The Wikimania jury has met and are pleased to announce that Wikimania 2007 will be held in Taipei, Taiwan. Taipei had the winning combination of a dedicated and experienced bidding team, a great venue with centralized accomodation and community areas, and strong sponsorship opportunities. Taipei also provides the opportunity to focus attention on the growing Asian language projects and the international aspect of the Wikimedia Foundation, as well as learning about other free knowledge efforts and projects in the region.
This was a very difficult decision. Every one of the shortlisted bids this year were outstanding. The Turin bid came in a close second; their team made a great effort to procure two strong locations and extensive government support, and gathered the Italian community together to develop an outstanding bid. Alexandria deserves recognition for bringing the Egyptian and Arabic-language community into the spotlight, and for finding a remarkable venue partner in the Library of Alexandria. London also produced a very strong bid, with a great venue, focus on educational outreach, the diversity of London, and the strong Wikimedia UK team.
Thank you to all of the bidders, including those who did not make the shortlist, for your time and energy in developing these bids. We hope this year's city teams will find ways to build on the contacts and sponsors developed in the bid process for a 2008 bid or for hosting a regional event.
We strongly encourage all who bid this year, and those of you wondering whether your city could have done the same, to consider preparing city bids for Wikimania in 2008 or 2009. Unofficial bids for 2008 should be started now, as the decision on that city will be made this winter (more details on 2008's bid process coming soon; watch http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2008/Bids for updates).
Now the work for the winners will begin, as they develop plans for the conference next summer. We encourage the entire community to support Taipei over the coming year in producing an outstanding conference.
With thanks, The 2007 Wikimania bid jury
Yes finally a wikimania in my neighbourhood. It was a shame Singapore fell out earlier though
Waerth
The Wikimania jury has met and are pleased to announce that Wikimania 2007 will be held in Taipei, Taiwan. Taipei had the winning combination of a dedicated and experienced bidding team, a great venue with centralized accomodation and community areas, and strong sponsorship opportunities. Taipei also provides the opportunity to focus attention on the growing Asian language projects and the international aspect of the Wikimedia Foundation, as well as learning about other free knowledge efforts and projects in the region.
This was a very difficult decision. Every one of the shortlisted bids this year were outstanding. The Turin bid came in a close second; their team made a great effort to procure two strong locations and extensive government support, and gathered the Italian community together to develop an outstanding bid. Alexandria deserves recognition for bringing the Egyptian and Arabic-language community into the spotlight, and for finding a remarkable venue partner in the Library of Alexandria. London also produced a very strong bid, with a great venue, focus on educational outreach, the diversity of London, and the strong Wikimedia UK team.
Thank you to all of the bidders, including those who did not make the shortlist, for your time and energy in developing these bids. We hope this year's city teams will find ways to build on the contacts and sponsors developed in the bid process for a 2008 bid or for hosting a regional event.
We strongly encourage all who bid this year, and those of you wondering whether your city could have done the same, to consider preparing city bids for Wikimania in 2008 or 2009. Unofficial bids for 2008 should be started now, as the decision on that city will be made this winter (more details on 2008's bid process coming soon; watch http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2008/Bids for updates).
Now the work for the winners will begin, as they develop plans for the conference next summer. We encourage the entire community to support Taipei over the coming year in producing an outstanding conference.
With thanks, The 2007 Wikimania bid jury _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Thank you all. As a main organizer of Taipei bidding team, I sincerely invite all Wikimedians to come to Taipei in 2007. Viva Wikimania!
Titan Deng Theodoranian|虎兒
2006/9/25, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com:
The Wikimania jury has met and are pleased to announce that Wikimania 2007 will be held in Taipei, Taiwan. Taipei had the winning combination of a dedicated and experienced bidding team, a great venue with centralized accomodation and community areas, and strong sponsorship opportunities. Taipei also provides the opportunity to focus attention on the growing Asian language projects and the international aspect of the Wikimedia Foundation, as well as learning about other free knowledge efforts and projects in the region.
This was a very difficult decision. Every one of the shortlisted bids this year were outstanding. The Turin bid came in a close second; their team made a great effort to procure two strong locations and extensive government support, and gathered the Italian community together to develop an outstanding bid. Alexandria deserves recognition for bringing the Egyptian and Arabic-language community into the spotlight, and for finding a remarkable venue partner in the Library of Alexandria. London also produced a very strong bid, with a great venue, focus on educational outreach, the diversity of London, and the strong Wikimedia UK team.
Thank you to all of the bidders, including those who did not make the shortlist, for your time and energy in developing these bids. We hope this year's city teams will find ways to build on the contacts and sponsors developed in the bid process for a 2008 bid or for hosting a regional event.
We strongly encourage all who bid this year, and those of you wondering whether your city could have done the same, to consider preparing city bids for Wikimania in 2008 or 2009. Unofficial bids for 2008 should be started now, as the decision on that city will be made this winter (more details on 2008's bid process coming soon; watch http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2008/Bids for updates).
Now the work for the winners will begin, as they develop plans for the conference next summer. We encourage the entire community to support Taipei over the coming year in producing an outstanding conference.
With thanks, The 2007 Wikimania bid jury _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
I hope I get to go... it's not everyday a minor from the United States gets to go to Taipei.
On 9/24/06, THD theodoranian@gmail.com wrote:
Thank you all. As a main organizer of Taipei bidding team, I sincerely invite all Wikimedians to come to Taipei in 2007. Viva Wikimania!
Titan Deng Theodoranian|虎兒
2006/9/25, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com:
The Wikimania jury has met and are pleased to announce that Wikimania 2007 will be held in Taipei, Taiwan. Taipei had the winning combination of a dedicated and experienced bidding team, a great venue with centralized accomodation and community areas, and strong sponsorship opportunities. Taipei also provides the opportunity to focus attention on the growing Asian language projects and the international aspect of the Wikimedia Foundation, as well as learning about other free knowledge efforts and projects in the region.
This was a very difficult decision. Every one of the shortlisted bids this year were outstanding. The Turin bid came in a close second; their team made a great effort to procure two strong locations and extensive government support, and gathered the Italian community together to develop an outstanding bid. Alexandria deserves recognition for bringing the Egyptian and Arabic-language community into the spotlight, and for finding a remarkable venue partner in the Library of Alexandria. London also produced a very strong bid, with a great venue, focus on educational outreach, the diversity of London, and the strong Wikimedia UK team.
Thank you to all of the bidders, including those who did not make the shortlist, for your time and energy in developing these bids. We hope this year's city teams will find ways to build on the contacts and sponsors developed in the bid process for a 2008 bid or for hosting a regional event.
We strongly encourage all who bid this year, and those of you wondering whether your city could have done the same, to consider preparing city bids for Wikimania in 2008 or 2009. Unofficial bids for 2008 should be started now, as the decision on that city will be made this winter (more details on 2008's bid process coming soon; watch http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2008/Bids for updates).
Now the work for the winners will begin, as they develop plans for the conference next summer. We encourage the entire community to support Taipei over the coming year in producing an outstanding conference.
With thanks, The 2007 Wikimania bid jury _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 9/25/06, THD theodoranian@gmail.com wrote:
Thank you all. As a main organizer of Taipei bidding team, I sincerely invite all Wikimedians to come to Taipei in 2007. Viva Wikimania!
Titan Deng Theodoranian|����
congratulations theodorianian and taipei bidding team :-))) hope to see you again in taipei then ·ң֪���� ;-)
oscar
On 9/25/06, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
The Wikimania jury has met and are pleased to announce that Wikimania 2007 will be held in Taipei, Taiwan.
Congratulations to the Taipei bidding team!
This was a very difficult decision. Every one of the shortlisted bids this year were outstanding. The Turin bid came in a close second; their team made a great effort to procure two strong locations and extensive government support, and gathered the Italian community together to develop an outstanding bid.
I must say that it really hurts me to see, that such a outstanding bid didn't win. I don't want to say that Taipei didn't deserve to win. I'm just wondering if it's wise to encourage Wikipedians all over the world to work on bids like this for 2008.
Back in 2005, when I was member of the bidding team for the first Wikimania 2005 in Frankfurt, we've made a very simple proposal (in relation to this year). It took us a few days (net) of work. The Turin bid probably took the team weeks, if not months. Taking into account that we're not "just" talking about volunteer time, but also about huge commitments of local sponsors (it's unlikely that these can be used for any other Wikimedia event), I'm suggesting to change the process for the Wikimania city selection.
We really have to find a way to avoid such inevitable (and probably huge) frustration among teams and sponsors. Perhaps a list of preferred continents could help, or a much earlier involvement of the jury, whatever. Please don't encourage Wikipedians all over the world to waste their time (and the good will of sponsors) again.
-- Arne
On 9/25/06, Arne Klempert klempert@gmail.com wrote:
We really have to find a way to avoid such inevitable (and probably huge) frustration among teams and sponsors. Perhaps a list of preferred continents could help, or a much earlier involvement of the jury, whatever. Please don't encourage Wikipedians all over the world to waste their time (and the good will of sponsors) again.
Arne is perfectly right in the description of the problem. On the other hand, we are not the first organisation to discover it. Other events (please ignore differences in size by orders of magnitude) such as the Olympic Games do have a candidate city evaluation as well. If one city is chosen, the effort put into 20 other proposals is void.
There is of couse a good reason for the procedure we are currently doing: How do we know which effort is worth before doing it? How do we find the best location that fits our needs? In the long run, you end up having more or less the same system, only by different names.
And there is another issue: How to we keep people working for Wikimania even if "their city" is not chosen this time. It is not wasting the goodwill of companies (especially multinational corporations) to ask if their offer for sponsorship still applies to the chosen location. In 2006, Chinese Wikipedians had a (from what I can see) very successful regional (using the term "regional" for an area with 1.4 billion people is strange, I know) conference. I think it could be worth checking if the conference parameters would still fit for a Italian/Alps/European event.
It is great that we have chosen Taipei, Taiwan ROC as the location for Wikimania 2007 and it would love it to be able to make it there.
Mathias
On 9/25/06, Mathias Schindler mathias.schindler@gmail.com wrote:
Other events (please ignore differences in size by orders of magnitude) such as the Olympic Games do have a candidate city evaluation as well. If one city is chosen, the effort put into 20 other proposals is void.
Sorry, it is very hard to ignore the differences between Wikimania and events like the Olympic Games.
And there is another issue: How to we keep people working for Wikimania even if "their city" is not chosen this time. It is not wasting the goodwill of companies (especially multinational corporations) to ask if their offer for sponsorship still applies to the chosen location.
Right, but the bidding teams were encouraged to look for *local* sponsors. Perhaps it would be better to explicitly forbid the teams to do that before the city is chosen: The Wikimedia Foundation can look for global sponsors long before the selection, and ask local sponsors afterwards, together with the bidding team. Just an idea to lessen the amount of work and minimize the possible disappointments.
Arne
On Mon, September 25, 2006 13:48, Arne Klempert wrote:
Sorry, it is very hard to ignore the differences between Wikimania and events like the Olympic Games.
Actually, as it happens we'd had input from the successful London 2012 Olympics bid team and they were on board with our bid such that we were able to offer Wikimania attendees at minimum a keynote from them and probably a lot more, so it isn't that big a stretch!
Alison
Congratulations to the Taipei team!.
I would love to attend Wikimania 2007 :), when can we work on Invitation letters for those of us who need to get a VISA? (I just got my brand new 'biometric' Venezuelan passport :) ).
And now to work my butt off to save around 5k$ (Airfare is 3k$!).
Damian Finol
Congratulations to the bidding team of Taipei. I believe it was a very good choice - you are very much behind your bid, you feel wikimania in your city ... that came over during your answers in the chat ... well, there's not much to say right now - just go ahead doing a great and fun job :-)
Enjoy each moment of the following month - it will be a memorable period for those who work on the event and for people who will attend it.
Best wishes from Italy,
Sabine
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I congratulate with Taipei team and I'm sure they'll organize a memorable event.
As a member of the Turin bidding team, let me voice a choral "too bad". We had a sort of incredible "astral conjunction" of sponsors *really eager* to have the Wikimania event, the enthusiasm of the whole community, the honeymoon with the media and the commitment of many people from national (and not only) institutions. I wonder if such combination will return in a future. I hope so.
A prayer to the future jury: that's not been this year's case, but should geographic and linguistic criteria be essential in choosing the future locations, please say it in advance, before people start making contacts, put their faces off and spend words.
Good luck Taipei, and good job.
G. (aka Paginazero)
Not that it is up to me, nor should it be, but I intend to be a strong personal supporter of Turin for 2008, and encourage the concept that we should settle this fairly soon.
Gianluigi Gamba wrote:
I congratulate with Taipei team and I'm sure they'll organize a memorable event.
As a member of the Turin bidding team, let me voice a choral "too bad". We had a sort of incredible "astral conjunction" of sponsors *really eager* to have the Wikimania event, the enthusiasm of the whole community, the honeymoon with the media and the commitment of many people from national (and not only) institutions. I wonder if such combination will return in a future. I hope so.
A prayer to the future jury: that's not been this year's case, but should geographic and linguistic criteria be essential in choosing the future locations, please say it in advance, before people start making contacts, put their faces off and spend words.
Good luck Taipei, and good job.
G. (aka Paginazero)
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
If you mean here that we should now already pick Turin to "do" wikimania 2008, I think that would be inappropriate. There are a lot of other cities working on a bid right now, and it would be extremely unfair to change the rules now and don't give others the chance to make their bid up, which might be better, as you don't know what you can expect. Please let's just follow the procedure as stated by the " picking committee" (how should I call them? ;-) ) before and let people prepare their bid, and pick one about november, december. If you meant otherwise, please forgive my lack of english :-)
Lodewijk
2006/9/28, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com:
Not that it is up to me, nor should it be, but I intend to be a strong personal supporter of Turin for 2008, and encourage the concept that we should settle this fairly soon.
Gianluigi Gamba wrote:
I congratulate with Taipei team and I'm sure they'll organize a memorable event.
As a member of the Turin bidding team, let me voice a choral "too bad". We had a sort of incredible "astral conjunction" of sponsors *really eager* to have the Wikimania event, the enthusiasm of the whole community, the honeymoon with the media and the commitment of many people from national (and not only) institutions. I wonder if such combination will return in a future. I hope so.
A prayer to the future jury: that's not been this year's case, but should geographic and linguistic criteria be essential in choosing the future locations, please say it in advance, before people start making contacts, put their faces off and spend words.
Good luck Taipei, and good job.
G. (aka Paginazero)
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 28/09/06, effe iets anders effeietsanders@gmail.com wrote:
If you mean here that we should now already pick Turin to "do" wikimania 2008, I think that would be inappropriate. There are a lot of other cities working on a bid right now, and it would be extremely unfair to change the rules now and don't give others the chance to make their bid up, which might be better, as you don't know what you can expect. Please let's just follow the procedure as stated by the " picking committee" (how should I call them? ;-) ) before and let people prepare their bid, and pick one about november, december. If you meant otherwise, please forgive my lack of english :-)
The procedure as it is evidently needs work, since other bidders (e.g. London) are disappointed at their hard work being pretty much wasted.
The current system seems to ensure a lot of volunteer time and effort being futile. This is damaging to the project.
- d.
it costs a lot of time yes. That's for sure. but on the other hand you can select the best city this way. You can not prospect how good the other bids will be when you don't give them the chance to proof themselves.
But you can go in between. you can do the selection on an earlier point in the selection procedure, and make the demands smaller. Them you can make a selection earlier in the process of preperation, and less time will be "lost". But if you want another procedure, make one, and don't skip the procedure and just choose one. Because next year you will then have an even huger problem, as there will be no bidding candidates which are somehow experienced, and you will have a lot of cities bidding which don't have to be good.
lodewijk
2006/9/28, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
On 28/09/06, effe iets anders effeietsanders@gmail.com wrote:
If you mean here that we should now already pick Turin to "do" wikimania 2008, I think that would be inappropriate. There are a lot of other cities working on a bid right now, and it would be extremely unfair to change the rules now and don't give others the chance to make their bid up, which might be better, as you don't know what you can expect. Please let's just follow the procedure as stated by the " picking committee" (how should I call them? ;-) ) before and let people prepare their bid, and pick one about november, december. If you meant otherwise, please forgive my lack of english :-)
The procedure as it is evidently needs work, since other bidders (e.g. London) are disappointed at their hard work being pretty much wasted.
The current system seems to ensure a lot of volunteer time and effort being futile. This is damaging to the project.
- d.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 28/09/06, effe iets anders effeietsanders@gmail.com wrote:
But if you want another procedure, make one, and don't skip the procedure and just choose one. Because next year you will then have an even huger problem, as there will be no bidding candidates which are somehow experienced, and you will have a lot of cities bidding which don't have to be good.
I don't have to have a replacement to be able to notice that the current one is clearly damaging. Sending some of the Foundation's hardest-working volunteers on a futile task is utterly demotivating.
- d.
And forbidding someone to do work that (s)he wants to do is even more demotivating :(
2006/9/28, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
On 28/09/06, effe iets anders effeietsanders@gmail.com wrote:
But if you want another procedure, make one, and don't skip the procedure and just choose one. Because next year you will then have an even huger problem, as there will be no bidding candidates which are somehow experienced, and you will have a lot of cities bidding which don't have to be good.
I don't have to have a replacement to be able to notice that the current one is clearly damaging. Sending some of the Foundation's hardest-working volunteers on a futile task is utterly demotivating.
- d.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 28/09/06, effe iets anders effeietsanders@gmail.com wrote:
And forbidding someone to do work that (s)he wants to do is even more demotivating :(
That's why we're talking about it now rather than next July or September :-)
- d.
I don't see how this can be avoided, if we want the sort of high quality bids we saw for 2007. The only reason people pushed so hard for such great results was because they knew they were in competition and had a chance of losing. If we focus on minimizing the amount of wasted effort then we will end up minmizing the quality of the bids.
I don't see any reason to scrap the system which brought us the Turin and Tapei bids without any better alternative.
Birgitte SB
--- David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 28/09/06, effe iets anders effeietsanders@gmail.com wrote:
But if you want another procedure, make one, and don't skip the procedure and just choose one.
Because next year
you will then have an even huger problem, as there
will be no bidding
candidates which are somehow experienced, and you
will have a lot of
cities bidding which don't have to be good.
I don't have to have a replacement to be able to notice that the current one is clearly damaging. Sending some of the Foundation's hardest-working volunteers on a futile task is utterly demotivating.
- d.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
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On 9/28/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
The procedure as it is evidently needs work, since other bidders (e.g. London) are disappointed at their hard work being pretty much wasted.
The current system seems to ensure a lot of volunteer time and effort being futile. This is damaging to the project.
The problem this year was that there were so many high quality bids which made it to final consideration, each of which had substantial amounts of effort invested in them. In one way it's excellent that the jury is spoiled for choice, but it's indeed a shame to "waste" that effort. [1]
One issue is the time the process takes. At the moment the whole process, from initial bids to selection, takes only two weeks. To have a practical chance of success, a team really has to prepare all aspects of their bid before the first round officially ends, so it's not just the shortlisted bids who put in great amounts of effort.
Perhaps there could be another round of pruning between the original acceptance of bids and the final shortlist? There were only four bids in the shortlist this year but that number will likely rise as chapters take hold and local communities grow.
--- [1] Many cities who don't succeed may well bid in later years, and much of the work will carry over, but securing sponsorship, venues etc will often be time specific.
On 28/09/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
The procedure as it is evidently needs work, since other bidders (e.g. London) are disappointed at their hard work being pretty much wasted.
The current system seems to ensure a lot of volunteer time and effort being futile. This is damaging to the project.
The problem is that either we make a choice based on three or four groups who've invested a lot of effort - which guarantees wasting a fair lump of effort - or we make a choice before the detailed work has been done, which would mean we save the legwork of the other teams *but* we make a decision based on very little evidence. And if it then turns out that the really really really optomistic bid for Gothab isn't going to work once we start scaring up sponsorship etc, it's a bit late to select an alternative...
It strikes me that any competitive bidding process, where the actual work is devolved to a largely unknown local community, is going to require a degree of wasted effort as all communities bidding try to demonstrate they can achieve the required level. It's not ideal, but neither is it simple ineptitude... it's necessary.
We can do a better job with this procedurally, but honestly, there is only one winner in such a situation. It is ultimately a winner-take-all competition. To the extent this runs counter to the community culture of wikilove, I don't there is an alternative.
On 9/28/06, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 28/09/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
The procedure as it is evidently needs work, since other bidders (e.g. London) are disappointed at their hard work being pretty much wasted.
The current system seems to ensure a lot of volunteer time and effort being futile. This is damaging to the project.
The problem is that either we make a choice based on three or four groups who've invested a lot of effort - which guarantees wasting a fair lump of effort - or we make a choice before the detailed work has been done, which would mean we save the legwork of the other teams *but* we make a decision based on very little evidence. And if it then turns out that the really really really optomistic bid for Gothab isn't going to work once we start scaring up sponsorship etc, it's a bit late to select an alternative...
It strikes me that any competitive bidding process, where the actual work is devolved to a largely unknown local community, is going to require a degree of wasted effort as all communities bidding try to demonstrate they can achieve the required level. It's not ideal, but neither is it simple ineptitude... it's necessary.
--
- Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 9/29/06, Brad Patrick bradp.wmf@gmail.com wrote:
We can do a better job with this procedurally, but honestly, there is only one winner in such a situation. It is ultimately a winner-take-all competition. To the extent this runs counter to the community culture of wikilove, I don't there is an alternative.
I don't think it runs counter to wikilove, but perhaps we need to make it clearer to people that, yes, they may spend weeks on preparing a bid that will not be accepted. And as has been pointed out time and again, Wikimania cannot, should not and will not be the only Wikimedia event happening in a single year.
Organizing events is very much within the domain of chapters, and we have a UK chapter. Is there a reason some of the lessons from preparing the bid could not be used to prepare a more focused wiki event in the UK? (*draws wiki youth camp idea from hat*)
Yes... we have small local meetups, and the international conference. Something in between would be good.
On 9/28/06, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 9/29/06, Brad Patrick bradp.wmf@gmail.com wrote:
We can do a better job with this procedurally, but honestly, there is only one winner in such a situation. It is ultimately a winner-take-all competition. To the extent this runs counter to the community culture of wikilove, I don't there is an alternative.
I don't think it runs counter to wikilove, but perhaps we need to make it clearer to people that, yes, they may spend weeks on preparing a bid that will not be accepted. And as has been pointed out time and again, Wikimania cannot, should not and will not be the only Wikimedia event happening in a single year.
Organizing events is very much within the domain of chapters, and we have a UK chapter. Is there a reason some of the lessons from preparing the bid could not be used to prepare a more focused wiki event in the UK? (*draws wiki youth camp idea from hat*) -- Peace & Love, Erik
Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
James Hare wrote: [fixed top posting]
On 9/28/06, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 9/29/06, Brad Patrick bradp.wmf@gmail.com wrote:
We can do a better job with this procedurally, but honestly, there is only one winner in such a situation. It is ultimately a winner-take-all competition. To the extent this runs counter to the community culture of wikilove, I don't there is an alternative.
I don't think it runs counter to wikilove, but perhaps we need to make it clearer to people that, yes, they may spend weeks on preparing a bid that will not be accepted. And as has been pointed out time and again, Wikimania cannot, should not and will not be the only Wikimedia event happening in a single year.
Organizing events is very much within the domain of chapters, and we have a UK chapter. Is there a reason some of the lessons from preparing the bid could not be used to prepare a more focused wiki event in the UK? (*draws wiki youth camp idea from hat*)
Yes... we have small local meetups, and the international conference. Something in between would be good.
Wikimania Europe, Asia, America perhaps?
On 29/09/06, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
Wikimania cannot, should not and will not be the only Wikimedia event happening in a single year. Organizing events is very much within the domain of chapters, and we have a UK chapter. Is there a reason some of the lessons from preparing the bid could not be used to prepare a more focused wiki event in the UK? (*draws wiki youth camp idea from hat*)
Yes, seeing what can be done to produce a local event would actually be a really good use of the energy.
- d.
Andrew Gray wrote:
On 28/09/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
The procedure as it is evidently needs work, since other bidders (e.g. London) are disappointed at their hard work being pretty much wasted.
The current system seems to ensure a lot of volunteer time and effort being futile. This is damaging to the project.
The problem is that either we make a choice based on three or four groups who've invested a lot of effort - which guarantees wasting a fair lump of effort - or we make a choice before the detailed work has been done, which would mean we save the legwork of the other teams *but* we make a decision based on very little evidence. And if it then turns out that the really really really optomistic bid for Gothab isn't going to work once we start scaring up sponsorship etc, it's a bit late to select an alternative...
It strikes me that any competitive bidding process, where the actual work is devolved to a largely unknown local community, is going to require a degree of wasted effort as all communities bidding try to demonstrate they can achieve the required level. It's not ideal, but neither is it simple ineptitude... it's necessary.
I don't have any problem with the bidding process either. In business when a construction project is up for bids, anyone who wants to have a reasonable chance of winning will have to show that he can do his homework. Bidders for the Olympics put a tremendous amount of money and energy into preparing their bids without any guarantee of return. If they suggested to their potential sponsors that winniing the bid was a sure thing that would be deceptive.
The shortlisted bids seemed to have been very strong, and three of them had to lose.
I don't think that it helps the transparency of the process when someone like Jimbo begins by supporting a bid before the bidding has seriously started. It's the kind of prejudicial comment that tells everyone else to give up before they even try. It casts doubt on whether he believes that the community has enough maturity to make good choices.
An effective self-governing community requires a high level of trust, especially when it errs in its decisions. As time goes on the Gods need to remember that there are more and more people with a long term investment of time and commitment, and that extended commitment is not consistent with acting stupidly. Intervention from on high should be limited to situations where the community has gone seriously off track from its fundamental principles.
Ec
On 9/29/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I don't think that it helps the transparency of the process when someone like Jimbo begins by supporting a bid before the bidding has seriously started.
this is not the point, jimbo imho raises 3 questions which we need to address.
(quoting my email:) *how can we make such fortunate results not disappear down the drain? *would the torino-sponsors be willing to do the same for 2008? *how long can we afford to wait with this without spoiling the opportunity?
oscar
oscar wrote:
On 9/29/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I don't think that it helps the transparency of the process when someone like Jimbo begins by supporting a bid before the bidding has seriously started.
this is not the point, jimbo imho raises 3 questions which we need to address.
(quoting my email:) *how can we make such fortunate results not disappear down the drain? *would the torino-sponsors be willing to do the same for 2008? *how long can we afford to wait with this without spoiling the opportunity?
I have no problem with these questions. It is nevertheless important, assuming that Torino is still interested for 2008, that other cities have the opportunity to make bids that will be considered seriously. Cities interested for 2008 that were either undinterested or unenthusiastic about 2007 could still present something for 2008. To be sure the existing Torino bid will establish a tough standard to beat, but that should not stop others from trying.
As to how long we can wake, I believe that the decision should be made relatively soon. At the very minimum the winners for 2008 should have time to prepare a presentation to the delegates in Taipei inviting them to their city the following year, and generating enthusiasm.
For 2009 and later we need to solidify our processes and timetable for selecting the city. Perhaps the candidates for 2009 can be known in time for Taipei so that people there can start informally expressing their opinion. The final decison must remain with a limited group that is capable of evaluating bids objectively.
Ec
--- oscar oscar.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/29/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I don't think that it helps the transparency of
the process when someone
like Jimbo begins by supporting a bid before the
bidding has seriously
started.
this is not the point, jimbo imho raises 3 questions which we need to address.
(quoting my email:) *how can we make such fortunate results not disappear down the drain?
This is a good question and others have suggested trying to convert the Turin bid a European conference if not an Italian one.
*would the torino-sponsors be willing to do the same for 2008?
That is a bad question. How can we give any opinion on 2008 when we have not seen any of the final submissions. 2008 should be a wide open race except for a preference *against* Asia. But if an Asian bid is three times as better as anything else that preference could be overcome. I think these sort of comments are what led to all the hard feelings in the first place. Wikimanina 2008 could be anywhere. If you want it compete hard, but don't raise false hopes and think of a backup plan of a more local use for the work from the beginning. I really would like to see everyone stop making preferential comments about future Wikimania's, especially people involved enough in WMF that they could possibly end up on some future jury.
*how long can we afford to wait with this without spoiling the opportunity?
This is a good question in refference to a European or I talian meetup and out of line regarding WM2008, The rules for submissions for 2008 bids are already public. The only goal of the jury is should be choosing the best bid. Period.
Birgitte SB
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On 29/09/06, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
(quoting my email:) *how can we make such fortunate results not disappear down the drain?
This is a good question and others have suggested trying to convert the Turin bid a European conference if not an Italian one.
I would be very interested in attending a conference in Torino, certainly, if the details are broadly the same as they were before - it's accessible enough from most of Europe that we could get a lot of attendees for whom Taipei is simply not a possibility, and the European community as a whole is sufficiently diverse and active that it seems the most likely to be able to support a regional conference.
Ray Saintonge wrote:
I don't think that it helps the transparency of the process when someone like Jimbo begins by supporting a bid before the bidding has seriously started. It's the kind of prejudicial comment that tells everyone else to give up before they even try. It casts doubt on whether he believes that the community has enough maturity to make good choices.
Hmm, I seem to have been very misunderstood. I said "It isn't up to me, nor should it be" (or words to that effect, you'd have to look it up). I really meant that.
The committee did a great job this year, and next year's committee will do a great job too.
I know that my opinions are often viewed as carrying a lot of weight, and for that I sincerely apologize. I just like Italy. :) It was just a personal comment.
--Jimbo
Perhaps you do not realize this, but you are listed as being on the jury. This is probably what led to such confusion regarding you role in the selection. This is the only mention I could find on the composition of the jury. In all fairness I stopped looking when I found this assuming it was correct.
"Original jury comprises of the members of the Board : Angela, Anthere, Jimmy Wales, Michael Davis, Tim Shell, to which will be added the new Board member elected in September to replace Angela, and also the core organisation team of Wikimania 2006: Phoebe Ayers, Austin Hair, Samuel Klein and Delphine Ménard. Other members are: Andrew Lih. Other members may be added later." [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2007/Bids#Shortlist]
Birgitte SB
--- Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
I don't think that it helps the transparency of
the process when someone
like Jimbo begins by supporting a bid before the
bidding has seriously
started. It's the kind of prejudicial comment
that tells everyone else
to give up before they even try. It casts doubt
on whether he believes
that the community has enough maturity to make
good choices.
Hmm, I seem to have been very misunderstood. I said "It isn't up to me, nor should it be" (or words to that effect, you'd have to look it up). I really meant that.
The committee did a great job this year, and next year's committee will do a great job too.
I know that my opinions are often viewed as carrying a lot of weight, and for that I sincerely apologize. I just like Italy. :) It was just a personal comment.
--Jimbo
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Jimmy Wales wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
I don't think that it helps the transparency of the process when someone like Jimbo begins by supporting a bid before the bidding has seriously started. It's the kind of prejudicial comment that tells everyone else to give up before they even try. It casts doubt on whether he believes that the community has enough maturity to make good choices.
Hmm, I seem to have been very misunderstood. I said "It isn't up to me, nor should it be" (or words to that effect, you'd have to look it up). I really meant that.
The committee did a great job this year, and next year's committee will do a great job too.
I know that my opinions are often viewed as carrying a lot of weight, and for that I sincerely apologize. I just like Italy. :) It was just a personal comment.
That's a big problem with theology. Churches would be a lot poorer if they didn't consistently misunderstand their God.
In the long run it's not the disclaimer that will be remembered, but the core comment in that message. I clearly prefer to assume good faith, and I recognize that you must often walk on eggshells. Unfortunately the weight of your opinions goes well beyond what you anticipate. I don't know what the proper solution would be. Being completely silent does not seem like a good option either.
Ec
On Thu, September 28, 2006 12:07, David Gerard wrote:
The procedure as it is evidently needs work, since other bidders (e.g. London) are disappointed at their hard work being pretty much wasted.
and
The current system seems to ensure a lot of volunteer time and effort being futile. This is damaging to the project.
Coming a little late to this discussion, could I (as one of the leads on the London bid) say that (a) I don't see the need for a bidding process as at all 'damaging' nor, other than the first few hours after the decision was announced am I that disappointed. Yes, the work is 'wasted' by some views, but much of it will get recycled into other projects (the schools outreach and community outreach programmes we had been planning are still likely to go ahead in some form, for instance) and if you think we were depressed be glad you weren't Paris at the latest declaration of the city to host the Summer Olympics in 2012! So far as I am concerned I am happy that Taipei will be hosting in 2007 and wish them well.
One thing I would definitely say though is that this process did point up a few things that need sorting before the next city is chosen.
1. Travel costs; should be researched centrally by WMF or someone independent from all the bids. It was clear that this caused great friction in this year's bids as Taipei - by their own admission - used this year's prices without taxes and surcharges even though actual-date flight information and charges were available and used by other bids. This meant that the bids information was clearly biased and inconsistent and could mislead the analysts.
2. What is the *point* of Wikimania? Is it just for editors of Wikimedia projects? Is it for technical/academic purposes? Is is (as we in London had planned) a way to expand the 'reach' and use of the Wikimedia projects to the wider population and not just those already in the FLOSS/wiki sphere?
3. Extending from both of these points is that of who the attendees are; the demographics of our editors and how much disposable income they have to be able to fly around the world. In essence this is an old-fashioned network routing calculation as whilst some people may be expensed to attend Wikimania (the board, for example, and some presenters) most attendees aren't and if we aim for 'free and open source' then we should also aim for 'cheap and easy travel' too.
4. A last thought on location is the one of language and locality. The nationality of the host location and its 'default language' don't have that much effect on the conference itself - our working language is english, after all - but they do on the attendees ability to travel in-country and enjoy anything the location might offer outwith the conference.
Could I also suggest that we should be seeking an 'independence of view' from all people concerned with deciding on a venue or employees of same. Brad's support for Torino during the selection period, and Jimbo's recent comment here are, to my mind, very out of place and could easily suggest to many that there is pressure being brought on them.
I was dishearted, indeed, to see that people were making suppositions about different candidate cities external to the information those cities made available about their offerings and that - if geographical considerations are to form a part of the decision-makiong process - they need to be clarified in advance and applied equally.
Alison Wheeler
On 9/29/06, Alison Wheeler wikimedia@alisonwheeler.com wrote:
One thing I would definitely say though is that this process did point up a few things that need sorting before the next city is chosen.
- Travel costs; should be researched centrally by WMF or someone
independent from all the bids. It was clear that this caused great friction in this year's bids as Taipei - by their own admission - used this year's prices without taxes and surcharges even though actual-date flight information and charges were available and used by other bids. This meant that the bids information was clearly biased and inconsistent and could mislead the analysts.
Whether or not the data were or were not biased or inconsistent, they are certainly subject to change, gas prices, politics, etc.
- What is the *point* of Wikimania? Is it just for editors of Wikimedia
projects? Is it for technical/academic purposes? Is is (as we in London had planned) a way to expand the 'reach' and use of the Wikimedia projects to the wider population and not just those already in the FLOSS/wiki sphere?
This is the most poignant criticism of the process. You are exactly right. What the purpose of a gathering is will change over time, as WM has - WM05-06-07. It is certainly not for the convenience of the majority of editors. It is, apparently in 2007, a "bold move" and "evangelical" for a huge population of users who are on the rise. But yes, the point is, this discussion has not reached consensus.
- Extending from both of these points is that of who the attendees are;
the demographics of our editors and how much disposable income they have to be able to fly around the world. In essence this is an old-fashioned network routing calculation as whilst some people may be expensed to attend Wikimania (the board, for example, and some presenters) most attendees aren't and if we aim for 'free and open source' then we should also aim for 'cheap and easy travel' too.
See above. NP complete problems are notoriously difficult to solve. =)
- A last thought on location is the one of language and locality. The
nationality of the host location and its 'default language' don't have that much effect on the conference itself - our working language is english, after all - but they do on the attendees ability to travel in-country and enjoy anything the location might offer outwith the conference.
We shall see how that works out.
Could I also suggest that we should be seeking an 'independence of view' from all people concerned with deciding on a venue or employees of same. Brad's support for Torino during the selection period, and Jimbo's recent comment here are, to my mind, very out of place and could easily suggest to many that there is pressure being brought on them.
Third-person use alert:
Brad commented that the Torino bid looked great. Please note, however, the following:
a) Brad was *never* asked - not *once* to have any input in the process by any member of the community, board member, or jury member. Had I not been following along on the wiki myself, I would never had known about the selection process, deadlines, applicants, finalists, or winner. Does *that* strike you as odd?
b) Brad explicity understood this process to be a *community* process (the merits of which we - and do - disagree about) - see above - but consider the response if he jumps in and says "I'm running this now". /me doesn't think that would be acceptable.
c) So long as there was not rampant fraud or other evidence of hijacking, which judging by the fall out might not be a clear answer, why should this not be considered to be an acceptable community process? If you are suggesting that anything Jimbo or I said to anyone had an effect, please show me where to look for its effect, because it sure isn't in the result.
I was dishearted, indeed, to see that people were making suppositions about different candidate cities external to the information those cities made available about their offerings and that - if geographical considerations are to form a part of the decision-makiong process - they need to be clarified in advance and applied equally.
Which "people" were making what suppositions? I don't understand the implication you are trying to reach, save for your feeling screwed. As for me, I have never been to any of the *applicant* cities, much less finalists, except Orlando, FL. If you want to know about the United States, I'm your man. I am very widely traveled on this continent. If you want to know about elsewhere, ask Jimbo. He's does laps around other world travelers. But how external knowledge of a place fits in to your argument, sorry, does not compute.
Alison Wheeler
Alison Wheeler wrote:
Brad's support for Torino during the selection period, and Jimbo's recent comment here are, to my mind, very out of place and could easily suggest to many that there is pressure being brought on them.
Allow me to clarify that I did not vote in this years selection process, and have no intention of voting in next years. My comment about Torino was based on two things: the closeness of the competition this year, and my own love of visiting Italy in the summer, which I don't get to do very often. It was intended as a personal remark only... to cheer up the Italians. :)
--Jimbo
it would certainly be madness to have procedures that would ask people to do an excellent job twice, let alone many times over.
the questions raised here seem to me: *how can we make such fortunate results not disappear down the drain? *would the torino-sponsors be willing to do the same for 2008? *how long can we afford to wait with this without spoiling the opportunity?
even if the choice of a city hosting wikimania needs to be made sooner and sooner in years to come (we may want to set a limit in "booking" here, say, 3 years?), the bids themselves should always be judged on their own merits first of all, the geographical location being important too, yet coming second in line as a criteria imho.
it may be wise to agree upon this: that a bid which doesn't make it for one year, may run once more and make it the year after. such a prospect, when communicated in advance, could prevent serious disappointment for some of our potential sponsors (they would feel less "turned down" because there is always a second chance). also it would be good to discuss and know this at an early stage: if, from a sponsors point of view, a bid is valid for one calendar-year only, or perhaps also for the next, in case a city isn't elected.
oscar
On 9/28/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Not that it is up to me, nor should it be, but I intend to be a strong personal supporter of Turin for 2008, and encourage the concept that we should settle this fairly soon.
Gianluigi Gamba wrote:
I congratulate with Taipei team and I'm sure they'll organize a
memorable
event.
As a member of the Turin bidding team, let me voice a choral "too bad". We had a sort of incredible "astral conjunction" of sponsors *really
eager*
to have the Wikimania event, the enthusiasm of the whole community, the honeymoon with the media and the commitment of many people from national (and not only) institutions. I wonder if such combination will return in a future. I hope so.
A prayer to the future jury: that's not been this year's case, but
should
geographic and linguistic criteria be essential in choosing the future locations, please say it in advance, before people start making
contacts,
put their faces off and spend words.
Good luck Taipei, and good job.
G. (aka Paginazero)
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Hoi, When people want Wikimania happening in 2007 in their town and they do their best to achieve this, they do this on the basis of competition. They compete. They either win or lose as there is only one place where Wikimania will happen. This is the way of things, considering things to be different is madness.
In Taipei we will have a completely different event from the event in Frankfurt and Boston. Each time we learned new things and the resulting offers for hosting were different as a consequence. Not allowing for this by saying in advance that Turin does not have to do "the work" again is imho stupid. In order for Turin to be a competitor next year, they have to analyse what went wrong; was it their offer, their presentation sheer bad luck?
Trying for Wikimania is without guarantees, all competing cities had a credible offer. Only one could be chosen. Picking out Turin for next year is bad business, it is an insult to the other cities that made an offer and it is a message to other cities that they should not bother for 2008 because it is likely to be Turin.
Turin may compete again, sure, but it has to compete on an equal footing. If Almere 2008 is to be a credible option, there cannot be a prefered city for 2008. It is morally wrong.
Thanks, GerardM
NB Still living in Almere
On 9/29/06, oscar oscar.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
it would certainly be madness to have procedures that would ask people to do an excellent job twice, let alone many times over.
the questions raised here seem to me: *how can we make such fortunate results not disappear down the drain? *would the torino-sponsors be willing to do the same for 2008? *how long can we afford to wait with this without spoiling the opportunity?
even if the choice of a city hosting wikimania needs to be made sooner and sooner in years to come (we may want to set a limit in "booking" here, say, 3 years?), the bids themselves should always be judged on their own merits first of all, the geographical location being important too, yet coming second in line as a criteria imho.
it may be wise to agree upon this: that a bid which doesn't make it for one year, may run once more and make it the year after. such a prospect, when communicated in advance, could prevent serious disappointment for some of our potential sponsors (they would feel less "turned down" because there is always a second chance). also it would be good to discuss and know this at an early stage: if, from a sponsors point of view, a bid is valid for one calendar-year only, or perhaps also for the next, in case a city isn't elected.
oscar
On 9/28/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Not that it is up to me, nor should it be, but I intend to be a strong personal supporter of Turin for 2008, and encourage the concept that we should settle this fairly soon.
Gianluigi Gamba wrote:
I congratulate with Taipei team and I'm sure they'll organize a
memorable
event.
As a member of the Turin bidding team, let me voice a choral "too
bad".
We had a sort of incredible "astral conjunction" of sponsors *really
eager*
to have the Wikimania event, the enthusiasm of the whole community,
the
honeymoon with the media and the commitment of many people from
national
(and not only) institutions. I wonder if such combination will return in a future. I hope so.
A prayer to the future jury: that's not been this year's case, but
should
geographic and linguistic criteria be essential in choosing the future locations, please say it in advance, before people start making
contacts,
put their faces off and spend words.
Good luck Taipei, and good job.
G. (aka Paginazero)
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
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2006/9/29, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:
In Taipei we will have a completely different event from the event in Frankfurt and Boston. Each time we learned new things and the resulting offers for hosting were different as a consequence. Not allowing for this by saying in advance that Turin does not have to do "the work" again is imho stupid. In order for Turin to be a competitor next year, they have to analyse what went wrong; was it their offer, their presentation sheer bad luck?
Turin is not in Asia. (Oh, and we didn't talk about "secret sponsorship", right: how came that a bid as been even shortlisted with this sort of "Yes, you have to trust us: we have a huuuuuge sponsor but we cannot tell you who, secret secret!"? Not talking about strange flight cost, strange "surplus sponsorship" and other funny reason...)
[Beware: this is Gatto Nero's opinion, not "Wikimania2007Torino Bidding Team"'s opinion]
Hoi, Both Turin and Almere are in Europe. Both should be allowed to enter the 2008 competition. Rio de Janeiro or Johannesburg or Adelaide or Dullsville should be allowed to enter the 2008 competition. There is NO reason why they should not be allowed to compete on equal footing.
When there are things about the 2007 competition that were problematic, they should be part of the learning process that may be happening before the competition for Wikimania 2008 starts.
Wikimania 2007 will be in Taipei.
Thanks, GerardM
On 9/29/06, Gatto Nero gattonero@gmail.com wrote:
2006/9/29, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:
In Taipei we will have a completely different event from the event in Frankfurt and Boston. Each time we learned new things and the resulting offers for hosting were different as a consequence. Not allowing for
this by
saying in advance that Turin does not have to do "the work" again is
imho
stupid. In order for Turin to be a competitor next year, they have to analyse what went wrong; was it their offer, their presentation sheer
bad
luck?
Turin is not in Asia. (Oh, and we didn't talk about "secret sponsorship", right: how came that a bid as been even shortlisted with this sort of "Yes, you have to trust us: we have a huuuuuge sponsor but we cannot tell you who, secret secret!"? Not talking about strange flight cost, strange "surplus sponsorship" and other funny reason...)
[Beware: this is Gatto Nero's opinion, not "Wikimania2007Torino Bidding Team"'s opinion] _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
2006/9/29, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:
Hoi, Both Turin and Almere are in Europe. Both should be allowed to enter the 2008 competition. Rio de Janeiro or Johannesburg or Adelaide or Dullsville should be allowed to enter the 2008 competition. There is NO reason why they should not be allowed to compete on equal footing.
I agree that everyone should have the right to compete in an *equal* competition (that's the stress: *equal*). There is no reason why Turin should be favoured for 2008, just as Taipei should have not been favoured for 2007 (even if this has happened). Bids should be evaluated only for what they are and what they say, for the work done, for their accuracy, for they originality (maybe). Personally (and repeat: personally, as Gatto Nero), I think that this proposal - favouring Torino for 2008 - is just as offensive for our work as the choose made for 2007. You know, all this "second choice" thing remember me of Olympic Games in Sidney and then in Athens. Or of a mother that gives candy to their children just to keep them quite. But again: it's my opinion. There are italians really happy for what Jimbo said.
When there are things about the 2007 competition that were problematic, they should be part of the learning process that may be happening before the competition for Wikimania 2008 starts.
Just like changing the jury? Or maybe considering more what people outside uk/en/jury members think and prefer?
Gatto Nero
2006/9/29, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:
Wikimania 2007 will be in Taipei.
Oh, I forgot: we all noticed that Wikimania 2007 will be hold in Taipei. I'm just saying that this was not a fair choose, just 'till someone will be able to bring me factual and believable reasons for this.
Gatto Nero
Gatto Nero, I understand your disappointment, but
* disappointing 7 teams out of 8 was unavoidable; * the jury decided legitimately taking into account all the available information they had - they have the right and the duty to consider geo-political strategies for better achieving the goals of the Foundation. And I might be wrong, bringing access to the free knowledge where such free knowledge is somehow obstacled is one of them.
suspicious innuendos about how the decision has been taken aren't of any help for anyone.
G. (aka Paginazero)
2006/9/29, Gianluigi Gamba gigamb@tin.it:
Gatto Nero, I understand your disappointment, but
- disappointing 7 teams out of 8 was unavoidable;
- the jury decided legitimately taking into account all the available
information they had - they have the right and the duty to consider geo-political strategies for better achieving the goals of the Foundation. And I might be wrong, bringing access to the free knowledge where such free knowledge is somehow obstacled is one of them.
suspicious innuendos about how the decision has been taken aren't of any help for anyone.
Oh Paginazero, per favore: la giuria ha deciso legittimamente? Dear Paginazero, this politically-correctness is starting to disgust me. I really am not so able to lie. My lie-ability level is really low, I can't stand lies over lies. I'm sorry.
Should we deny that Taipei has been shortlisted with no secure sponsorship at all? (Just read what their bid said about sponsor at the time of the shortlisting decision: "The bidding team has contacted several potential sponsors. Some of them have shown great interest in sponsoring Wikimania and covering the core expenses in total on venue, accommodation, and catering. If Taipei is selected as the host city for Wikimania 2007, the detailed sponsorship arrangement will be finalized. According to our conservative estimation, local sponsorship will be no less than NT$1,500,000 (US$45,600+)." http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimania_2007/Taipei&oldid=... ) Why then include Taipei and exclude the other? On which basis?
Should we deny that a bid has been choosen that copied even the idea of a logo from the Torino's bid? Even.
Should we deny that sj said Taipei was chosen 'cause "in the end they had the most surplus sponsorship, in fact"?
Should we deny that this decision caused a rift and quite a fight between the components of the jury?
Who all this denying should be of any help? The community, not even heard about what they thought about all this bid (and I talked with someone, lot of them preferred Torino, others - minus, but my memory could by fallacious - Alexandria, others - more minus - London)? Jimbo, or other WMF members? Or sj, maybe?
I prefer not to lie, and not to deny. I think is more useful find WHY and HOW all this could have been happened. And that's what I'd like to be done, more than talking about "maybe something in Torino in 2008, but wait - in 2008 there's Australia so... whatever, bye Turin, welcome Sidney".
Gatto Nero
(I started working on wiki full of idealistic thoughts of collaboration, correctness, and of working for a bigger aim. I'm really sick at seeing how much economic interests and politic there is here. Really sick.)
On 9/29/06, Gatto Nero gattonero@gmail.com wrote:
2006/9/29, Gianluigi Gamba gigamb@tin.it:
Gatto Nero, I understand your disappointment, but
- disappointing 7 teams out of 8 was unavoidable;
- the jury decided legitimately taking into account all the available
information they had - they have the right and the duty to consider geo-political strategies for better achieving the goals of the Foundation. And I might be wrong, bringing access to the free knowledge where such free knowledge is somehow obstacled is one of them.
suspicious innuendos about how the decision has been taken aren't of any help for anyone.
Should we deny that Taipei has been shortlisted with no secure sponsorship at all? (Just read what their bid said about sponsor at the time of the shortlisting decision: "The bidding team has contacted several potential sponsors. Some of them have shown great interest in sponsoring Wikimania and covering the core expenses in total on venue, accommodation, and catering. If Taipei is selected as the host city for Wikimania 2007, the detailed sponsorship arrangement will be finalized. According to our conservative estimation, local sponsorship will be no less than NT$1,500,000 (US$45,600+)." http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimania_2007/Taipei&oldid=... ) Why then include Taipei and exclude the other? On which basis?
I don't recall any bid including signed sponsorship contracts; so in every case sponsorship was in some way "not fully secure". Sponsorship was also only one of many factors in the decisions (and conspiracy theories aside, it never seemed like the most important one).
Should we deny that sj said Taipei was chosen 'cause "in the end they had the most surplus sponsorship, in fact"?
Out of context. Taipei was not chosen "because" of sponsorship, at least that was not the deciding factor for me, though (see above) that was one of the factors considered for every bid.
The above quote (I did not say 'because') was in response to the claim that Turin had full sponsorship, unlike other bids; when in fact it was not the only bid with full sponsorship (and in some ways that bid had less sponsorship than Taipei's; cf. breakfasts). Again, beyond noting the bids for which all major costs were covered, the specifics of sponsorship amount or surplus was not a deciding factor in the discussion.
Should we deny that this decision caused a rift and quite a fight between the components of the jury?
It's funny, it caused a rift a day and a half after the decision, after a lot of emotional comments from the community; it did not during the jury discussion.
-- SJ
2006/9/29, SJ 2.718281828@gmail.com:
I don't recall any bid including signed sponsorship contracts; so in every case sponsorship was in some way "not fully secure". Sponsorship was also only one of many factors in the decisions (and conspiracy theories aside, it never seemed like the most important one).
That's really funny, 'cause noone has been able to bring some believable reason for this choice. So: *Taipei has not been choosen cause it was in Asia *Taipei has not been choosen cause it had some strange sponsorship Then, why has Taipei been choosen? For the funny weather in summer, rain season?
Should we deny that sj said Taipei was chosen 'cause "in the end they had the most surplus sponsorship, in fact"?
Out of context. Taipei was not chosen "because" of sponsorship, at least that was not the deciding factor for me, though (see above) that was one of the factors considered for every bid.
The above quote (I did not say 'because') was in response to the claim that Turin had full sponsorship, unlike other bids; when in fact it was not the only bid with full sponsorship (and in some ways that bid had less sponsorship than Taipei's; cf. breakfasts). Again, beyond noting the bids for which all major costs were covered, the specifics of sponsorship amount or surplus was not a deciding factor in the discussion.
Context:
set 25 02:19:35 metasj the result this year was uncertain even in the last days; and the discussion was about the quality of each aspect of the bids set 25 02:19:54 metasj taipei also managed to get everything paid for, with institutional support... set 25 02:20:05 AlisonW so did we set 25 02:20:11 AlisonW so did Torino set 25 02:20:12 metasj (in the end they had the most surplus sponsorship, in fact)
Should we deny that this decision caused a rift and quite a fight between the components of the jury?
It's funny, it caused a rift a day and a half after the decision, after a lot of emotional comments from the community; it did not during the jury discussion.
-- SJ
Excuse me sir, it caused a rift THE NIGHT the decision was made. Or are you saying that the decision has been took before september 25?
Gatto Nero
--- Gatto Nero gattonero@gmail.com wrote:
Should we deny that sj said Taipei was chosen 'cause "in the end they had the most surplus sponsorship, in fact"?
The above makes me think of an uncomfortable question or two.
Will any member of the jury be employed by Wikimania 2007? Will any member of jury be in a position to decide how sponsorship monies are spent (i.e. drafting budgets or who receives scholarships)?
Now a positive answer to one of those questions does change that Taipei was chosen in good faith. The people on the jury are some of the most experienced Wikimania organizers here. So it would be natural they would be selected for the jury, and equally natural that they will be heavily involved in organizing Wikimania 2007. However, I would certainly like to see that future Wikimania juries are selected with a negative answer to these questions in mind. Any possible perception of corruption should be avoided at all costs.
Birgitte SB
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--- Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
--- Gatto Nero gattonero@gmail.com wrote:
Should we deny that sj said Taipei was chosen
'cause
"in the end they had the most surplus sponsorship, in fact"?
The above makes me think of an uncomfortable question or two.
Will any member of the jury be employed by Wikimania 2007? Will any member of jury be in a position to decide how sponsorship monies are spent (i.e. drafting budgets or who receives scholarships)?
Now a positive answer to one of those questions does change that Taipei was chosen in good faith.
Excuse me
Now a positive answer to one of those questions does *not* change that Taipei was chosen in good faith.
The
people on the jury are some of the most experienced Wikimania organizers here. So it would be natural they would be selected for the jury, and equally natural that they will be heavily involved in organizing Wikimania 2007. However, I would certainly like to see that future Wikimania juries are selected with a negative answer to these questions in mind. Any possible perception of corruption should be avoided at all costs.
Birgitte SB
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http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
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Should we deny that a bid has been choosen that copied even the idea of a logo from the Torino's bid? Even.
Excuse me. Could you clarify what is the "logo from the Torino's bid" you mentioned? Do you mean the WM with a green W and red M on the left-under corner of Torino's banner?
THD
2006/9/30, THD theodoranian@gmail.com:
Should we deny that a bid has been choosen that copied even the idea of a logo from the Torino's bid? Even.
Excuse me. Could you clarify what is the "logo from the Torino's bid" you mentioned? Do you mean the WM with a green W and red M on the left-under corner of Torino's banner?
THD
How can we say...? Maybe the rectangular logo with a black band on the bottom, the logo of wikimania on the left, the choose to write "Wikimania2007Taipei" just like "Wikimania2007Torino" (and you were not obliged to write it in that way: you could write "Taipei 2007" and "Wikimania" in a lot of different way). Surely you have not copied the idea of different photos combined, yes, but all this copying thing is so evident... I'm not saying that you were not allowed to copy or to take inspiration from the other bids. I just find it sad to make it in this way. Personally, knowing that there were a bid with a logo sooooo strangely similar to mine (that put it on the page before of me), I had tried to work more and invent a logo totally different from the other. It's not that difficult to understand.
Gatto Nero
On Sat, September 30, 2006 07:45, Gatto Nero wrote:
I'm not saying that you were not allowed to copy or to take inspiration from the other bids. I just find it sad to make it in this way.
Could you just get a reality check here, and there's also a bit of the pot calling the kettle back here. Your bid *also* copied ideas from other bids, including london's, yet you haven't seen us complain. All the bids were GFDL (because of where they were placed on meta - personally I'd have been much much happier if the bids were developed in private by the various teams and then submitted by email).
For instance; For London I added links to the articles about London on every language's wp [1] timestamped 10:56, 10 September 2006. The next evening you copied this! (21:36, 11 September 2006 [2]). Taipei waited until [3] then at 07:54, 14 September 2006 you moved your list to the exact same position [4] on the bid as ours!
On 20:10, 10 September 2006 we added a gallery of images of London already in commons [5]. A gallery was added by Taipei at 00:54, 13 September 2006 [6] but then removed in favour of including the images individually.
Or maybe I should mention the use of flags? At 18:35, 14 September 2006 [7] I added them to our bid (indeed I had to create one! [8]) yet at 05:23, 16 September 2006 there was Taiwan using them too [9]!
We were surprised though that no other bid copied our welcome in multiple languages [10] at the top of the bid (English, French, German, Italian and Japanese) to make the point that London is very much a multi-lingual city as we believe that Wikimania should reflect the babel of languages that are spoken world-wide.
There are other examples too of bids taking ideas from each other (but I don't intend to go through every diff - life is too short) but the point is Wikimania - like all the other WMF projects - is a collaborative thing too. I found it very flattering that many of my ideas were copied quickly - it is the 'wiki way'.
Alison Wheeler
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimania_2007/London&diff=n... [2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimania_2007/Torino&diff=n... [3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimania_2007/Taipei&diff=n... [4] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimania_2007/Torino&diff=n... [5] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimania_2007/London&diff=p... [6] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimania_2007/Taipei&diff=p... [7] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimania_2007/London&diff=n... [8] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Icons-flag-eu.png [9] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimania_2007/Taipei&diff=n... [10] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimania_2007/London&diff=n...
Please... Why are we having these fights? Taipei has been chosen now, and we can i think do two things: Accept that or not. If we do the second, we will be fighting over this for weeks, months and maybe longer. I think Taipei made a good bid, and I am not in the position to decide whether it was the best. It has been chosen, please let the bidding team now proove that their bid was good indeed (we will never know a comparison with Turin or London or Alexandria) Please stop fighting over who copied something from someone else. It is NO use! In wiki it is *good* to copy the good things right? As long as it is the idea of improoving your bid, it is OK imho. The bid it is copied from won't be less good by that. The idea is not to *win* with your bid, but the idea should be to let the jury offer as much as possible material to be able to make a fair choise for the best bid. So please leave the harass behind, and let the Taipei people do their job, let them work their bid out to a real wikimania. Please let's all hope it will be a great conference, and don't make it harder for them with all these fights.
Greetings,
Lodewijk
2006/9/30, Alison Wheeler wikimedia@alisonwheeler.com:
On Sat, September 30, 2006 07:45, Gatto Nero wrote:
I'm not saying that you were not allowed to copy or to take inspiration from the other bids. I just find it sad to make it in this way.
Could you just get a reality check here, and there's also a bit of the pot calling the kettle back here. Your bid *also* copied ideas from other bids, including london's, yet you haven't seen us complain. All the bids were GFDL (because of where they were placed on meta - personally I'd have been much much happier if the bids were developed in private by the various teams and then submitted by email).
For instance; For London I added links to the articles about London on every language's wp [1] timestamped 10:56, 10 September 2006. The next evening you copied this! (21:36, 11 September 2006 [2]). Taipei waited until [3] then at 07:54, 14 September 2006 you moved your list to the exact same position [4] on the bid as ours!
On 20:10, 10 September 2006 we added a gallery of images of London already in commons [5]. A gallery was added by Taipei at 00:54, 13 September 2006 [6] but then removed in favour of including the images individually.
Or maybe I should mention the use of flags? At 18:35, 14 September 2006 [7] I added them to our bid (indeed I had to create one! [8]) yet at 05:23, 16 September 2006 there was Taiwan using them too [9]!
We were surprised though that no other bid copied our welcome in multiple languages [10] at the top of the bid (English, French, German, Italian and Japanese) to make the point that London is very much a multi-lingual city as we believe that Wikimania should reflect the babel of languages that are spoken world-wide.
There are other examples too of bids taking ideas from each other (but I don't intend to go through every diff - life is too short) but the point is Wikimania - like all the other WMF projects - is a collaborative thing too. I found it very flattering that many of my ideas were copied quickly
- it is the 'wiki way'.
Alison Wheeler
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimania_2007/London&diff=n... [2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimania_2007/Torino&diff=n... [3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimania_2007/Taipei&diff=n... [4] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimania_2007/Torino&diff=n... [5] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimania_2007/London&diff=p... [6] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimania_2007/Taipei&diff=p... [7] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimania_2007/London&diff=n... [8] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Icons-flag-eu.png [9] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimania_2007/Taipei&diff=n... [10] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimania_2007/London&diff=n...
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 30/09/06, effe iets anders effeietsanders@gmail.com wrote:
Please... Why are we having these fights?
Because this is the sort of thing that can come from setting it up as a competitive process.
Taipei has been chosen now, and we can i think do two things: Accept that or not. If we do the second, we will be fighting over this for weeks, months and maybe longer.
I suspect at least some of those not chosen question the transparency of the selection criteria and process. Saying "stop talking about this" doesn't stop them thinking about it.
Please stop fighting over who copied something from someone else. It is NO use! In wiki it is *good* to copy the good things right? As long as it is the idea of improoving your bid, it is OK imho. The bid it is copied from won't be less good by that.
I do like the idea of the wiki process being applied to bids. It means at least some effort is preserved for use by others.
The idea is not to *win* with your bid,
If that is the case, it is at odds with the word "win" being used all the way through the process, and with it being a competitive process.
Please let's all hope it will be a great conference, and don't make it harder for them with all these fights.
The competitive process by definition has a winner and several losers. The losers will be upset if the selection process and criteria appear not to have been transparent. Telling people to stop talking about it won't stop them thinking about it, especially if they feel their concerns are being dismissed rather than addressed. (I have no idea if their concerns are valid, but they certainly think they are.) And volunteers who feel ill-treated leave the project, which is damage to the project caused by using a competitive process.
As I said, a competitive process will be inherently damaging. If there's really no other way than a competitive process, then fine, but don't be surprised when it has the side effects it's *obviously* going to have.
- d.
--- David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 30/09/06, effe iets anders effeietsanders@gmail.com wrote:
Please... Why are we having these fights?
Because this is the sort of thing that can come from setting it up as a competitive process.
Taipei has been chosen now, and we can i think do two things: Accept that or
not. If we do the
second, we will be fighting over this for weeks,
months and maybe
longer.
I suspect at least some of those not chosen question the transparency of the selection criteria and process. Saying "stop talking about this" doesn't stop them thinking about it.
Please stop fighting over who copied something
from someone else. It
is NO use! In wiki it is *good* to copy the good
things right? As long
as it is the idea of improoving your bid, it is OK
imho. The bid it is
copied from won't be less good by that.
I do like the idea of the wiki process being applied to bids. It means at least some effort is preserved for use by others.
The idea is not to *win* with your bid,
If that is the case, it is at odds with the word "win" being used all the way through the process, and with it being a competitive process.
Please let's all hope it will be a great conference, and don't make
it harder for them
with all these fights.
The competitive process by definition has a winner and several losers. The losers will be upset if the selection process and criteria appear not to have been transparent. Telling people to stop talking about it won't stop them thinking about it, especially if they feel their concerns are being dismissed rather than addressed. (I have no idea if their concerns are valid, but they certainly think they are.) And volunteers who feel ill-treated leave the project, which is damage to the project caused by using a competitive process.
As I said, a competitive process will be inherently damaging. If there's really no other way than a competitive process, then fine, but don't be surprised when it has the side effects it's *obviously* going to have.
- d.
I intially disagreed with you, david, but now I am coming around to your way of thinking. Everyone is a volunteer doing there best in this. I do not doubt that this is true. But I am beginning to think a competitive process requires a higher level of professionalism than can be provided by volunteers doing their best.
Not that I think people should continue fighting over the Wikimania 2007 selection. But we should not stop talking about this process. We should start talking about how future Wikimania's should be selected. Perhaps the first task is to really define the relationship between Wikimania and Wikimedia. Is it dealt with through a commitee? Are there any Board Resolutions that pertain to Wikimania? What exactly is the connection?
Birgitte SB
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On 01/10/06, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
--- David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
As I said, a competitive process will be inherently damaging. If there's really no other way than a competitive process, then fine, but don't be surprised when it has the side effects it's *obviously* going to have.
I intially disagreed with you, david, but now I am coming around to your way of thinking. Everyone is a volunteer doing there best in this. I do not doubt that this is true. But I am beginning to think a competitive process requires a higher level of professionalism than can be provided by volunteers doing their best.
Unfortunately, I can't see another way than a competitive bid either, so the people saying this are right too. How annoying ...
Not that I think people should continue fighting over the Wikimania 2007 selection. But we should not stop talking about this process. We should start talking about how future Wikimania's should be selected. Perhaps the first task is to really define the relationship between Wikimania and Wikimedia. Is it dealt with through a commitee? Are there any Board Resolutions that pertain to Wikimania? What exactly is the connection?
That is a very interesting and deep question - i.e., what are the assumptions each person (or team or project) have made so far?
- d.
One thing we could do is have the bidding process, then determine which one would be 2008, 2009, etc, or if a certain place will be chosen at all. That way, all effort is utilized.
On 10/1/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 01/10/06, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
--- David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
As I said, a competitive process will be inherently damaging. If there's really no other way than a competitive process, then fine, but don't be surprised when it has the side effects it's *obviously* going to have.
I intially disagreed with you, david, but now I am coming around to your way of thinking. Everyone is a volunteer doing there best in this. I do not doubt that this is true. But I am beginning to think a competitive process requires a higher level of professionalism than can be provided by volunteers doing their best.
Unfortunately, I can't see another way than a competitive bid either, so the people saying this are right too. How annoying ...
Not that I think people should continue fighting over the Wikimania 2007 selection. But we should not stop talking about this process. We should start talking about how future Wikimania's should be selected. Perhaps the first task is to really define the relationship between Wikimania and Wikimedia. Is it dealt with through a commitee? Are there any Board Resolutions that pertain to Wikimania? What exactly is the connection?
That is a very interesting and deep question - i.e., what are the assumptions each person (or team or project) have made so far?
- d.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Birgitte SB wrote:
I intially disagreed with you, david, but now I am coming around to your way of thinking. Everyone is a volunteer doing there best in this. I do not doubt that this is true. But I am beginning to think a competitive process requires a higher level of professionalism than can be provided by volunteers doing their best.
I can understand that some people are disappointed by not winning the bid, but now that a decision is made supporting the winning bid serves well in maintaining general harmony.
This is not the kind of decision that can be effectively made by votes at broad volunteer level. There are too many factors that cannot be properly communicated even if a heroic effort is made by the committee to do so. Much can depend on technical considerations about the facility that can only be answered by very direct and specific questions from the committee. It would probably be a good idea to leave time for feedback from the general membership about the shortlisted bids; perhaps a month would do. This would give time for concerns of various sorts to be raised. I don't think that this was possible for 2005-7 because of the tighter time line for making the decision. It should be possible for 2008 and later since we do want a longer planning cycle.
I support the principle of rotating Wikimania around three broad geographical regions (Europe/Africa, The Americas, Asia/Australia), but this should not create a situation where we must accept a city's clearly inferior bid just because it is the only one from its region.
Not that I think people should continue fighting over the Wikimania 2007 selection. But we should not stop talking about this process. We should start talking about how future Wikimania's should be selected. Perhaps the first task is to really define the relationship between Wikimania and Wikimedia. Is it dealt with through a commitee? Are there any Board Resolutions that pertain to Wikimania? What exactly is the connection?
I think that the Foundation's connection with Wikimania should be closer than its links with any of the other sister projects. Wikimania's objectives have more to do with marshalling physical assets than trying to build something on-line. There is still the task of putting together a programme for the conference, but I don't see that as a big logistical problem. As long as the programmers are respectful of the diversity of Wikimedia projects serious difficulties are unlikely.
Perhaps a separate, but closely linked non-profit corporation needs to be set up to deal with Wikimania. It could be the one responsible for any possible liabilities that could arise from operating real-world rather than virtual events.
Ec
On Sat, September 30, 2006 21:20, effe iets anders wrote:
Please... Why are we having these fights? ... Please stop fighting over who copied something from someone else. It is NO use! In wiki it is *good* to copy the good things right?
I'm sorry, Lodewijk, but did you actually read my post?
I quote ...
2006/9/30, Alison Wheeler wikimedia@alisonwheeler.com: Your bid *also* copied ideas from other bids, including london's, yet you haven't seen us complain.
but the point is Wikimania - like all the other WMF projects - is a collaborative thing too. I found it very flattering that many of my ideas were copied quickly - it is the 'wiki way'.
Please don't see "fights" where none exist!
Alison Wheeler
Ok, could we please all calm down on that now?
Taipei was chosen - that is a fact. They did great work like all other bidding teams did. Instead of creating problems could we please look forewards and help them to make it a great event? There is always only one winner.
Are we a community or not?
Other events can be programmed of course - and having things on a national level, for example something like an after Wikimaina (like it was done in the Netherlands this year) would make sense, but I don't see any sense to now discuss about obvious things. The Jury was known before and I believe it was composed of people who know what they did and why.
So please: help Taipei or if you are not interested do nothing - but don't hinder them from doing their work.
Thank you!!!
Sabine
Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale! http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/*http://it.messenger.yahoo.com
--- Gatto Nero gattonero@gmail.com wrote:
2006/9/29, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:
In Taipei we will have a completely different
event from the event in
Frankfurt and Boston. Each time we learned new
things and the resulting
offers for hosting were different as a
consequence. Not allowing for this by
saying in advance that Turin does not have to do
"the work" again is imho
stupid. In order for Turin to be a competitor next
year, they have to
analyse what went wrong; was it their offer, their
presentation sheer bad
luck?
Turin is not in Asia. (Oh, and we didn't talk about "secret sponsorship", right: how came that a bid as been even shortlisted with this sort of "Yes, you have to trust us: we have a huuuuuge sponsor but we cannot tell you who, secret secret!"? Not talking about strange flight cost, strange "surplus sponsorship" and other funny reason...)
[Beware: this is Gatto Nero's opinion, not "Wikimania2007Torino Bidding Team"'s opinion]
I don't see a problem with not being able to publicly name a sponser. I am sure they were aware that winning the bid was based on this and if it had not been posted publically afterwards the win should have beeen revoked. Strange flight costs do sound like a problem, but I don't know what mean by this. Have they changed their numbers after they won?
Birgitte SB
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It was almost certain that a decent bid from Asia would be successful.
We look forward to Wikimania 2007 and hope that Wikimania will swing back to Europe in 2008!
Gordo
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org