is the past and the important thing is a successful EduWiki, however it comes about) for last two EduWikis, I've had the impression that its input isn't wanted, despite repeated offers of help. My vision was for the Conference Committee to be involved in all of WMUK's conferences and major events so that we built up an institutional memory and the lessons learnt from one event could be taken forward into the next, rather than reinventing the wheel with each one. Harry Mitchell (talk) 12:10, 5 April 2014 (BST)

On a tangent, the archives should now be open (closed is the default setting, and I don't have a lot of experience running mailing lists). The Conference Committee does most of its work publicly on this wiki, with the list mainly being used for reminders/pointers and only the occasional discussion. Subscription and posts by non-members have to go through moderation because of issues with spam, but to date I've approved every message that wasn't spam and every subscription request from anybody who wanted to be involved with organising a conference for WMUK. Harry Mitchell (talk) 12:22, 5 April 2014 (BST)

Ping Michael, just in case you missed this. Harry Mitchell (talk) 16:35, 6 April 2014 (BST)

I believe there is a more general issue with sub-committees. These were supposed to be volunteer-centric, however those that remain active appear to be either driven by board members to help fulfil their roles, or less volunteer-centric than our original vision. Only this past week I had some disappointing feedback from a volunteer sitting on another committee who feel disillusioned with what it has become. Whatever your position with regard to past issues, or how to describe the way they currently work, this is probably a discussion to be had with the handful of non-trustee active volunteers that might be interested in taking part on a committee in the future. I am of course, speaking as an active volunteer who used to take part on the ARC and would have been happy continuing to serve on that committee as an observer, were I not a pariah and the committee were interested in having non-trustees taking part in compliance with its charter. --Fæ (talk) 17:33, 6 April 2014 (BST)