Wikimedia Developer Summit/2017/Unconference

What is an unconference?
An unconference model relies on this theory that when a group of people gather for a shared purpose and hold the freedom to self-organize and govern, leads to meaningful outcomes. Instead of a top-down approach to information delivery by individuals who are known as experts in the room, this model encourages a bottom-up and a participant-driven approach for conducting a discussion. In an unconference, everyone contributes to building the agenda which remains undetermined until the event begins. On the day of the event, before the kickoff, participants gather around a physical whiteboard and propose topics they are interested in either facilitating or attending.

Contribute to the Developer Summit unconference agenda
Through the Call for Participation, we've gathered a lot of interesting discussion topics for the Unconference. Though we already have these topics; we will give a chance to more participants to pitch their ideas at the summit. We would also encourage session proposals that would bring in diverse perspectives and would come from newbies, or people proposing for the first time. With these ideas, we hope to address the interests of our community members, draw useful action items from these sessions, and continue discussions on them even after the summit.

What session facilitators could do?
Here is what we would like you to do between now and the summit. Visit the Wikimedia Developer Summit workboard on Phabricator and check out the unconference topics listed under the 'Unconference candidates ' section.

If you proposed a topic, reply to the corresponding task on Phabricator and let us know if you are still planning on facilitating it or not. If your answer is 'YES,' then update the task description fields to appear in the following format:

Session title

Main topic

Type of activity

Description Move ‘The Problem,' ‘Expected Outcome,' ‘Current status of the discussion’ and ‘Links’ to this section

Proposed by Your name linked to your MediaWiki URL, or profile elsewhere on the internet

Preferred group size

Any supplies that you would need to run the session e.g. post-its

Interested attendees (sign up below) To maintain the consistency, refer to the template of the following task description: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T149564. Once you are done, we'll move your session to the 'Confirmed Unconference sessions ' section on the Phabricator workboard.
 * 1) Add your name here

If you are also interested in attending other sessions, check out the unconference topics listed under the ' Confirmed Unconference sessions '. Add your name under 'Interested attendees ' section of the task description of a specific session.

What session attendees could do?
Here is what we would like you to do between now and the summit. Express interests in topics you are interested in attending, or you care about before the event. Visit the Wikimedia Developer Summit workboard on Phabricator and check out the unconference topics listed under the ' Confirmed Unconference sessions ' section. If you are interested in attending a session, add your name under 'Interested attendees ' section of the task description of a specific session.

Monday, January 9th
Registration and unconference planning for sessions to be scheduled for Day 1 will take place between 8:30 and 9:00 am on Monday, January 9th.

During the planning phase, we would invite participants to propose session topics on the fly on a physical wall with post-its. We expect participants interested in the unconference planning to be present at the venue between 8:30-9:00 am.

For adding a session slot to the agenda, we would give preference to facilitators that own a session on Phabricator; that has ongoing discussions and considerable interest drawn from attendees already. We hope to inform the facilitators of these sessions ahead of the event to be prepared to book a slot and lead a discussion. For remaining session slots for Day 1, we'll encourage session proposals from others present in the room. All session facilitators will get 20 seconds time for pitching their topics during the event opening.

For more information about the unconference rooms, and an updated schedule, check back later on the Program Schedule page.

Tuesday, January 10th
We'll follow a similar process for Day 2 and planning for which would take place on the evening of Day 1 (TBD).

Discussion Guidelines
We'll share discussion guidelines and facilitation tips during the event opening and will add related resources to this section prior to the event.

Questions?
If you've any questions about the developer summit unconference planning, post on this article's talk page.