Critical issues presentations

Critical issues presentations

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.

Call for submissions for Critical issues is closed now. Would you like to submit or resubmit your proposal? Have a look if it is suitable for other kind of sessions (posters, discussions...).

Wikimania 2016 in Esino Lario will be the 12th in the series of annual international conferences which provide a unique opportunity for the Wikimedia community and our projects to come together, share our 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, Wikivoyage, Wiktionary, MediaWiki or others), or a fellow open content creator or consumer, we welcome your proposal for a session at Wikimania 2016.

If you are looking for ideas or if you want to submit discussions or training proposals, please have a look at the liaisons page.

Important dates

• Call for proposals opens: 11th December 2015
• Deadline for submitting proposals: 17th January 2016
• Notification of acceptance: 1st February 2016 (delay 2nd February 2016)
• Wikimania Esino Lario programme

Presentation lengths

Each year, we receive a large number of submissions for the programme. To accommodate as many of the great presentations as possible, we strongly suggest that you limit your proposed session's length to be a maximum of 18 minutes, plus 10 minutes for questions. 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.

Guidelines

Topic

Through this call we only accept what we call “critical issues”.

We are seeking presentations about

1. problems and possible solutions in a specific field
2. proposals for others to replicate
3. issues (positive or negative) which have emerged from projects
4. issues you want to raise which you feel have not been discussed yet
5. issues which are at the centre of an online debate that you would like to address offline

Please note that your presentation does not need to be for everyone; you can specify the target you would like to address. Please also consider that the topic you are presenting can also be suggested as a discussion (there can be both a presentation and a discussion).

The following submissions are NOT accepted here

1. Simple presentation of projects. If you want to present a project you can make a poster (a link for that will be soon provided).
2. Overviews and general presentations. We call these presentations “user digest” and they will be at Wikimania, but are directly assigned. Please contact the relevant team if you want to suggest ideas related to them. See Wikimania 2016 liaisons.
3. Discussions. Please contact the relevant team if you want to suggest a discussion (a link will be soon provided).
4. Training sessions. The training sessions will be directly assigned.

For any question you can contact the Programme Committee Chair.

Content and format

Your presentation will last 18 minutes and your goal is to make your point. Please make your point in an abstract way and explain how you will support that point (for example through relevance to projects, online examples, case studies, experience, etc.)

The submission process is online (see below, § How to submit your proposal, for more details). While filling in the form, please make sure you specify:

1. Your target – for whom is your presentation meant? Is there any background knowledge people should have to understand your point?
2. Your topic – which issue would you like to bring up?
3. Your purpose – what is the result that you think should bring your presentation/proposal?
4. Your approach – in what ways is your presentation tackling the theme of Wikipedia as a driver for change? (Note: Wikipedia is used as a synecdoche and stands for all Wikimedia projects.)

Evaluation

In order to achieve the greatest possible neutrality, the submissions will be evaluated online using a double-blind peer-review process. This means that two evaluators will review the submission without knowing the name of its author. If there are strong divergences among the two evaluations, at least one other review will be made.

The evaluation criteria are

1. The presentation is on topic: it is a “critical issue” as described above.
2. Personal interest in listening to it.
3. Relevance of the issue for the envisioned target group/specific community.

Non-WMF quota

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 has decided to introduce a Non-WMF quota, limiting the WMF sessions to a maximum of 25 % of the total number. (We plan to have 42 "Critical issues" slots; no more than 10 of them will, therefore, be dedicated to WMF sessions).

Although we realise 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 Wikimedia 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.

Submissions

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 your proposal.

Your proposal will be discussed and rated by the Programme Committee through a double-blind peer-review process. 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 2016 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.

Because of the blind peer-review process, the submissions will not be made public until the end of the assessment process. Then they will be published on this wiki.

For a list of accepted submissions, see Wikimania 2016 accepted submissions (only active after the date of the notification of acceptance).

How to submit your proposal

A web service called EasyChair is being used to allow the reviewers to assess the submissions without knowing the author's name. In order to submit your proposal, you will have to:

• go to the Wikimania 2016 submission page on EasyChair and log in; if you don't have an account, you will be asked to create one;
• click the "New submission" tab at the top-left corner of the menu;
• fill in the form – in doing so, you will be asked for:
  • your contact information and basic personal data (name, email, country of origin, organisation);
  • the title of your proposed presentation and an abstract (its length is required to be between 300 and 600 words);
  • at least 3 relevant keywords;
  • the topic of the proposed presentation (Technical, Policy, Outreach, Projects, Research, Governance, other);
• click the "Submit" button.

Acceptance

Authors will be notified of paper acceptance or rejection no later than January 2016. If your paper is accepted and you need an invitation letter to apply for a visa to attend the conference, please contact wikimania-infowikimedia.org 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 paper, 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 wikimania-registrationwikimedia.org. 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 February or March 2016 on the conference website.