Daniel Mayer wrote:
How are they
going to come to the users? Are they going to have
thousands of meetings? It would take about 5-10 meetings in the US
alone to come within range of a decent majority of users, another 10-15
in Europe, 5-10 in Asia, and so on.
Individual users would travel to the meetings. A day of driving or on a train
can cover a large geographic area. Other international groups also rotate where
they meet in order to cover as much of the world as possible. But creating
these kind of ties is needed for the long-term survival of the foundation.
I'm not sure you realize how big the world is---a day of driving or on a
train covers a miniscule fraction of the world. Covering even 80% of
Wikimedians within a day's train or car distance would require on the
order of hundreds of meetings. In the US alone, it would require
meetings in:
* Some city in the northeast (Boston, NYC, etc.)
* Seattle
* Chicago
* One of San Francisco, Los Angeles, or San Diego
* Phoenix
* One of Houston, Austin, or Dallas
* Atlanta
* Denver
* Somewhere in Florida
Of course we would also need meetings in Canada, 2-3 countries in
northern europe, 2-3 countries in eastern and southern europe, Korea,
the PRC (at least a few cities), the ROC, Singapore, South Africa,
Israel, Turkey, Russia (probably multiple cities), Egypt, Brazil,
Argentina, Australia ... and those are just a bare-bones start.
So I really don't see how regular meetings with a significant portion of
the membership could possibly be a feasible option even in the long
term, unless perhaps suddenly plane flight becomes dirt-cheap, or
Wikimedia becomes willing to fund travel of ordinary users to the meetings.
-Mark