Hi,

One could also read that differently. But lets not go into that discussion right now - it is not about whether WMUK is right or wrong to allocate such amounts of money (if it were to make that decision at all, as stated it is only a draft proposal by a working committee to the board and then we as members still have a say about it), it is much rather about the future: what kind of wikimania do we want? I explained my preference (primarily volunteer run, lower expectations and less expensive - focus on the community rather than the PR component) and others have explained that they have (sometimes) other views such as móre professional, móre visitors and móre fancyness. The London bidding team is clearly opposite to my personal view of what a Wikimania would ideally look like. Lets not try to play it on the jury of the 2013 wikimania (which I was in, by the way) but lets have the general discussion about what we would like to see for 2014 and further. Based on that, we can indeed try to draw conclusions. 

Lodewijk

2012/8/26 WereSpielChequers <werespielchequers@gmail.com>
I agree that it would be wrong for chapter money to go into Wikimania bids, especially as some bid teams have access to resources that others don't. However London lost the last bid against  Hong Kong partly because it was deemed not to have "solid support from the chapter". Considering how much support there was from the chapter it would be difficult to see how the UK chapter could give more solid support without supplying paid staff time. So the logical response to the jury's decision http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimania-l/2012-May/003491.html is to budget for more solid support from the chapter.

If the Jury had said that both bids were very good , but for 2013 it was really time for another Wikimania in the Far East then we'd be in a different situation. 

WSC 



On 25 August 2012 20:32, James Hare <messedrocker@gmail.com> wrote:
Staffing is a very good thing to spend money on—while executing the conference. Spending $62,000 on staff for a bid would be worth the investment if bidding for Wikimania were anything like bidding for the Olympics, but it is not. The spirit of Wikimania is ultimately from its volunteer leadership, and if the Wikimedia UK volunteers cannot muster that spirit to run their own bid, they have no hope and no soul.


James


On Aug 25, 2012, at 3:28 PM, Itzik Edri wrote:

Sorry, it's undiplomatic to interfere with others budget plans - but I just can't ignore how the future of Wikimania will look like if others will follow UK plans to invest £40,000 only for the bid process (about 62,000$).


"Hire a production company for half of this cost. It's really waste of donors money, for what we expect to be done by volunteers, or for a minimum costs. If every one who going to bid for Wikimania will spent this amount of money (and why them not? if UK can, why others not?), it's mean that for 4 places every year we are "spending" more than 260,000$ only for the bid!!!. --217.132.1.140 19:22, 25 August 2012 (UTC)"

I really think the "Wikimania" groups need to speak about that. It's the first time a group/chapter spending such amount of money for bid, and it's open a door for next cities to do the same - with money which can uses to invest in Wikimania itself.


Itzik

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