Dear Gary,

 

Forgive me for using this email account. I made one entry on your list and was overwhelmed by the separate messages (as os usual with elists). I can only ask that you might have some influence in turning this http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo

Into something more like this. http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/ I am trying so hard to stay across conversations on different threads, and the discussion about homosexual rights and a dangerous Alexandria is so distracting.

 

I was reading this > Because, unless they've changed since a couple of years' ago, the Open

> University hold their London region summer schools there and have the

> place booked out ...

 

And was wondering why you wouldn’t have considered OU as a natural sponsor. Particularly as their Openlearn  http://www.open.ac.uk/openlearn/home.php initiative is so closely aligned with the aims of the wikimedia foundation. Ultimately the location for Wikimania is of little concern to the majority of Wikipedially minded learners. The important thing is how a quiet activist might be made to feel apart of the wiki story and discover their place in the communities of global groups from which it’s .org is composed.

 

Is there anywhere where the Wishlists might be compiled. I mean of speakers and the things Wikimedians might want them to say? Gary, I think I was reading one of yours for Tim Berners Lee; second the motion. It would be a nice into to set a global stage. And somewhere between this old fashioned thread and this http://digitalunion.osu.edu/megaconference/ we have the tools to share a conference, or 20. OU would be strategic here as their old relationships with the BBC will naturally question why an interesting Wikimania wouldn’t be broadcast. Or at least narrowcast. Better still, Multicast.

 

I’ll leave it with you. But just gotta say. You and Mido, working together with other peers who didn’t get the first guernsey this year, would have to get such a charge. I’m jealous.

 

Regards,

simonfj