Note that Harvard Square is near Harvard Law School (restaurants are 5 min. to 15 min. by walking). Kendall Square is near MIT Media Lab. I might be able to interest my mother in providing bed and breakfast for a couple; she has a spare bedroom with a Queen-size bed overlooking a lovely garden.
Conference goals should be:
1. Enhance community interaction: make it more fun to be a Wikipedian / WikiMedian!
2. Improve the quality of Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects
I can get professional encyclopedia editors to attend / speak at the conference - all with PhD's in their fields.
I am preparing a paper and/or speech (with slides) on "Online Interactions which Facilitate the Production of Quality".
Ed Poor
(who grew up in Cambridge, Mass.)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikimania-l-bounces(a)Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikimania-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of SJ
> Sent: Thursday, November 10, 2005 9:24 PM
> To: wikimania-l(a)wikipedia.org
> Subject: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania meeting minutes 2005/11/05
>
>
> Society of Wikimaniacs
> November 5, 2005, 20:00 UTC
> irc.freenode.net#wikimania
>
> Present : _sj_, akl, Alkivar, Angela, AnyFile, brettstil,
> brion, Chris_Parham, delphine, e2m__, EricaG, gwdash,
> JamesF, jikomboe, MikeSnow, mysekurity, Phroziac, randy_f,
> reagleBRKLN, sasha_ (asw),
> Shanel, shekhar, Solensean, TitaniumDreads,
>
> ...but silent : Bdka, cathyma, Chiacomo, CraigSpurrier,
> da_didi, GerardM, Get_It, here, mattis, MichaelDiederich,
> poli_, Rdsmith4, SabineCretella, soufron, SvenDowideit,
> tobacman, tractor, zwitter ...and away : AppleBoy, Austin,
> GhostFreeman, JeLuF, mark, Rince, Schuyler, SethIlys,
>
> 1. Long before the meeting, Alkivar links to [[Jason Scott
> Sadofsky]] ("a computer history archivist... who is
> humorously anti-wikipedia") and suggests he would make a good
> speaker. Also notes that on campus you can have better
> parties later than you can elsewhere in town.
>
> 2. e2m__ asked if attendees from Asia, Africa, and South
> America will be particularly welcome. The meeting is just
> starting, and this is never answered... are they? See also
> the discussion of conference goals, below.
>
> Via email, Node suggested organizing travel groups of people
> from similar countries / languages, to help them get used to
> the new environment; and to offer partner-interpreters (for
> each group?) --
> to encourage people with poor English skills to attend who
> normally avoid such international events.
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimania_2006#Internation
> al_outreach
>
> 3. Time sensitive issues first : dates for the conference?
> There are 3 promising weekends : July 22-23, July 29-30, and
> August 5-6. The weekend in August seems to be the easiest
> for people to schedule, but may be more expensive for flights
> from Europe.
>
> 3A - Todo: compare flight prices for these dates.
>
> 3B - Harvard professional schools start late for the US, but
> early for Europe. UK high schools get out late, will still
> be in session mid-July (so flights might be cheaper).
>
> 3C - Anyfile did a quick price search; prices were the same
> for those two weekends. Group & corporate flight discounts
> were mentioned.
>
> 4. Working with the Harvard dorm & room offices : the [room]
> office hasn't sorted out their schedule yet; will get to it
> "very soon".
>
> UPDATE: The optimal week[end] for dorms is in early August
> (we could get any combination of dorms we want, up to 450
> beds). Still waiting on room details.
>
> 5. Amgine: will the whole event be at the Harvard Law School?
> Answer: No. The MIT Media Lab wants to host some smaller
> events, even all of the hacking days. They've also offered
> to book their largest hall, Kresge auditorium, if we want to use it.
>
> 6. Where is there food? Places mentioned : The Harkness
> Commons (next door), on-campus caterers (cheers from the
> local union member), nearby restaurants around Harvard &
> Kendall Square.
>
> 7. Timeline : budget 3 months for travel preparation after
> acceptnace of papers, for the most difficult cases. CfP in
> January, December; give initial acceptances by April.
>
> 8A : Next meeting - when is good? rotate every meeting by 15.2 days?
> Pick two times and switch between them? Have multiple
> meetings on some weeks? We settle on the second option.
> Next meeting tentatively set for 1600 UTC, Saturday November 19.
>
> 8B : Have short meetings and keep most discussion on [Meta].
> Clean out the Wikimania wiki and decide if want the site to
> be a wiki next year.
>
> 9A. What should the conference goals be? We agree generally that it
> should support the online communities, and be a party and
> social gathering; and that it should involve "a conference".
> We had some
> trouble defininzg 'conference.' How could we describe the community
> and academic parts of Wikimania more clearly?
> Is international outreach important? Increasing the
> visibility of small projects? Increasing outreach to
> underrepresented languages? Should the goals for this year
> be different than they were last year?
>
> 9B. Naming : JamesF liked "symposium" better than
> conference, but didn't find broad support . (Wikisym's use of
> the term was noted.)
> Mysekurity suggested "the [N]th First Annual" conference, a
> la the Ignobels. MikeSnow chimed in with "Wikimania 2.0".
>
> 10. Design, logos, mascots. Mysekurity wanted a logo contest. This
> met with some definite opposition. Conference t-shirts and
> laptop stickers, however... JamesF dreams of having a
> different shirt from each wikimania in 20 years. Delphine
> suggests a confernce mascot... a new one every year. (the
> Wikipedia worm? Bob the Angry Sunflower? a dolphin? a
> weasel? a marmot?)
>
> 11. Advisors : Sj brings up Tthe idea of a general advisory
> panel -- representatives from outside the community, from
> different parts of the world, who could suggest and provide
> intros to potential speakers and sponsors. Chris Parham
> noted the structure doesn't have to be formal, but that
> getting people involved in this way would be helpful.
> Delphine wanted to know what the advisors would do, other
> than advising the program team.
>
> 12. Announcements. Will there be announcements on the main
> WP page[s]? A sitewide notice? When, for how long? At the
> first opportunity to sign up, before a major
> paper/registration deadline? It is noted that sitewide
> notices were put up last year on fr:wp, to some complaints,
> but not on en:wp.
>
> 13. Media streaming. Mysekurity: webcam streams? audio?
> Mysekurity: will it be broken down into 'important' and 'not
> important' segments?
> Akl: as long as there's someone to do it... mysekurity would
> be glad to '''help''' (emphasis his :)
>
> 14. Feedback from attendees and presenters. Attendees from
> last year want a social list to keep up with friends from
> Wikimania. Other feedback already left on meta needs to be reviewed.
>
> 15. Licensing of papers. General agreement: ask speakers to
> agree to a reasonably free license, and to audio/video
> reproduction if they're being recorded, well ahead of time.
>
> 16. Conference planning software. No word from Austin, Jakob,
> or Patrick; it is generally agreed that a license agreement
> on paper submission makes sense. JamesF mentions that he was
> at some point happy to help Austin improve on last year's reg
> system; regrets mentioning it again :-) It is also agreed we
> should choose our program planning software in time for the
> program team to look at it.
>
> 17. Program team and Papers
> This team is one of the first to act. How will it be
> structured? Who will be on it? Who will lead it? We should
> get help from outside the community; technologists and
> academics (e.g., Sunir, others from Wikimania '05?)
> methodically split up papers into review groups.
> Amgine notes CfPs should have a postmark deadline.
> Delphine says there should be a very official, and a secret
> unofficial deadline. Sj suggests having an early deadline
> for people who need advnce notice; Delphine said she will pay
> Sj a beer if anyone submits a paper early.
> Mysekurity: will papers be physical, on a wiki? will they be
> editable / commentable by others before the event? Delphine
> notes she would not like that.
>
> 18. Other teams
> Website and conf-software are also needed soon. Ditto
> general conference organization. How should the organization
> be divided?
> Should they be split into formal committees? Do we need to
> hire people to coordinate the volunteers, or have an external
> conference organizer?
> Sj noted there is an agenda item on the upcoming board
> meeting re: hiring an organizer for Wikimania.
>
> 19. Multilingualism
> Soleansan thinks we should translate papers into Swahili, "or
> at least in Réunion creole," so people don't get the
> impression that WP is only
> English, or only for English-speakers. Alkivar thinks we need
> Fr/Es/De translations for every major speaker. Delphine
> suggests waiting until registration is opened and we see who
> signs up. akl notes that in Frankfurt, none of the German
> attendees needed translations. .
> Sj added that we know hardly any relevant presenters who
> don't speak in English, but if we had a better way of
> finding/filtering potential speakers, we might find them.
> Delphine suggests spending money on travel sponsorships and
> visas, and not on translation.. But we didn't release the
> CfP in too many languages last year... can sj evaluate a
> Russian paper? via a translator. (e.g., the Chinese-language
> paper submitted last year)
> akl wants to know if the next irc meeting will be held in
> swahili, russian or in chinese? :)
>
> 20. Closure and followups
> Two hours was a bit long. Follow-ups on the wiki:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimania_2006/En#November
_5_discussion
++SJ
_______________________________________________
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l(a)Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
Saturday seems to work for everyone but AlexanderWait, who says he's
fine with that.
Let's have an open IRC chat in #wikimania on Sat, 2200-2300 UTC. If
you can't make the meeting (and even if you can), please write down
your thoughts and link to them. If you're feeling bold, you can link
them directly from the agenda.
I added some agenda items; feel free to edit them and add more:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2006/Planning#Meetings
For instance, someone last week offered that it would be useful to
have regional advisors from outside the community, to suggest (and to
provide introductions to) potential speakers and sponsors. That could
be interesting; but needs discussion.
++SJ
(Originally written up as a blog post)
Last Thursday night there was a public meeting (in person and on
IRC) @ Berkman to let people in the area know what the conference might
be like. It was held at Berkman, hosted by the Thurs. night blog group
(already a Berkman satellite run by the local community).
20 people came; every one taking two hours out of their night to think
and talk about wikis and Wikimania. About a third were affiliated
with Harvard; there were people from Wellesley, MIT; a teacher from
BU; three librarians; a few local hackers and old LiveJournal
community moderators. There was a joyful energy in the air.
The audience included developers who use MediaWiki regularly; teachers
who use wikis in their course and project designs; and enthusiastic
editors and users. Most had not been involved with the earlier
planning for the bid; this was a very introductory presentation.
I skimmed over the [[m:wikimania 2006]] pages, and filled in a few
details about what things were like last year. There was some
discussion about what local groups could do to help make it a better
conference. A few Wikimedians took part via IRC (which was cool) but
there wasn't much IRC conversation. A repeated question was how to
get Wikimedians around the world more involved; which prehaps will be
discussed more this week.
++ SJ
Kyle, I think these are all good suggestions, and we should try to
find ways to help speakers improve the quality and consistency of
presentations.
Part of this is giving them good, clear guidelines; and advice for
first-time presenters who are eager to get their ideas out to the
community. Part of this is asking for more information (asking for a
precise length helps ensure it has been run through once), and giving
presenters more feedback on the information received from them.
A wiki fanatic might encourage people to post their slides & papers
early, so that others can suggest improvements or updates :-)
SJ
On 10/30/05, Kyle Lutze <kyle(a)randomvoids.com> wrote:
> two things there, I'm not talking about a neat powerpoint presentation
> or a bunch of visuals, that's not needed for a good speech.
>
> I'm talking about, we had people who had to be cut off half way through
> their speech because they didn't practice at all to stay in their
> timelimits, and others that got to the point to where they went(I think
> we even had one person say this too) "what should I talk about now?"
> because they hadn't prepared enough material.
>
> Wikipedia is great as a whole because people are continually fixing
> other's mistakes for the final bit that shows, but for presentations
> what they say up there is the final bit, and they never had anybody
> critique them or give them any pointers.
>
> All I'm saying is we need to get some sort of proof from them, say a
> month in advanced that they have a basic outline of their speech done
> and they can honestly say that they've practiced the whole thing at
> least once through and timed themselves.
>
> We had some of these presentations aired on the news, they are
> practically representatives of wikipedia when they are up there, so we
> should hold them to a higher standard than just one edit they do on
> wikipedia.
>
> Kyle
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimania-planning-l mailing list
> Wikimania-planning-l(a)Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-planning-l
>
--
++SJ