Wikimania:News from the Team/2015-03-31
Quick Stats about our volunteers
Word has spread about Mexico City being the host of Wikimania 2015. Fortunately for the movement, this has attracted attention from people who have never heard about Wikimedia and people who wish to help our mission of freeing knowledge. For me, this has resulted in managing a lot of new faces and names, more than I anticipated.
We started our Wikimania Volunteer program in May 2014, when we invited friends and colleagues to Biblioteca Vasconcelos to talk about Wikimania and how we came to become its host for 2015. We created an informal mailing list for this group. Throughout 2014, we talked about Wikimania at every occasion we could: on editathons, in our weekly radio show, in our workshops... the mailing list started to grow, slow but steadily. What began as a sheet of paper passed around is now a huge spreadsheet full with people who want to help Wikimania in one way or another.
What follows is by no means a comprehensive study on volunteer support, on the public perception of Wikimedia Mexico or anything. These are merely observations I've collected from our prospective volunteer database and the interviews conducted from February until today. Please note: I've been asked to keep some information confidential for privacy reasons
Behold!
- Over half (55%) of our prospective volunteers have been part of at least one more volunteer program
- Our youngest volunteer[1] is 16 years old. The oldest is 67. That's a 51 year gap!
- The volunteer living closest to Biblioteca Vasconcelos[2] is only 1.7 km (1.08 mi) in a straight line. The volunteer farthest from it is approximately 704.55 km (437.79 mi) away!
- A significant number of prospective volunteers (43.8%) dedicate 40 hours a week to their main occupations (work, school and/or parenting). It's hard to say "I don't have time to help" with their example.
- A quarter (24.2%) of our volunteers report that they don't drink coffee. Keep it up guys!
Thank you everyone. I really didn't expect this much support from you guys