Hi

Sorry for the spam like email but this is just an email to let you all know about the Wikimania 2008 Call for Participation.  I have included this below, and the page can also be found on the Wikimania wiki @ http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Call_for_Participation. Please do forward this onto any local project mailing lists or anyone else who may be interested in this.  Also there are translations in the following languages: de/Deutsch es/Español fr/Français ja/日本語 pt/Português sv/Svenska zh/中文.  More translations are always welcomed and appreciated, so please see the translation page to help out.

Many thanks

Mark
(User:Markie)


Call for Participation

Image:Wikimania logo with text 2.svg

Wikimania is an annual global event devoted to Wikimedia projects around the globe (including Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikinews, Wiktionary, Wikiversity, Wikiquote, Wikispecies, and Wikimedia Commons) and for its editors and users to gather, meet each other, exchange ideas, and report on research and projects. It is a community event, which is also open to the public and to researchers. This year's conference will be held from July 17-19, 2008 in Alexandria, Egypt at the new Library of Alexandria (Bibliotheca Alexandrina).

The Wikimedia Foundation projects

For more information, please visit the Wikimania 2008 Home page at http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org

We are accepting submissions for presentations, workshops, panels, posters, open spaces, and artistic artifacts. Please carefully follow the submission guidelines below. Submissions can be sent via the following link:

https://wikimedia.pentabarf.org/submission/wikimania2008

Important dates

Conference Tracks

Submissions should address one or more of the following themes:

Wikimedia Communities 
Interesting projects and particularities within the communities; policy creation within individual projects; conflict resolution and community dynamics; reputation and identity; multi-lingualism, languages and cultures; social studies. We explicitly invite you to discuss your local Wikimedia project's community.
Free Knowledge 
Open access to information; ways to gather and distribute free knowledge, usage of the Wikimedia projects in education, journalism, research; ways to improve content quality and usability; copyright laws and other legal areas that interfere with Wikimedia projects. Free Content in the Middle-East/Africa.
Technical infrastructure 
Issues related to MediaWiki development and extensions; Wikimedia's technical infrastructure; new ideas for development (including case studies from other wikis or similar projects).
Scientific track 
Academic papers about massively collaborative work, open and free content creation, community dynamics, the social or economic aspects of the Wikimedia projects, and other topics related to Wikimedia projects. Papers submitted to the scientific track will be peer reviewed by a reviewing committee regarding their novelty, rigour, and estimated impact, and accepted or rejected based on these reviews. The papers will be published in proceedings afterwards, and depending on the number and the quality of the submissions, a journal special issue may be pursued. Scientific track papers must be in English, and must not exceed 7,500 words (or 15 pages LNCS).

Your topic must be related either to the Wikimedia projects and their communities, or to the creation of free content in general.

Types of Submissions

We are seeking submissions for

In addition there will the possibility to give lightning talks (5 minute short presentations). These will be organized on the Wikimania 2008 wiki without need to submit via the submission system.

Submission Guidelines

Wikimania is organized by volunteers, so please help us minimize wasted effort by submitting via the submission system and following these guidelines. All submissions MUST explicitly include the following:

  1. an English "Event title"
  2. a short English "Abstract" of your event in 50 to 100 words. The abstract will be used for the public schedule.
  3. the "Track" your submission fits in best (Wikimedia Communities, Free Knowledge, Technical infrastructure, or Scientific)
  4. the "Event type" (presentation, workshop, panel, poster, artistic...)
  5. information about the speaker (full name, email, a short description of at least 2 sentences...)
  6. for submissions to the scientific track: set "Submission of paper for proceedings" to "yes" and upload a paper instead of the "Description" below as "Attachment". Papers must be in English, and must not exceed 7,500 words.

In addition you can add some more information like a a subtitle of the event, an image (will be resized to 128x128px) and private "Submission notes" for reviewers and conference organisation. In particular you should give:

In the "Submission notes" you should tell us whether you will attend to Wikimania (a) surely, (b) probably, (c) only if your submission is accepted, or (d) only if we provide travel and/or accommodation. You can also add yourself to the public list of attendees at the Wikimania 2008 wiki: http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Attendees

Please note that all submissions must be dual licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License version 1.2 or later and the Creative Commons Attribution License! By submitting for Wikimania 2008 you agree to this condition.

For more information see the submission guidelines at http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submission

Submissions

Once you are sure you have included all of the required information, please send your submission before the respective deadline through our submission system:

https://wikimedia.pentabarf.org/submission

See also