I'm not sure now is quite the time to despair and give up on Oxford. It was
because the OII is as far as I'm aware unique in the UK as a centre studying
the social science of the internet that they amongst all universities have
the greatest chance of falling into both category 1 and category 2.
Of course you're welcome to examine other possibilities, and indeed it would
be good to have a plan B lined up if it does look like Oxford would be too
expensive, but we have to be wary about diluting our pool of effort. My
guesses on the most promising other universities, based on geni's criteria,
are Warwick and Exeter. But I'm not sure how internationally appealing
either of those is. (Coventry is not exactly the world's nicest city, and
Exeter, though attractive enough, is still not really on the tourist map.)
Manchester and Birmingham have the advantage of at least being
internationally recognised place names, though I have never noticed any
particular commitment to the academic study of the internet coming from
either of them. Cambridge might be interested if only because they know that
Oxford is the natural choice. Bristol/Bath/Durham/Edinburgh would be nice
locations but I doubt any of them would want to help us financially.
Brighton might be the easiest to find venues at given it usually hosts the
party political conferences, but there's no reason to suppose any facilities
would be free there. Etc. etc. So I'm not sure the grass is particularly
green anywhere...
Tom
-----Original Message-----
From: wikimediauk-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of geni
Sent: 23 July 2008 19:29
To: wikimediauk-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Wikimania Oxford 2010 Tasks + What is it OK to
offer the OII in return at this stage
2008/7/23 joseph seddon <life_is_bitter_sweet(a)hotmail.co.uk>uk>:
How can we improve them?
I don't think we can.
If we are not offering money for a conference venue how can we get one:
1)find someone who is enough of a fan of wikipedia who is either the
owner of a conference venue or prepared to pay for it out of their own
pocket
2)Find someone who thinks they can gain by hosting the conference and
not charging for it.
I can't see 1) happening particularly not with a university. Most UK
universities have spotted that loaning themselves out to people
wishing to hold conferences and the like is a worthwhile income stream
and are not likely to do something to compromise that income stream. I
don't think we have anyone who owns a conference center or the money
to hire one who is that fanatical about wikipedia.
So we look to 2.
Generalized coverage of the event isn't really going to be enough to
interest people and while 600 might get us some venues free they would
expect a few hundred hotel bookings to go with that.
So who might have a specific interest in wikipedia? Newer unis wishing
to push themselves as centres of web innovation maybe. museums wishing
to show that they are fulfilling their public outreach bit of their
charters but do they have the facilities?
Given the likely problems of finding somewhere low cost I would
suggest dropping the near London requirement and putting together an
inventory of everywhere in england and wales with the facilities to
host the thing. If we can agree to that I can start putting together a
list.
--
geni
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