Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-05-29/Wikimania series

''This week, the Signpost covers discussion themes and project content for the Wikimania 2006 program, highlighting the discussions surrounding the content and development of the projects. Registration for Wikimania is ongoing in 5 languages at http://wm06reg.wikimedia.org. A public announcement is available for release.''

Wikimania 2006 will be full of discussions about popular topics on and around the projects -- content creation and validation, creating successful wikiprojects, multilingual collaboration and translation, policy making, community building, incorporating outside sources, working with outside interfaces. Some of these will be scheduled on the program; some will take place informally throughout the conference, and many will take place over email and on the conference wiki leading up to the event.

This week's column is an unusually interactive one: readers are encouraged to edit the list of discussion topics below, to add to it, and to link from it to existing discussions on Wikimedia projects, in any language. Have at it! Be careful not to remove the markers indicating which themes have already been included in the program.

General discussion themes
These are broad discussion themes which have been proposed; many of them have been discussed on Meta and various projects to date. Each of these will eventually have its own discussion space on the conference wiki; which will inform and be updated by discussions during Wikimania. Discussions which have been formally accepted for a slot on the program are marked with a P.

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Projects & Content

 * Balance and neutrality
 * Is Wikipedia Neutral? P
 * Systemic Bias in Wikipedia : analysis and next steps
 * Filling gaps in Wikipedia : lists of topics (metrics and projects)
 * Focused Projects : by type and by topic
 * ToL and Wikispecies (a comparative review)
 * Disambiguation pages and authority files P
 * Classification and standardization on Wikipedia : a historical look P
 * Research using the projects
 * Research carried out by community members: beyond the Research Network P
 * Statistics everywhere: from projects, contributors, and visitors
 * Researching for the projects:
 * How to research effectively P
 * Accessing source materials online P
 * Rich media
 * Towards true Wiki Media : Tools, projects and implications
 * Metavid : maintaining collaborative metadata about video P

Community & Social Science

 * Community building and maintenance
 * Dealing with malicious users
 * Keeping good users : what motivates contributors P
 * Chapter building and development (case studies) P
 * Communication within the community: News and overviews around the projects (a comparative look)
 * Decision-making
 * Does consensus scale? P
 * Dispute resolution : Mediation and arbitration (in addition to an en:wp arbitration committee panel)
 * Language diversity
 * Smaller languages:
 * The birth of a language edition (a comparative look at various wikipedia & other projects)
 * Spurring small language editions P
 * Language and script preservation: On the fringe of ISO-639 : language standards and Wikipedia
 * Translation
 * How much of Wikipedia is translated? (a roundtable)
 * Translation dictionaries and WiktionaryZ


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Hacking

 * Interface design
 * Is WYSIWYWiki worth it? P
 * Wikipedia usability : a case study P
 * Tool design:
 * Toolserver, Year 1
 * Searching : bottlenecks and design ideas
 * Wikibots : a review (tools and examples)
 * Metadata: Wikidata and specialized data models
 * Mediawiki hacking
 * Hacking days redux P
 * How to become a MediaWiki hacker

Outreach and Access

 * Cultural outreach
 * Global voices : attracting members of communities that don't know the projects P
 * Freeing content : attracting creators who aren't interested in the projects
 * Interacting with and through the media
 * Presenting Wikipedia to the world : tips for interviewees and speakers
 * Dealing with potential sponsors and supporters
 * Distribution
 * Offline content : getting content to and from those without fast internet connections

Education

 * Producing educational content
 * Free the curriculum : planning for the future P
 * Wikiversity : ideas and uses
 * Introducing students to wikis and Wikipedia
 * Wikis in the classroom P
 * Teaching with Wikipedia
 * Defining educational goals
 * Wikibooks : a case study (discussion of policy changes)

Law and Policy

 * Policy creation and maintenance: An English Wikipedia policy review
 * Collaborative environments
 * Implications of law for community policy
 * Identifying copyvios: tools and processes
 * Personal attacks
 * Starvation and other tactics : dealing with trolls
 * Libel and legal threats : community guidelines.
 * Copyright
 * The foundations of copyright from a Wikipedia perspective P
 * GFDL 3 / GSFDL: desired changes and general discussion P
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New discussions are being created all the time, and will be noted on the conference site. If last year is any indication, some of the best discussions are likely to come up on the spur of the moment.

Nevertheless, to promote discussions of the projects and their uses, short presentations or "lightning talks" are being solicited. The creation of a really great article or book, the development of a new process or policy, the progress of a wikiproject or group, and the history of a language-edition of a project are all excellent subjects for such a talk. For details about this, or to have a discussion listed above included in the official program, send word to cfp<>wikimedia.org.

Next week: Other international Wikimedia meetups happening this year, remixed.
 * Please send news or information about other meetups to the authors.