Hey Lane,

I think the meeting spaces idea was done actually at various Wikimania's (At least I'm pretty confident about a few who did it in a structured way) and after a while it was moved to the break times (which is why we have such long breaks usually), but still in rooms on-site. I recall at least one such meeting in Washington where we both were present. Such meetings were also possible in Esino Lario.

I know there were some serious experiments about this (definitely in Boston/Taiwan) on having open spaces that could be used in unconference style. If you want to experiment with that again, it's probably good to dig a bit into that, and gather lessons from the previous years for an optimal experience. 

Best,
Lodewijk

2016-07-07 14:27 GMT+02:00 Lane Rasberry <lane@bluerasberry.com>:
Hello,

On Wed, Jul 6, 2016 at 2:17 PM, Marc-Andre <marc@uberbox.org> wrote:
Hey Pine,

On 2016-07-06 01:44 AM, Pine W wrote:
Those of us in the US have expressed a hope that WikiConference North America 2017 can be united with Wikimania 2017 in Montreal.

 Like many others on the list, I'm not entirely clear on what you'd like to achieve?

The intent of having a North America meetup would be developing regional connections in least expensive, most attractive place to bring local people together. The problem to address is that very active Wikimedia members in North America mostly have not met each other, and consequently, the social networks which ought to be developing over time have not yet been established.
 
Backing up - one way to improve Wikimania to meet this and other demands is to 
1. Have extra spaces for small meetups
2. Put those spaces on a public schedule which can be edited by the community

There has never been a Wikimania to attempt this yet. Having 2-3 open rooms which can be reserved by groups without organizer review for semi-private meetups would be a big help. There might be demand for more space - I do not know, but that should be a minimum.

In retrospect, many Wikimanias are in venues with extra space, and anyone could have set up on-wiki schedules for events in those spaces. But in practice, if the open spaces and schedule is not set up online in advance, then it becomes very difficult to set up group meetings in a set location close to or during the conference. Organizing at Wikimanias is sensitive and the conference planners need a schedule under their control, and there should be some open schedule space, and both should be very easy to find and as close together as possible.

yours,
 
Certainly, any topics that would have been welcome and appropriate at a the WikiConference would be welcome at Wikimania, with no need of distinct tracks?

Certainly, some meetings will have discussion topic that would be generally less interesting to an international audience; but then remain suitable for meetups.  (Speaking of which, there will be a lot of available space and time for both organized and impromptu meetings in Montreal that are self-organized by the participants; both BoF sessions that are organized in advance with scheduled time and places as well as space set aside for unconferency impromptu meetings).

That said, if you feel the need to avoid division of audience, we do have two full days of preconference during which it may be possible to make additional meeting space avaliable for a more "distinct" WikiConference?

-- Coren / Marc



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Lane Rasberry
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