2010/7/31 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
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.
In 2006 Wikimania in Boston there was a brief, informal meetup of chapter committee, existing chapters boards members and people thinikg to establish their own chapters. I don't know if it was the results of only this meeting but several weeks/months after this meeting Wikimedia Israel, Wikimedia Taiwan and Wikimedia Netherlands were established mainly by people who attended this meeting.
See us 4 years younger:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimedia_chapters_meetup_Wikiman...