Hello everybody,
As you all know, Wikimania is only in one place in the world. And
well, lots of people are unable to attend. On #wikimedia , we had a
healthy discussion about the possibilities of side-events. Both
national as continental events had supporters, but the biggest contra
was that it could be a competitor for the WIkimania. That is why this
idea came up:
1) A annual world wide Wikimania, about august
2) Lots of national events, as far as countries or parts of countries
of groups of countries care to orginize them: about october, november
3) Continental Events, about march. Of cource as far as the
continents feel ok to orginize them. Only one event per continent of
this size.
The big advantage of this is of course that they will be as least as
possible competetors of eachother. People dont have to drop one
meeting to join the other one. Further it will be as much as possible
possible to share people in the organizations, so that more poeple
will get experience, but also that the people who have already
experience, will be able to help with the number of events.
That national events are wanted, is proven already numerous times by
Wikimedia Deutschland, Wikimedia Nederland and also in China, Poland
and other countires. People like to meet eachother, and have a good
conference in their own language. They can speak much more freely,
mostly about a smakker group of projects, and share thoughts more
easily.
The continental events could be like wikimania, so a conference mainly
for the active contributors, but could also get another character. The
orginizers should really think well about this. What kind of public do
you want to attrack, what kind of event do you want it to become. The
major pro for this event is that the travelcosts will be reletively
low, and people will go somewhere with somehow, minor or less, the
same culture.
The big Wikimania would mainly be for the world wide public, would be
for sharing thoughts such as "how do you guys do this, and you?".
People from all the communities could meet eachother, and a lot of
mixing of thoughts could happen. However, it is very well possible
that Wikimania would change it's identity over the years, as the
tradition is not that old. Time will learn.
Of course it is quite impossible to have a Euromania-like event
already in march, (name is already trademarked, btw) so this would
comply starting from august 07. I think this should not be a fixed
think of the foundation but more like an advice to the orginizing
parties. Try to plan your conferences a bit like this, that way we
won't be obstacles to eachother. We will be the least competitors this
way.
I think it would be very good to start thinking about a
Euromania/Asiamania for 2008 march (the european is already nicked as
Stroopwafelmania i heard, [[m:Talk:ASA]] ) but I think a lot of
chapters etc are thinking about setting up a national conference
already. We did in the Netherlands to my view successfully last
september 2nd, but one of the evaluationpoints was that there was
still too much competition with the Wikimania in Boston. I think this
proofs somehow that we should indeed think about spreading, and lean
from the experiences we had. at the dutch conference we had problems
with the organization, but also with the public and speakers, because
of Boston. People were busy with that too, and were unable ot less
able to spend time at Wikimedia Conference Netherlands.
Please, I'd like to invite everybody involved or willing to be
involved with events to discuss this, and maybe we can make some sense
out of this too long writing. (sorry Improv)
Hoping to hear mostly constuctive reactions,
Lodewijk Gelauff, Effeietsanders
(fellow-orginizer Wikimedia Conference Netherlands 2006)