[Wikimania-l] Antw.: What to do about 2012, and the future

Full support - I really don't want to miss the annual Wikimania and instead think - and also know, due to several requests from DE, AT and CH - that local communities, people that never went to Wikimania and maybe never will, want to have these comunity conferences. Manuel Schneider Sent via mobile phone (+49 170 7740589). ----- Reply message ----- Von: "James Forrester" <james(a)jdforrester.org> An: "Wikimania general list (open subscription)" <wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Betreff: [Wikimania-l] What to do about 2012, and the future Datum: Mo., Jan. 24, 2011 21:49 On 19 January 2011 13:04, Harel Cain <harel.cain(a)gmail.com> wrote: To jump in a little late and take this on a different tack, I do. Specifically, I suggest that the annual global conference, "Wikimania", is held in July-August each year, and that around Wikipedia Day (December-January) there is a series of near-continental (rather than global) large meet-ups[0], perhaps called "Wikiconference" or something to distinguish them. This would give "local" teams opportunities to work out how to run such an event at a (slightly) smaller scale[1], and a trial-run so they could bid to run Wikimania based on real-world experience that they know what they are getting in for - and that the jury can use on which to base its decisions. These wouldn't necessarily need to be big, all-out affairs, and they would open up the wiki conference process to more people. It would allow new editors a more local conference to which they could go with less effort than flying half-way around the world. They could be supported by the local chapter, by the Foundation directly, or (ideally) not at all: our conferences should be from the community, not the charities that support us, and should be organised as such. Right now, Wikimania is very cliquey - I'm one of only 10-15 people who have been to every Wikimania, and a lot of the time us old people just hang out which each other. Wikimania sadly does not serve the majority of our editors very well. It's biased towards rich, young white people without dependants who speak very good English and are out-going[2]. Local Wikiconferences would help open back up the social, community side of Wikimedia - one of our very best features. Just an idea[3]. :-) J. [0] - Off the top of my head, I could foresee one each in (say) East Coast North America, West Coast North America, Latin and South America, Europe, Africa, South Asia, East Asia, Russia and Central Asia, and Australasia. [1] - The 150-person West Coast Wiki Conference on 15th January was a great example of a light-weight but very successful wiki-related conference that took a huge amount less effort and planning than a full Wikimania. [2] - Over time this is becoming less and less reflective of our community, but it isn't reflected at Wikimania. :-( [3] - I'm sure other people have had this idea before, as I've discussed it pretty much every Wikimania since 2006... Not trying to take the credit here! -- James D. Forrester jdforrester(a)wikimedia.org | jdforrester(a)gmail.com [[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] _______________________________________________ Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l