[Foundation-l] Wikimania - Update

Tue Jan 4 00:28:58 UTC 2005

Hi,

After one conference is finished, we can now move to the preparations 
for the next one. In Berlin we had a round of talks about the planning 
of wikimania and I'll try to summarize here what is done and what needs 
to be done the next weeks.

Before christmas, we did the reservation for the Haus der Jugend, 300 
beds and most of their conference rooms from 4th to 8th August 2005. 
Mark this date in red or '''bold''' in your calendar ;-)

Brion created a mailinglist for the planning of wikimania. I'd like to 
invite everyone willing to help with the organisation to join:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-planning-l

For next week a meeting on IRC is planned - there was some confusion 
about the date, so I propose the 12th or 14th January 20:00 UTC.
Comment on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania:Main_Page when you 
have time. I'll fill the agenda during the next days.

At the 21C3 we had a brainstorming about planned sessions and which 
speakers to invite. Sj has the informations on his notebook and will 
start to work on it when he is back home.

For this, I encourage everyone to help drafting the call for papers and 
when finished, translating it in as many languages as possible:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania:Call_for_papers

Ideas for speakers and panels are welcome on:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania:Speakers

On the 21C3 we also found someone willing to help us finding 
interpreters for the conference so that we can make it truely multilingual.

There are several concurring banner versions on 
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania:Banner
Please comment on it - there should be only one official banner we later 
spread.

Next steps are:
* budget plan (jimbo & elian)
* contacting potential sponsors and getting money (danny & jimbo)

Thanks to Patrick from german wikipedia, the German Library Association 
will lend us their support. We are already in contact with some other 
organisation, too.

Brion volunteered for programming the registration system. There are a 
few points to discuss first and I encourage your input:
 From the Haus der Jugend, we got a fixed price for all the beds 
irregarding if double rooms or 8-bed rooms.
There are several questions: shall we just set up a fixed fee or rate 
rooms in several categories?
I'd also like to know what you think about having fees for the 
conference - although the final decision probably depends on our budget 
plan and the sponsorship agreements. Personally, I wouldn't mind if the 
conference makes some profit in the end - we can use the money for more 
servers ;-)

I put some notes on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania:Register

The wikimania website will be probably best located at 
wikimania.wikimedia.org (the domain wikimania.org is already taken and 
I'm not sure if we need an extra domain for the conference)

Friends of mine from the CCC will help us with the network. Planning for 
this started at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania:Network
The most pressing problem is still the last mile - the connection to the 
Haus der Jugend. We tried to get a radio link but the leaders of the 
Haus der Jugend don't seem to happy about this and it would need some 
official permission. @akl: any news about this?

Last thing: in Berlin the idea came up for a next mediawiki developer 
meeting, to do some hacking together in the days before or after the 
conference. I just want to mention it here that we can include this in 
the planning (we probably need to book a workshop room & some beds for 
these days, too).

greetings,
elian