This sounds interesting. I know nothing about the technical side either
and would not consider competing for podium space; I don't even know
whether the conference itself would interest me.
If enough people are interested this could serve as the excuse for a
get-together of Wikipedians, particularly the ones on the West coast.
For me it's a leisurely 6-hour drive from Vancouver. There was talk
about such things last year that never materialized.
Ec
Geoff Burling wrote:
This year, O'Reilly will be presenting the Open
Source Convention here
is Portland, Oregon. Since travelling to it is a negligible task
(it's in downtown, & I usually commute further to work than there), I've
been considering making a presentation about Wikipedia at this year's
convention.
However, I can think of about a dozen people who know far more about
the goings-on at Wikipedia than me (e.g., Brion, Magnus, Mav, Ed Poor --
practically everyone on this mailling list), & I wanted to make sure that
1. No one is planning on making a similar presentation;
2. No one minds that I attempt to give what O'Reilly calls a "Session
Presentation" (it's a 90 minute talk) on Wikipedia.
Obviously, I'm not very familiar with the technical side of Wikipedia --
although the challenge of keeping one of the largest Wikiwiki sites up
& running is something that any talk needs to address. My intended emphasis
for this talk would be more on the social side -- as well as addressing
the perennial question, ``Can a distributed group of people write a
useable encyclopedia?" (FWIW, my honest answer to that question is yes.)
More information about making presentations at OSCON is available at
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/os2004/