On Sat, Jul 31, 2010 at 5:34 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 31 July 2010 16:27, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 31 July 2010 16:21, Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il wrote:
But all of the above are nice dreams about the future. Is there any proven experience from the past that demonstrates why personal meetings between Wikimedians are not just fun for them, but actually beneficial to the Wikimedia community, the Internet, the Humanity? Can anyone here give me solid examples of successful projects that were born thanks to past Wikimanias?
Most of the chapters.
Are you sure? Don't chapters come out of local meetups more than Wikimanias? Three chapters pre-date the first Wikimania and one was founded a week after (so I don't think Wikimania can take credit for that). Can you give some examples of chapters you know were founded as a result of a Wikimania? I can imagine some people being inspired to form chapters after meeting people from other chapters, but I don't know any definite examples of it actually happening.
Israel, to name just one.
Not to call them out, but I remember sitting at the chapters meeting at Wikimania 2006 and hearing out some rather vocal arguments against a Wikimedia chapter in Israel. (Seriously, I think we were almost at fisticuffs.) We had extensive discussions during and after the conference, and clarified a lot of misunderstandings.
A few months later, an exploratory committee was founded to investigate creating an Israeli organization, which resulted in what's now one of our most successful chapters.
We get a few chapters a year out of Wikimania, not because locals can't meet with each other by themselves, but because a personal connection is made with other people involved with chapters and they see what it's all about. I know that I, personally, spend a few hours a day during Wikimania talking about nothing but chapters.
To answer the original post, many projects have resulted from random talks at dinners during Wikimania, five-minute chats between sessions, and people just getting to know each other. I wish I could take the time to make a more complete list—I think it would be great if other people would weigh in on this thread, though.
Austin