I suggest we take this on a positive direction and ask the wider
community for "virtualisation" proposals/grants immediately after
Wikimania, not just to support Wikimania 2016, but all of our other
events, potentially down to the level of edit-a-thons (which I have
run successfully with live hangouts + IRC participation with no
expenses incurred).
Some suggestions in this thread for solutions, such as amateur
recording of video casts or audio recording to supplement
presentations, are worth facilitating, as would using this conference
as a platform to experiment and demonstrate virtual reality presence
and remote participation. Even a simple rolling Wikimania google
hangout for those that can't be there, to drop in and chat about
events and ideas would be great. A someone who is advised to avoid
long flights for medical reasons, it would be great to have the
opportunity to take part beyond this email and the odd comment on the
meta wiki.
Reporting the cost of all aspects of Wikimania is critical. Measuring
the return on investment for producing videos is an excellent thing to
do, though I would expect when this is compared to the returns and
environmental impact of so many international flights, there is more
that could be done at a cheaper burn rate than the estimated $1,000 /
hour.
Fae