Ah, August, when people's thoughts turn towards <s>the beach</s> <s>school</s> Wikimania bidding!

==bids==
This is an informal reminder to those interested in bidding for 2012 to start thinking about putting up your public pages:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2012

There isn't a timeline yet but last year's makes a pretty good guide. There's plenty of time, but the sooner you put up your ideas the sooner other people can offer to help :)

Also, please remember that everyone is welcome *and encouraged* to comment on the bids, even tentative bids, with your concerns and ideas; your constructive support will help the bidders come up with the best possible proposal and will ultimately help the bid jury select the best bid. I would love to see more feedback on the bids ahead of time. The bid talk pages are the best place for this.

==bid criteria==
Especially since there is a lively discussion about Wikimania locations and requirements going on now anyway, this is probably a good time to review the existing bid criteria and propose any changes.

A list of past criteria and official requirements (largely the same from year to year, with some minor revision) can be found here:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/Judging_criteria

please discuss and propose changes on the talk page. There are also general comments on many of the individual year pages that it might be helpful to aggregate, if someone has some free time :)

This might also be a good time to consider possible improvements to the process for choosing a bid and running Wikimania, as well as how to move forward with the process for this year (including determining a timeline, bid jury, etc). There was lots of discussion on the lists earlier this summer about a Wikimania committee, but these ideas aren't reflected on the wiki yet; probably the best place for this discussion is:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimania

best,
-- phoebe

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