Anthony wrote:
What's the goal of Wikimania? Depending on the
answer to that, a
location away from the larger user clusters might even be seen as a
good thing.
It's an opportunity to see the human side of the ogres that you meet on
line. It cements relationships among active people. It can draw
significant people to a world event when they might not otherwise
attend. It gives global exposure to otherwise local ideas. It's good
publicity about our world-wide scope.
You really should try to attend one.
Considering that there are only about 500 attendees
each year out of
the millions of people ever involved in the project (and probably tens
of thousands of whom would attend if it happened to be located in
their city), maximizing the number of attendees certainly doesn't seem
to be the goal.
The number of attendees is so tiny compared to the number of people
who are involved in the project, I really don't think it much matters
where to go.
Remember that Frankfurt drew more Europeans; Boston drew more Americans,
and Taipei drew more from Hong Kong and Australia.
So you
don't think that if we held the next one in Antarctica that it
would be less useful? .... This should be a question of degree.
But...NO ONE lives in Antarctica (permanently, anyway). There likely
wouldn't be any "locals" attending at all. Location would be one of
many problems, and there'd be virtually no benefit.
Maybe we don't need to go quite so far south. If a US based Wikimania
can happen in Georgia, we should not neglect the possibility that the
Antarctic rotation be in South Georgia. :-)
Obviously a
conference that lots of people can't go to is less useful
... I think there is something wrong when we're holding conferences
and directly involved people are nearly a minority at them.
As someone else suggested, hosting local
Wikimanias is a good option.
Why not get behind Atlanta (I assume you live in the US as you agree
with Greg's comments) and organise a US Wikimania maybe a couple of
weeks before or after the official one.
Honestly, if we fork the conference with a US version (and potentially
an offset European version) there is a substantial risk that the
popularity of these events will endanger the success of Wikimania
proper.
As long as "Wikimania proper" gets first dibs on the speakers, and
is
the one that the board attends, I don't see that happening.
I don't see
that there needs to be a fork at all. Wikimania would
continue as an annual event, but there are 11 other months in the
calendar. Local or regional get-togethers don't need to be completely
tied to national boundaries. Here in the Vancouver-Seattle-Portland
sector of the I-5 corridor I can go anywhere on fairly short notice, and
at relatively small expense. The geographical size of Canada and the
United States turn national events into major efforts. I don't know how
the Aussies view travel between Sydney and Perth.