Hi all,
New to the list, but a veteran of almost everything else in Wikipedia,
including being on the Wikimania selection jury for several years, and
helping logistics, programming, et al. Happy to give any advice and help as
needed.
I think an SF bid would be great. With no disrespect to Stanford's proposed
bid, the city-based location in SF itself would be much more conducive to
outings and the vibe of other Wikimanias which have been within walking or
short public transport distance to cultural institutions and funky
attractions. On the other hand, Stanford being in proximity of other
dot-coms and startups might provide an opportunity for outreach to other
tech firms/groups that we've never had before. It might also concentrate
Wikipedians together in a way to help promote more editor-editor
interaction. Each one has its benefits.
I was at the WC WikiConference, and it might indeed be an interesting
evolution for Wikimania. The kickoff WM in Frankfurt '05 was more casual,
and really focused on Wikipedians talking with each other for the first
time. '06 and '07 professionalized it quite a bit more, as it was
Wikipedia's heyday and public rise. Correspondingly, the programs at those
events were more formal, as it also allowed for academics/students to get
funded to go to a conference that was professionally run and where
submissions were peer-reviewed. In some sense, Wikisym now being concurrent
with Wikimania has removed the need for the latter, and Wikimania can
perhaps return to its more informal, community roots. The WC WikiConf was
all open space -- that is, no agenda, all sessions proposed in a circle by
attendees, and sifted and sorted in wiki style. Registration was by
EventBrite, and Phoebe and Eugene were able to pull it off with much less
pain than for Wikimanias. There might be something to learn from that.
Interested in other thoughts.
-Andrew
--
-Andrew Lih
USC Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism
Email: andrew(a)andrewlih.com
WEB: http://www.andrewlih.com
BOOK: The Wikipedia Revolution: http:/www.wikipediarevolution.com
PROJECT: WikiFactcheck: http://wikifactcheck.org/wiki
Dear Wikimedia California mailing list,
Earlier this month the bidding for Wikimania 2012 opened and I wanted to
encourage your community to consider submitting a bid. Failing to win
shouldn't stop you since so much can be learnt by bidding anyway nor should
the rotation of Wikimania be an issue since there hasn't been a North
American wikimania since 2006.
Wikimania provides an excellent opportunity for the local community to come
together to work on something big and it may well lead on to other things so
please think about it. Creation of bids closes on February 6th so there is
plenty of time to create a page and start the work on a bid. California has
such a vibrant community and a conference here would be veyr successful.
There is the Stanford bid currently but it might be worth looking at it and
seeing whether there are better options and if not, go with it and try and
make it happen.
If you need any advice please feel free to ask on this list.
Many Thanks
Joseph Seddon
Wikimania 2012 Jury Moderator
Please celebrate the 10th anniversary of Wikipedia with an open space
unconference Saturday January 15 from 10:00 a.m. at the San Francisco
Chronicle building, 5th St. & Mission; 901 Mission St, Suite 105, San
Francisco, CA 94103.
If you would like to attend please register ($25) at
http://wcwc2011.eventbrite.com
Please see http://2011.westcoastwikicon.org/wiki/Program for the
current program. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-space_meeting
for further information about open space unconferences. More
information about the venue is at
http://bayarea.the-hub.net/public/space__Hub%20SoMa.html
My critique talk outline is at
http://2011.westcoastwikicon.org/wiki/Talk:Program -- I am hoping we
can get a vigorous debate on some of those topics going. Please let
me know if you want to participate in, or if you know anyone who might
want to participate in such a debate. I've offered to give a preview
talk a week or two in advance so that debate participants will have
the opportunity to respond to all the points I'll be raising, so I'd
like to know who is interested. If there are people from out of town
who are interested or too many people to conveniently schedule, I'll
just continue to edit the outline with further detail. Thank you!
Regards,
James Salsman
bccs