All,
This is final notification that we will stop accepting all Bids for
hosting Wikimania 2008 in just over 24 hours' time, at midnight
(00:00) GMT on Friday 31 August 2007. At that time, all outstanding
Bids including at least some of the fundamental information will be
taken through to the next round, as per the timetable on meta.
If you are considering placing a serious Bid, you have a *very* short
period in which to post it to meta, so please do not leave it any
later.
Good luck to all involved!
On behalf of the Wikimania Jury,
--
James D. Forrester
jdforrester(a)wikimedia.org | jdforrester(a)gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]
All,
This is, first and foremost, a (delayed) invitation to all interested
parties to continue to contribute to the discussion on meta at
[[m:Wikimania 2008/Judging criteria]] regarding the exact criteria
that that the Jury ([[m:Wikimania 2008/Jury]]) will be using in their
judgements on which Bid will be selected to host Wikimania 2008. We
would like as many people as possible to make suggestions as to what
they would want from the conference - after all, a large part of it is
for the community. These ideally should be finalised by 30 August, so
this is a priority.
Secondly, I would like to clarify and expand in slightly more detail
the time-line that the Jury will be using, as I have received some
questions as to how the process will work:
Firstly, on Thursday 30 August (3 days' time), any Bids which have
been put up on meta as proper attempts will be accepted for the next
stage; at this point, no new Bids will be accepted. This means that if
you are considering working on a Bid, *start immediately*.
Then, on Sunday 23 September (24 days later), all Bids should be
complete. This includes information on venue & accommodation, budget &
sponsors, proposed dates, and the local team who will work on it (see
[[m:Wikimania 2008/Official requirements for bidding cities]] for some
more information) on this. There will be a public IRC meeting (on the
Freenode network, probably in #wikimania - details to be announced
nearer the time) in which the Jury will discuss things with the Bid
teams and raise initial queries than they have.
>From this point on until Friday 5 October (12 days later) the Jury
will ask the Bid teams questions they have about their Bids, on meta
and also via e-mail. During this period we encourage Bid teams to
tweak their submissions in response to concerns and questions, though
teams are not meant to need to make significant changes to the content
of their Bids at this time.
There will be a private meeting of the Jury on 5 October at which
point they will each vote separately on a grid based on the criteria
that will be finalised soon, with discussion and options to change
votes until a Bid has gathered appropriately-strong support. The
result will be announced here by myself or one of my fellow
Moderators.
The exact voting mechanism is currently being discussed and will be
formally announced some time before the meeting for transparency.
Please note that it is not intended to release individual Jury
members' voting records, but general feedback on each criterion for
each Bid (successful or not) will be provided.
Once the 2008 Bid selection is finished, we will be setting up the
2009 Bid selection procedure, so feedback on how this system worked,
and what can be improved, is very welcome. The best place for this is
probably the talk page of the Jury page, [[m:Talk:Wikimania
2008/Jury]].
Yours,
--
James D. Forrester
jdforrester(a)wikimedia.org | jdforrester(a)gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]
http://en.wikizine.org/2007/08/year-2007-week-33-number-79.html
Read the editorial section in the above link. My opinion on the advetising
was the same. As a member of the team i dont minf addmitting that i only
contributed a small amount near the end of the planning and all offsite, and
acknowledge that a lot of work goes into this BUT.
I AGREE it needs to be better. The only stream i could access was the AD
supported stream and even that was poor. For next year i think this needs
to improve. I propose that we have .ogg and .rm feeds live in a Java player
that can be accessed by ALL users with no ads. Also archives should be up
within the hour or less. Considering the Wikipedia community is pretty much
online based online contribution is a major factor in any of our events and
it needs to get better.
Therefore as soon as the result is announced (which is when?? i digress!!)
we start serious work on this on the mailing list and not leave it to the
last minute. IMO we need to do doubly well next year to make up for this
year.
As part of this i propose that we start forming a team of people who are
willing to work on the online side of Wikimania 08 now in preparation for
next year. Also i think online provisions should be considered in bids,
maybe only as a minor point but i think it should be thought about.
Overall next year i dont want to be reading the same but i think ive said
enough. If anyone thinks differently or the same then say. Lets all help
to change it next year.
Mark
Hey all,
We are preparing for a small conference next month here in Alexandria about
Wikipedia
and we were hoping to use some videos from Wikimania 2007 showing the nature
of events and the community generally.
I found this streaming <http://wikimania.tw/streaming/>
but as mentioned in
<http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Comments#Video_archives
> I'm afraid it's not working
Anyone can update me with what has been done about uploading videos
anywhere?
people in #wikimedia said there were a lot of filming done there, it would
be a loss if we can't get these materials online.
Thanks in advance :)
--
- [[user:Mido|Mohamed Ibrahim]]
- Arabic Wikipedia: http://ar.wikipedia.org/ "Share your knowledge"
Please consider this an announcement that formal bidding has begun today
for Wikimania 2008 host city. Bids can be placed on
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2008/Bids>.
Also, the candidate city selection jury has been announced, the names
can be found here: <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2008/Jury>
Please share this information with any local mailing lists, and
translate where applicable.
Thank you.
Cary Bass
Volunteer Coordinator
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
Phone: 727.231.0101
Fax: 727.258.0207
E-Mail: cbass(a)wikimedia.org
I'm happy we have .ogg files at http://wikimania.tw/streaming/ for the
video coverage, but they are so incredibly HUGE that they are
unviewable. I've tried viewing them with VLC player on Windows and
Mac to no success... it seems that at a certain point my system runs
out of memory. Does anyone know of an open source or freeware tool to
take a large ogg file (300 MB) and split it into reasonably-sized
smaller files? I would prefer software that works on Mac, but Windows
software would also be acceptable.
Also, are there currently any plans to split the files and make them
viewable in an archive? I think an excellent place to put them would
be on dotsub.com, so they could be subtitled in multiple languages for
the hearing impaired and those interested who can't understand
English. Also, would we need explicit permission from the speaker to
release these videos under a Creative Commons license?
Best wishes,
Chuck
Hi guys,
Sorry for not writing earlier. I came home about 24 hours ago, to find a
situation infinitely less organized that Wikimania, to which I had to
give a bit of attention.
I just sent a short word to the Foundation-l, because after what wrote
Andrew, there was not much more I felt like commenting over there.
Perhaps does it make more sense to get into details here :-)
First, and beside anything, I think it was a great Wikimania. I mean it.
We all know about the controversy last year after the decision over
Taiwan, and to be fair, I was worried that things could turn wrong, not
only because the event would fail, but also because I could hear the
complaints afterwards. But really, it was a great event and I really
enjoyed it. Perhaps the one thing which amazed me the most was the
quality of the organization, even though we could see Theodonarian and
others go around quietly or peacefully (or at least, not showing their
anxiety :-)).
The location was a great choice. This is exactly what we should aim for
in the future. In a similar way to the Frankfurt location, it was the
right level of confort, the right size, the right number of rooms etc...
We all agree that last year was too disseminated. This year was simply
perfect. One of my fear for the future will be to be lead to choose big
hotels or convention centers, and lose this proximity which did wonders.
The open space was the best of the three years by far. Putting
everything at the same place was simply fabulous. Adding couches, food,
coffee, olpc stuff, registration, reimbursement, posters, staff room,
podcast... was just so cool. I also loved the big hanging schedule. I
only heard complains from lighting talks people, who would have been
best in the next room probably, because of the noise and space
available. But great job.
Accomodation was imho, just the right level of confort. I know there was
some odd moments in the first few days, but it was fixed and everyone
looked happy. It was clean, confortable, with wifi, common place to
crash, convenience shop etc... Just no comment.
One of the challenges of the coming years will be to find a place where
it is both not to expensive, and a place where we can host invited
speakers and visitors, so that everyone hang together.
Program was very interesting to me. I hope it was as well with most as
well. I suggest that in the future, we aim at something similar, with an
additional focus on workshop and panels, as opposed to regular
presentations. Hacking days are still not working, and many suggested we
could merge them with the main conference. We also need more room for
"private" meetings (chapters, staff, specific topics) in the whole
agenda. But I nevertheless think we did well this year.
Food was very cool, warm, always available. Just as drinks. It seems
easy, but I do not think it is so easy !
A couple of things I was impressed in
1) The Wikimania bag, with all the presents in. Very neat puzzle ball. I
also think the specialized Wikimania map was a fabulous idea. I have no
idea who had that idea, but it was a great idea
2) The constant presence of people available to help. I guess we all
felt very cared for. I did not see the Wikimania welcome team at the
airport (I was there too early), but many commented on this and loved
it. As for me, I remember that a few times, I was coughing as if I was
going to die, and I was amazed to find next to me someone with a tea. I
am not sure we will be able to do that again elsewhere (have this whole
group of volunteers to help), but it sure felt like heaven.
3) the big schedule. It was actually helpful. It creates a meeting
point. I think there is something to expand here, like a schedule
projected on the wall next year (so constantly updated). Or one with
movable elements, and a big ladder to go at the top and switch sessions.
[[edit your conference]] type.
4) the movie from the crew which travelled all over the world with
Jimbo. Was a lot of fun.
5) the wifi was working everywhere
One think I did not like
1) air conditionning is tooooooo low.
I think we need to work further on social events. In Frankfurt, people
loved dancing at the Wikimania party. We should have this in all
wikimania parties. After the movie :-) We need two rooms. One to chat
and one to dance.
I would like to extend a thank you to specific groups.
Registration
Not much mentionned, but I did not hear many complaints and it seems it
worked well :-)
Decoration
I am not really sure who really took care of all this, but all the
decoration/signs etc... was very efficient. People knew where to go, the
big Wikipedia ball was a lot of fun. There were updated sheets in front
of each door. Hanging signs outside were great. Big sponsors panels as
well. Tags as well. All these things are the kind of things you only
really notice when they are messed.
Scholarships reimbursement
I was introduced to the team. Nobody came to complain to me :-) So, I
presume all worked well ! congrats !
Installation and clean-up
I saw most of the installation during the board retreat. All seems to go
smoothly. As for clean-up, I just did not see it. I am sure many people
worked on that, and still, it was invisible. Amazing.
I suspect we are not fully done with the administration, but according
to what I saw, it seemed very efficient.
Press
I am glad I met Frances. She handled all the interviews with great
mastery. There were individual rooms to do that, a daily updated
schedule, management of the requests, handling the modification, press
conference to organize. All of this was beautifully done.
Overall, the words that come to my mouth are efficiency and kindness.
The organization team offered us a great Wikimania. Thank you to all !
(every year, it becomes a more difficult challenge for the next one...)
Ant
I would like to say a huge thank-you to the Taipei team and organizers for
Wikimania 2007, which ended a few days ago. It was a fabulous conference and
you were incredible hosts. The venue and organization were all wonderful,
and the extra touches -- the banners leading to the venue, the Wikiball, the
free coffee, the t-shirts and tote bags for attendees, and much more -- made
it great. The conference was exciting and a pleasure to attend.
A special thanks to Theodoranian, the lead organizer; TzuChiang Liou, the
program manager; Daucter, Dann, Alice and all the registration staff;
Frances and KJ; James, the onsite volunteer coordinator, the rest of the
Taipei team, and the literally dozens of local volunteers who came to help
out. Thank you for your hospitality and for making the first Wikimania in
Asia a success. Thanks also to all the international volunteers who helped
with different aspects -- especially members of the program committee, the
scholarships committee, and the international sponsorships team. It was
great to work with all of you.
best,
phoebe
Hey folks,
So things has just been fixed, we spent last evening till 2 working on
it, and all this morning, but now I'm really happy to announce you
that the Live Streaming is working.
You can find where to get it on the Wikimania Main Page
http://wikimania.wikimedia.org .
At this very moment we only have the main server in Taiwan, and one
relay in germany. If you have a server and you're ok with using it as
a relay for the two next day, please mail me asap. We would need one
in Northern America and an other in Oceania at least.
Be aware that at the end of every session the streaming will stop and
have to pick a new session on Wikimania website.
Pleas spread this information as much as you can.
Thank you