Dear all,

There will be almost 70 presenters at Wikimania : academics and researchers, teachers, professional translators, librarians and archivists, sociologists, economists, entrepreneurs, programmers, artists. Many of these are Wikimedians; almost as many are not.

I. Wikimania proceedings preview II. Wiki discussions in the proceedings III. Writing (and media) contest reminder

== Wikimania proceedings preview == You can see abstracts and full papers for the various presentations here, in the wiki proceedings of the conference. Unlike many proceedings, these are available now, though they are not yet complete: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikimania05

== Wiki discussions in the proceedings ==

You are invited (encouraged, even) to comment on each presentation, and to start discussions and ask questions, on its proceedings talk page. Someone in each session will make sure to ask any questions posed on the wiki, during the session itself.

If you have written down wikimedial thoughts elsewhere on the web, or have your own work you wish you could have presented at Wikimania (but didn't submit in time / are being held captive by a saltwater taffygnome), be sure to add a link to thoes thoughts from related abstracts.

To start discussions not covered by one of the sessions, or during the Hacking Days early next week, please add sections to the Wikimania Discussions page: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania:Discussions

== Writing (and media) contest reminder ==

This is the last weekend to nominate great articles, news stories, wikibooks, quote and definition collections, and primary sources, for the Wikimania writing contest. Please nominate your all-time favorites; don't be shy. Did I mention this is a multilingual contest? The predominance of English- and Dutch-language nominations is simply shocking. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania:Competitions

Likewise for the parallel media contest, for images, music, and video. You still have time to upload content not currently on Wikimedia projects and enter it into the contests; some of the categories are yet sparse and ripe for conquest (only 2 audio and 1 video submissions so far... it will be sad if we have to give *both* video awards to Raul's DNA microarray thriller)

In the networked hands of Lufthansa, ++SJ