From the Chapters point of view, Berlin is pretty much as central as you can get (restricting locations to those on the surface of the planet!). I don't know the distribution of developers, so can't comment about that. If you look at the board meeting alone, then yes, it would probably make much more sense to hold it elsewhere - but combine it with the other meetings, and Berlin is a very sensible place to hold it.

Voice and video conferencing have come a long way, but are not even close to meeting in person in terms of time-effectiveness or effect on relations, especially if the people involved haven't met each other before. Until meetings can be held in immersive 3D environments, I doubt things will improve (and even then, meeting over tea/beer can't happen, which is incredibly useful to get to know someone).

The locations that you list for board meetings all tally extremely well with places that other events have happened in - mostly Wikimanias - and I would assume that the dates are in very good agreement. It makes a huge amount of sense for board members to go to those events (whose location isn't determined by the board), and once they're all together why not hold a board meeting?

Note that within the academic world, far more exotic and far-flung places are chosen for conferences. In comparison, the WMF is incredibly restrained!

BTW, I trust that, since you are so in favour of being "green", you never go on holiday to foreign countries, and avoid making any unnecessary trips (be it long or short distance)?

Mike Peel

On 1 May 2009, at 18:06, Gregory Kohs wrote:

The purpose of my question was to examine the carbon impact on our global environment by holding this meeting in Berlin, which (by my estimation) is quite a ways off from the point of "least cumulative distance" that could have been achieved for at least the mandatory attendees. All of that additional jet fuel and hotel consumption (laundered sheets, poor recycling standards, etc.) is something to consider if the polar ice melts and floods San Francisco one day, thanks to CO2-accelerated warming. A shorter-haul Boeing 737 flight burns about 200 pounds of fuel per passenger. I can only imagine that a trans-continental flight, plus a trans-Atlantic leg to Berlin, is likely burning at least 400 pounds of fuel per passenger. Return trip makes that 800 pounds of fuel. I hope each of the San Francisco-based attendees feel comfortable that their burning of 800 pounds of jet fuel (about 114 gallons) in order to attend the conference in Berlin (a conference that, as far as I can tell, had zero "dial-in" conferencing options offered) was justified?

I get the impression that there is a corporate culture afoot at the Wikimedia Foundation that stifles any attempts to optimize meetings and conferences in ways that might be more economical and environmentally friendly, with innovations such as Skype and video- teleconferencing. My sense is that "interesting" and "exotic" places are chosen instead... San Francisco, the Netherlands, Berlin, Taipei, Alexandria (Egypt, not Virginia), Buenos Aires, etc. I suspect it's part of the corporate culture to get the "backwater" taste of St. Petersburg (Florida, not Russia) out of everyone's mouth, to select all of these far-flung, non-English- speaking locales for a Board that consists mostly of North Americans who speak English, and who are funded mostly by U.S. dollars.

I know that regarding a recent trade conference that was only 124 miles from our headquarters, my Fortune 100 employer sent down an edict that only one of the 3 people from our team of 14 personnel who were interested in going, could actually attend. Certainly, this was more of an economic decision than a "green" decision, but frankly, the two are often hand-in-hand outcomes. Is the Wikimedia Foundation very "green" in its governance practices? I know that Wikia, Inc. touts its dedication to "Green", but what about the WMF?

Here's a 100-gallon aquarium: *http://tinyurl.com/100-gallon-tank*

Imagine it full of jet fuel, then setting a match to it, sucking oxygen out of the air, and replacing it with carbon-laden molecules. That's what each of the North American board members did to enable travel to Berlin to hold their meeting which seems to have exhausted most of the attendees.

-- Gregory Kohs _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Дана Friday 01 May 2009 19:06:55 Gregory Kohs написа:

additional jet fuel and hotel consumption (laundered sheets, poor recycling standards, etc.) is something to consider if the polar ice melts and floods

Laundered sheets at least don't add any polution, because people would have to launder their sheets at home too.

friendly, with innovations such as Skype and video-teleconferencing. My sense is that "interesting" and "exotic" places are chosen instead... San Francisco, the Netherlands, Berlin, Taipei, Alexandria (Egypt, not Virginia), Buenos Aires, etc. I suspect it's part of the corporate culture to get the "backwater" taste of St. Petersburg (Florida, not Russia) out of everyone's mouth, to select all of these far-flung, non-English-speaking locales for a Board that consists mostly of North Americans who speak English, and who are funded mostly by U.S. dollars.

These locations are chosen mostly in order to increase interest in Wiki[mp]edia around the world.

Hi!

The purpose of my question was to examine the carbon impact on our global environment by holding this meeting in Berlin

Ha! Dude, you're coming to organization that runs 100kW datacenter (when other sites of similar popularity go for 10-100MW facilities), and talking about carbon footprint? Haha! I'll skip most of the nonsense about sheets (hotels don't actually change them daily nowadays, they are eco-friendly and suggest you put a card asking for sheet change.. ;-) and other stuff.

I suspect it's part of the corporate culture to get the "backwater" taste of St. Petersburg (Florida, not Russia) out of everyone's mouth, to select all of these far-flung, non-English- speaking locales for a Board that consists mostly of North Americans who speak English, and who are funded mostly by U.S. dollars.

Have you ever been outside US? With statements like this you end up just bringing up shame upon your nationals. English traffic is only half for us (and it includes overseas access too), so even if we'd be funded entirely by US, we'd have commitment to reach out to multiple parts of our world.

than a "green" decision, but frankly, the two are often hand-in-hand outcomes.

"green" is marketing cover/buzzword for downsizing the business. I also work for fortune-something company and have seen various limitations on various travel because of economy - and even if we have whole VP dedicated to green and ecology, nobody tried the silly excuse that not doing the work and not doing the outreach is "better for environment". Organizations have their priorities and work to do.

Is the Wikimedia Foundation very "green" in its governance practices? I know that Wikia, Inc. touts its dedication to "Green", but what about the WMF?

Well, we have compacted our computational tasks into very tiny datacenters, and yeah, we can slap "green" on top of that, simply because thats what we could afford being ran on donations - yay green. WMF staff takes public transit or walks to the work (and they can!) - yay green.

And, oh well, if we compare, we have millions of users who don't need paper encyclopedias, we have hundreds of thousands of contributors, who don't come to meetings, etc.

Here's a 100-gallon aquarium: *http://tinyurl.com/100-gallon-tank*

Imagine it full of jet fuel, then setting a match to it, sucking oxygen out of the air, and replacing it with carbon-laden molecules. That's what each of the North American board members did to enable travel to Berlin to hold their meeting which seems to have exhausted most of the attendees.

we're full of funny examples, aren't we?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rio_Madre_de_Dios,_Peru.JPG

This is tropical rainforest, it produces oxygen. What people without knowledge do - they light a match and burn it, in one way or another. Burning consumes oxygen too, no forest - no oxygen production as well.

And I have no idea why you put here 'exhausted' in a negative context. It was few very high bandwidth and very useful/productive days. I'm happy to be exhausted in that way :)

Anyway, in our business - facilitating the knowledge exchange - we're extremely efficient. Yes, we have to go to meetings, because they provide high bandwidth communication channels. Yes, we have to fly somewhere, and you seem not to get that it was extremely efficient to fly _that_ group of people to Europe. Yes, we have to use airlines, and if you want to talk about jet fuel efficiency, you should talk to airlines, they can stare at your tank images and contemplate about "oh, Gregory Kohs is attacking our practices, we should do something".

Though, as much as you don't realize what we're doing, you probably won't realize too much of anything else, so... why bother. Go, better travel a bit outside US, then you'll either get some more reason yourself, or someone else will put that into you. Blind bigotry isn't welcome anywhere.