What if we had multiple events. For example;

Wikimania: The World Wikimedia Conference Wikiconferences:The Chapter Convention

thoughts?

----- Original Message ---- From: Michael Snow wikipedia@verizon.net To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Sunday, March 30, 2008 10:57:53 PM Subject: [Foundation-l] A Wikimania for everyone?

Every Wikimania bid has strengths and weaknesses. Once a bid is chosen, the ritual of criticizing the selection by focusing on some weakness seems to have become inevitable. I would be more impressed to reconsider the jury's selection if somebody presented a serious evaluation that reached a different result after weighing all the issues, instead of harping on only the one most favorable to the argument.

Since that is not yet forthcoming, I'd like to refocus the discussion on the concept of Wikimania in general, since it seems to produce so much debate. As an idea, Wikimania is being pulled in too many directions, and it cannot be all things to all people. Supposing we have a consensus that in the most basic sense it's a good idea (do we have that?), what can we make of this idea? What kind of event should it be? What values do we prioritize - intimacy, mass appeal, accessibility, outreach, infrastructure, culture? Others that I haven't listed? If we care about diversity, what is that? When we consider costs, whose costs do we mean? How do we balance the competing considerations?

Currently the conference is planned for roughly 400 people. So far I'm not aware of any location having difficulty attracting attendees. The argument for catering to the highest concentrations of contributors would be more appealing if coupled with the idea that it makes sense to accommodate more people. But expanding Wikimania would change other dynamics of accessibility - the type of facility used, individual costs and overall conference expenses, the character of the event. At least so far, nobody has been presenting this as a vision for Wikimania's future.

Another consideration is that admission fees have consciously been kept low. Otherwise Wikimania doesn't make Wikimedia contributors a priority - at least, not the kind of contributors I gather everyone is referring to here. For any location most people already face costs related to attendance, it's simply impossible to physically bring Wikimania to everyone. Realistically, for any one person, Wikimania may be close enough for you to come at minimal cost once or twice in your lifetime. Some people may have to use a broad interpretation of "minimal" for even that.

Geographic proximity only goes so far in any case. Talking about Europe and North America may sound as if that still leaves a vast range of options. In the first place, this would be more persuasive if we saw a larger number of cities bidding. When it's just one from each, the chances of producing a bid superior to a highly-motivated team from, say, South America are not exactly overwhelming. Furthermore, even if this was the very highest consideration, it's not exactly neutral between those. The varying population distributions and distances, especially for North America, would have obvious logical consequences. Basically, we should prefer any bid from the European core (defined by London on the west, Rome on the south, Berlin or Rome on the east, Berlin or Amsterdam on the north); the east coast of North America would be a secondary option (maybe we could disqualify Europe every third year); by comparison, the odds for the rest of North America would be decidedly inferior (after ten or so years, we might make it to Chicago or Los Angeles).

Wikimania could be bigger or smaller, reach the developing world or only the already-developed, more expensive or less so, rotated widely or narrowly. Leaving aside the security concerns specific to Alexandria, the choice of options would have the following undesirable consequences, depending on which course is taken: *Complaints that the event is impersonal, lacks a sense of community, or is merely a stage-managed public relations show *After a cycle or two, it seems to be pretty much just the same group of people getting together every few years *Objections that the amount being spent is a poor use of foundation funds (depending on how it works out, this would be about either the size of the event or the travel costs incurred by the foundation itself, making distance from San Francisco a factor) *Inability to accommodate anyone beyond the local audience, thus being hardly different from a random meetup and failing to reflect the diverse character of Wikimedia participants *Rumors and misperceptions of unfairness in timing of when registration is opened or how tickets are allocated *Outrage over high admission charges, resembling more closely a "professional" conference

I would like to understand what vision people have for Wikimania, and see how their vision would deal with all of these issues. So far I have heard only complaints and rebuttals, nobody offering their own vision (on this list, at least). I fear an end result of the fights over this would be to either abandon the idea of Wikimania, or simply to hold it in the Moscone Center every year like Macworld. Before we get there, let's hear some better alternatives.

--Michael Snow

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