Call for participation

Wikimania logo

Wikimania 2013 in Hong Kong is the ninth annual international conference centred around the Wikimedia projects (Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikiquote, Wikinews, Wikimedia Commons, Wikiversity and others). The conference lets Wikimedians from different parts of the world meet and mingle, share experience with each other, and spark new collaborations. Wikimania is also a venue for Wikimedia to meet the educational and cultural sectors to discuss further cooperation, and showcase the latest developments in wiki technology and free culture to the general public.

As a host city, Hong Kong provides unique opportunities for Wikimania. Hong Kong's central location within the Asia-Pacific region and ease of access will draw fresh participants who have not been able to attend Wikimania in the last few years due to concerns about politics or travel costs; Hong Kong's multicultural heritage, refined education system, and unique political situation garners interest in culture, media, academia, and government.

To allow participants to make the best of the conference and engage with each other, the program will include traditional conference offerings such as presentations, panels, workshops, discussions, and poster sessions; plenty of lounge space and breaks are also provided throughout for participants to gather informally. Submissions will be reviewed and selected in advance by the programme committee.

Important dates

SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW CLOSED. We hope to see you at Wikimania!

Call for participation open: 15 December 2012

~~Deadline for submitting proposals is: 30 April 2013, 23:59 UTC~~
Review submissions: May 2013 (submission review table)
Notification of acceptance: May - June 2013 - 1st round was sent on 17 May 2013.

Tracks

Tracks are used by Wikimania to organize submissions and allow presentations of different target audiences to run in parallel. The following five tracks are proposed for Wikimania 2013:

Wikis in Asia

Asia poses several challenges and opportunities to the wiki ecosystem. How can we develop Wikimedia projects and encourage localization in local languages such as Cantonese and Indic languages where they are overshadowed by more prominent languages such as English and standard Chinese? How can we replicate the success of the European Wikimedia chapters in the Asia-Pacific region? Moving from cooperation to dissent, territorial and political disputes in the real world often manifest themselves as edit-wars and administrative disputes on Wikipedia; government censorship, such as the Great Firewall of China, has given rise to local editable encyclopedias which have established themselves in Internet culture and compete with Wikipedia. This track aims to build on the similarities and sort out the differences among Wikimedians, and encourage engagement with the wider world.

Cultural and Educational Outreach

With many Wikimedia projects reaching maturity, GLAMs – galleries, libraries, archives and museums – and academia have become major contributors of new content. This track aims to foster collaboration and synergy between Wikimedians, GLAMs and educational institutions. Presentations and panels will demonstrate effective outreach techniques and results from ongoing activities as well as envision the future path for these efforts. Popular topic areas in the cultural part of this track include: legal and copyright issues, content partnerships and coordination, technical facilities such as QRpedia, Wiki Loves Monuments and Wikipedia towns. Popular topics in the educational part of this track include: the Wikipedia Education Program, Wikipedia-editing assignments in universities, Wikipedia as a secondary education resource, and expert engagement.

WikiCulture and Community

This track explores the demographics and ethos of the wiki community and how editors and groups relate to one another. Popular areas of interest include: countering systemic bias in the community such as the lack of female editors and editors from developing countries; improving dispute resolution on Wikimedia projects; discrepancies and conflicts between different policies that apply to the same system; dialogues and clashes between different communities under the Wikimedia umbrella; and the ever-growing community of exiles, often labelled "trolls", who departed Wikipedia due to disagreements with the mainstream. Besides a critique of the current situation, we hope even more that the track will lead to suggestions for future improvement and reconciliation between people in conflict with one another.

Analysis and Public Engagement

As an academic conference, Wikimania provides this track to present recent scholarly research about wikis, and discuss the interaction between wikis and the general public. A common research area of Wikipedia scholarship is about the quality and distribution of content and readership across the Wikimedia projects and comparisons with other wikis. There is also much research on the interplay between Wikipedia and social phenomena, which forms the basis of discussion on public engagement: relationships between wikis, social media, and traditional media; concerted efforts by Wikimedians to lobby the government and the legal sector on copyright and freedom of speech issues, such as SOPA and ACTA. This track aims to use our knowledge about the current situation to engage the wider public to deliver Wikimedia's mission of making knowledge freely available to all.

Technology and Infrastructure

Technology and infrastructure are the backbones of Wikimedia projects, providing the hardware and software which facilitate collaboration. This track allows engineers and developers to showcase recent research and development in wiki technology. Topics of particular interest are: usability studies, the VisualEditor project, Wikipedia mobile interface, Article Feedback Tool, bots, MediaWiki extensions, translation and localization, and other relevant technical focus points. This track aims to gather input for future innovation to keep in step with the ever-evolving expectations of Internet users by improving reader and editor experience.

Presentation length

Due to the extensive amount of program submissions received in previous years, we request that your presentation be a maximum of 25 minutes, including time for questions. You may request more time, though shorter individual presentations are more likely to be accepted.

This time-limit does not apply to keynote speakers, panels, or workshops. Submissions for panel presentations with at least three speakers, or workshops with a clear lesson plan are allowed to request 70-minute slots.

All proposals and presentations will be welcome in the lounge space of the conference or in the unconference track, whether or not they are accepted as a submission.

How to submit a proposal

Authors are invited to submit workshop, seminar, tutorial, panel, and presentation proposals by following the directions below.

By submitting a proposal, you agree that the text of your proposal, your presentation slides, and any video recordings can be distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License or a compatible license. You also agree that, under the terms of the license, recordings of your presentation may be broadcast live, recorded, and made available for download later. If you object to these requirements (for instance, if you would prefer not to be filmed), please talk to a program committee member before submitting a proposal.

You will be notified through your contact information about the programme committee's decision regarding your submission.

If your submission is not added to the preliminary schedule, please do not be discouraged: Wikimania 2013 will have time set aside in the schedule for participants and attendees to participate in lounge talks and to form unofficial, self-organized talks and working groups. You will have many opportunities to bring topics forward on-site.