Hi Cary,
thanks for bringing this up. I agree definitely that bringing the dates afront is a good thing, even though not all potential has been used yet. However, I also see some disadvantages of bringing the dates forth too much. The main argument here is the loose of momentum *after* the bidding process. Momentum is important, and to start a bidding process almost two years in advance is probably too much for an organization of mainly volunteers where a lot of people don't know what they will be doing in one year time even.
Being on a probably bidding team, I think having the bidding process in october/november is not going to work well. We are already orienting, and to make a good bid, we want to offer a sound financial and organizational basis. However, this costs time, as easy as that. This also requires internal approval within chapters if they participate in the bidding process, which also takes time. It will be very tough to find sufficient willing potential sponsors and supportive organisations more then 1,5 year in advance of the conference.
We did discuss this quite extensively already actually internally (within the NL bidding team), and concluded that it would be nearly impossible for us to compete if the bidding process would take place this early in the year. Please also bear in mind that some chapters, especially in Europe, are organizing their national conference in the fall (this time that is an appropriate word to use ;-) ) of this year, and since there is quite some overlap in the people, that would potentially cause major problems.
So to conclude, please let's not rush things, and offer people from all over the world to create a great bid, with a good basis. Especially a bid that will after all also be able to be executed as planned, which is harder if there is more rush in the creation of the bid.
However, I would plea to make the bidding process somewhat longer. Start somewhat earlier with it, and have larger spans. Let's try to finish it in March, but already start it in November or December. This would offer the best of both worlds I believe.
Also I believe that if a group of people wants to take the momentum from this Wikimania, they will. With or without a short deadline. People don't need a deadline to work on a bid.
Best regards,
Lodewijk Gelauff
ps: to be clear, I am active in Wikimedia Nederland, and working on a Dutch bid for Wikimania 2010. I might be a bit biased with what problems *we* think to encounter with an early deadline. :)
2008/7/11 Cary Bass cbass@wikimedia.org:
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Whether it's those of you who are preparing to go to Alexandria and those of you who are going to get tired of hearing the stories from those of you that did, you probably didn't expect to see that as a subject line quite yet.
However, I'm writing this email now, to allow an ample amount of time in advance of the bidding process to begin to set the dates. This is done for several reasons; not the least of which to allow those interested in bidding ample time for getting their bid ideas into place.
I believe that bringing up the dates for Wikimania 2009 was advantageous for several reasons; the first being that it allows a specific 2009 team to learn from the 2008 conference. The question now is whether bidding for 2010 should take place in the fall, shortly after Wikimania 2008, to take advantage of the momentum generated by the current conference, while the event is still fresh in people's heads; or should we wait until the beginning of 2009, like we did this year with Wikimania 2009.
I'm sure this will be somewhat of a discussion during this year's event. ~ I'd also like to involve as wide a representation of the community at large in the process; this is why I'm sending this email out now, while Wikimania is on people's minds.
Cary Bass Volunteer Coordinator
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