Naturally, it's not my intention to be unfair to the organizers. I know you're doing your best. I do want to know what I'm getting into when I go to speak somewhere though!
(in case you're wondering:"Everything you know about Wikipedia is wrong". Saturday, 09:00, together with mindspillage, ironholds, and fluffernutter . It's going to be fun! Are you coming? :-) )
I think our main conclusion at the end of this will be that we need to do more outreach in arab, north african, and west-asian countries.
On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 10:39:59PM +0300, Harel Cain wrote:
In fact, it would be really interesting to see just how many people from the Arab Middle East attended any previous Wikimania. For 2008, please check how many attendees came from countries that were not Egypt.
That is definitely a good idea. I'd try to generate statistics and graphs, if someone can help me dig up existing attendence figures/records.
(I'd sign a lightweight NDA if required to maintain attendee confidentiality.)
(Note that the content and format of the attendee databases will determine whether it is viable to generate said statistics in a reasonable amount of time.)
I attended Wikimania in 2007 (Taipei) and 2010 (Gdansk) and I recall just a handful of attendees from Arab countries in each.
This is true by my recollection.
I think those numbers will be teaching, and will put this discussion in the true perspective it deserves.
Well, I think we've learned that we need to do more outreach in arab countries, and that possibly we need something other than wikimania.
This does not make wikimania useless however; wikimania serves a lot of other functions besides outreach, of course!
sincerely, Kim Bruning