As far as organising a meet up here in Thailand is concerned, some of us have already tried. The last meeting comprised a Thai who actually lives in Australia, and a Brit who lives 750 km away in the Northeast who was prepared (and probably could afford) to travel down to the capital.

Excellent accommodation is available in BKK from as little as $10 a night for an individual room, food from a few cents, busses are around 30c a ride, and a 20 min taxi ride in the city less than $3.

I'd be happy to come down to BKK  to meet any organisational Wikipedians on their way through. 

Kudpung

Kudpung กุดผึ้ง
kudpung.wikipedia@gmail.com

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On 13 Nov 2012, at 09:19, Taweetham wrote:

I think there are two separate points:

A. Cost of travel, accommodation, venue, visa, etc.
It really depends on how long we are going to stay and how many people
from each country are attending.  However, I believe that Kuala
Lumpur, Singapore and Bangkok are competitive for in this respect.

B. Benefit/Burden to local people
You can think of the meeting as a benefit or a burden to the host if
there is an interaction with the local.  For Bangkok, I can't
guarantee that my colleagues or I will present there physically.
However, we can help you to find reasonable ticket/accommodation and
offer some tips to avoid troubles (getting ripped off or food
poisoning).

I agree with John in general that we should move around if possible.
If a chapter or local group exists, we can and should definitely
interact with them.  However, if it doesn't exist yet, we perhaps need
to demonstrate to them how it looks like.  But bear in mind the
language and cultural differences!  Many local contributors do not
speak English and have various opinions that you may find them
strange.

Whether Australia should be part of Asia is always a hotly debate
subject.  I don't know the answer but I'd like to draw your attention
to
(1) the Australian government recent white paper:
http://www.pm.gov.au/press-office/australia-asian-century-white-paper-australias-roadmap-navigating-asian-century
"All students will have continuous access to a priority Asian
language—Chinese (Mandarin), Hindi, Indonesian and Japanese."
(2) the contribution statistics:
http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportPageEditsPerLanguageBreakdown.htm
http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportPageViewsPerLanguageBreakdown.htm
Australia is listed under Chinese, Cantonese, Korean, and Tamil Wikipedias.

Taweetham

On 13 November 2012 12:27, John Vandenberg <jayvdb@gmail.com> wrote:

Siska and I are going to be in Bangkok before and after Wikimania.

User:JJ_Harrison is going to be in Thailand next year.

I think we could organise a meeting in Bangkok for local people who cant
attend Wikimania.

It would be good to organise an event each year in an Asian country that
doesnt have a chapter, where international attendees are helped by the
locals but not like a conference where everything is taken care of - the
international attendees take care of their own bookings etc. This will help
those countries develop a core group who can start a chapter.

John Vandenberg.
sent from Galaxy Note

On Nov 13, 2012 8:01 AM, "Kudpung กุดผึ้ง" <kudpung.wikipedia@gmail.com>
wrote:

I do  not  follow Facebook for several reasons: I abhor social
networking  sites in  any  shape or form due to  their misuse, hacking, and
abuse of confidential  content and registration data; I  refuse to
acknowledge therefore that  Wikipedia editors should be forced to  use them
to  stay  up  to  date. Any  important  discussions, IMHO, should be kept
on -Wiki, or at  least  n  official  mailing  lists.

Kudpung กุดผึ้ง
kudpung.wikipedia@gmail.com

This is a Wikipedia user's global email account. Contents in  messages to
and from  this email  address are confidential  and may  not  be published
or otherwise quoted on  any  Wikimedia or other websites without  the
express permission  of the account  holder. Opinions expressed in  messages
are particular to  the user and may  not  reflect the aims, policies and
philosophy  of the Wikimedia Foundation.

On 12 Nov 2012, at 22:16, Josh Lim wrote:

Hi guys,

There's talk right now on the Facebook group about a proposed Asian
Wikimedia meeting, similar to the Central and Eastern Europe meeting held
last year in Belgrade.  What do you guys think?

For reference, information on the CEE meeting may be found here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Meeting_2012.

Regards,

Josh

JAMES JOSHUA G. LIM
Block I1, AB Political Science
Major in Global Politics, Minor in Chinese Studies
Class of 2013, Ateneo de Manila University
Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines

Trustee (2010-2013), Wikimedia Philippines
Member, Ateneo Debate Society
Member, The Assembly

jamesjoshualim@yahoo.com | +63 (917) 841-5235
Friendster/Facebook/Twitter: akiestar | Wikimedia: Sky Harbor
http://akira123323.livejournal.com

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