On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 5:32 PM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:

Wikimania 2011 has come, yet again another location in the middle-east.

It seems to me that every major populated geographic region has a multitude of sites which could create viable wikimania candidacies— and this has certainly been supported by the past applications.

A leading application takes an enormous amount of work, expenditure of political energy, etc. on the part of the proposing team— work that could perhaps be applied to advancing the Wikimedia mission in other ways for candidacies which are ultimately fruitless.

I believe that if you were to take the best candidate from each region and compare among them you'd find them all to be excellent options and ultimately end up choosing based little details and preferences, often ones mostly outside of the control of the applicants.

Accordingly I believe it would be better if we pre-announced a preferred geography for the candidacies each year.

Effort could then be conserved for producing really excellent proposals in those years when a candidacy is most likely to be successful. This could also be expected to result in better applications.

Ah, rotation, the bane of Wikimania planning... or perhaps the challenge, the opportunity?

This seems like a good opportunity to propose an idea I have had for a long time, and have discussed with many people, but have never formally proposed.

I'm interested in seeing a community-based group being formed to work on the on-going issues surrounding Wikimania. Such a group could (for instance):

* work on documentation of past conferences and best practices, so each new team does not have to work hard to get this information (as is currently the case) * set the timetables for choosing future locations and perhaps provide optimal planning schedules (much as the election committee does, in years when it exists) * provide a centralized resource of knowledgeable people that all interested parties (Foundation staff, conference planners, community members, etc) could turn to with questions and ideas * and last but not least.... actively hold and host [and perhaps come to consensus on] discussions such as this (the rotation issue) which has come up every single year in the public and private bid discussions, to no resolve.

I imagine such a group would be separate from the year's actual conference planners and the bid jury. This would rather be a group of those interested and those with past wikimania experience -- perhaps less formal than the current standing committees but more formal than the current situation of "whoever happens to work on wikimania and answer their mail." Imagine a really engaged wikiproject.

I have had this exchange more than once: "Hey Phoebe, how do I contact the Wikimania group [with my idea for the future/question/proposal]?" "You do realize there's no such thing, right?"

And I would like to change that situation.

What do you all think? Anyone interested? Starting on meta seems like a good idea: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/community

-- Phoebe