It’s that time of year, everyone! We’re making great progress on Wikimania planning, and you should see registration coming open in the next few weeks. We’d like to identify and invite our keynotes in the next few weeks as well, so we have a request for anyone who’s planning to participate. Who would you like to see as a keynote speaker, and why would you like to hear that person speak? Contribute your suggestions to http://wikimania2012.wikimedia.org/wiki/Schedule/Keynote by January 7, 2012.

There are a few special guidelines for this nomination process that may be different from other nominations in which you’ve participated in the past. First and foremost, the Program Committee is only requesting positive information on nominees. If you have something to share that might reflect negatively on a keynote candidate, please send it through email or another private channel. You’ll also note that the nomination page does not make use of wikitable markup; we’d like to encourage active participation by many members of the community, including those who might be stymied by markup that can seem intimidating to new users. Additionally, we recognize that this is a very short period for nominations.

Interested in joining the Wikimania 2012 Program Committee to help make decisions like these and shape a program that will be most meaningful to you? Just let me know!

Best, Tiffany Smith Program Committee Chair, Wikimania 2012 tiffany.lmb.smith@gmail.com