Dear Wikipedians,
Wikimania will begin in less than two weeks. (If you're helping
organize this, the calendar is already engraved inside your forehead
:-) There will be a crazy collection of speakers and wiki developers
(
http://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programme), media and documentary
coverage, and lots of storytelling and good fun.
For those of you who can't be there in person, there will be audio
streams from the two main halls, and two cameras' worth of vlogging
thanks to Soufron et al. There are also some important things you can
do to make it an even better event :
== Wiki discussions, gathering sources ==
Wikimania will see some very focused discussions about how to improve
and coordinate the development of MediaWiki, Wikipedia, and the other
Wikimedia projects. Preparation and organization of ideas over the
next ten days will see great returns on investment.
(To add a discussion you want to see happen, or link to existing
discussions :
please update
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania:Discussions )
The most exciting part of Wikimania, to me, is getting many different
circles of savvy people talking about Wikimedia development at the
same time; and most of that will take place outside of Frankfurt.
== Announcements; Letting others know how to take part ==
I hope that when the audio podcasts and vlogs of the conference
sessions start to come out, that everyone who might care to will know
how to find them... and I want the many Wikimedians who can't be
there to know how to find the discussions on-wiki surrounding key
sessions and discussions.
== Requests for help ==
So please respond to the following requests, if you can, either on- or
off-list (if off-list, make sure you write to elian :
1) We need people to help spread the word about Wikimania; to
websites that want to follow or link to the conference, to people who
want to join in the disucssions online. Many conferences have IRC
channels that occasionally produce one or two questions. We should
strive to have as much feedback coming from IRC and wiki discussions
as from the audience.
2) We need people to help update the Wikimania website with
information as the conference approaches; and especially DURING the
conference, as new materials become available. Transcripts, podcasts,
etc will turn up on meta and on individual blogs; and we should have a
good portal to that content.
3) As I mentioned previously, we also need transcribers for the
broadcast sessions. We will only have audio and video for the larger
2 of 5 rooms; we could use 4-5 transcribers listening in and typing
out text transcripts for those rooms as well. (I'm sure someone will
be bored enough to tune in :
http://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programme )
3b) If you're COMING to Wikimania and want to transcribe sessions in
the other three rooms, you will have my undying affection. Contact me
directly about that...
Maniacally,
SJ