Hoi, Pine with all due respect, the USA is not the problem and English Wikipedia has been overly subsidised, given way too much attention. Indeed having more people from the USA attend Wikimania is not a good value proposition. The USA and Britain is overrepresented as it is. Thanks, GerardM
On 10 February 2016 at 10:13, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
From a US perspective, even here in the global north we have plenty of students and middle-class participants for whom $1500 in travel, food and lodging plus 5 days away from work, family, or school amounts to a significant or impossible sacrifice.
Perhaps someone could tell us the statistics for how many people have attended Wikimania each year who were not WMF employees, FDC or WMF Board members, scholarship recipients, or financially sponsored by WMF affiliates or WEF. Of those people who pay 100% of their own costs plus the cost of admission tickets, my guess is that many live within a day's travel time by train, car, or bus.
I would hypothesize that thematic conferences also have a low percentage of people who pay 100% of their own costs, but that regional conferences which have lower travel costs for the average attendee receive modestly higher percentages of unsubsidized attendance.
It seems to me that WMF finacial support for conferences, including regional and thematic conferences, will continue to be the norm.
Whether $1 million is appropriate for Wikimania and whether a more modest budget would be appropriate and feasable are different questions that merit careful reflection.
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