[Foundation-l] [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2008 will happen in Alexandria, Egypt

Wed Oct 10 13:13:46 UTC 2007

On 10/9/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/9/07, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Agreed. Is there anything stopping people from organizing an event
> > > somewhere that isn't so expensive?
> >
> > "Expensive for me" you mean? Someone always loses out.
>
> That is true, which is one reason why rotation is a criteria, but this
> selected location isn't particularly ideal for any of the larger user
> clusters.
>
What's the goal of Wikimania?  Depending on the answer to that, a
location away from the larger user clusters might even be seen as a
good thing.

Considering that there are only about 500 attendees each year out of
the millions of people ever involved in the project (and probably tens
of thousands of whom would attend if it happened to be located in
their city), maximizing the number of attendees certainly doesn't seem
to be the goal.

The number of attendees is so tiny compared to the number of people
who are involved in the project, I really don't think it much matters
where to go.

> So you don't think that if we held the next one in Antarctica that it
> would be less useful?   .... This should be a question of degree.
>
But...NO ONE lives in Antarctica (permanently, anyway).  There likely
wouldn't be any "locals" attending at all.  Location would be one of
many problems, and there'd be virtually no benefit.

> Obviously a conference that lots of people can't go to is less useful
> ... I think there is something wrong when we're holding conferences
> and directly involved people are nearly a minority at them.
>
> > As someone else suggested, hosting local Wikimanias is a good option.
> > Why not get behind Atlanta (I assume you live in the US as you agree
> > with Greg's comments) and organise a US Wikimania maybe a couple of
> > weeks before or after the official one.
>
> Honestly, if we fork the conference with a US version (and potentially
> an offset European version) there is a substantial risk that the
> popularity of these events will endanger the success of Wikimania
> proper.
>
As long as "Wikimania proper" gets first dibs on the speakers, and is
the one that the board attends, I don't see that happening.

> There is also the question of who would front the money for a large
> regional event... though that could be resolved.
>
I thought Wikimania paid for itself.  If the Foundation gave the
Atlanta bid team, for instance, permission to hold the conference
anyway, at the same time as Wikimania, wouldn't there be enough
interested people to make it happen?