Recently, the idea of a RecentChangesCamp in Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, or elsewhere on the west coast has popped up on the RCC-planning mailing list.

For those who don't know, RCC is one of the longer-standing wiki conferences, and has been held in Portland more than anywhere else. The last Portland one was in 2008; it's also been held in Montreal (x2), Camberra, Australia (x2), Boston, and Palo Alto.

I think it's fantastic that this community remembers Portland so fondly, and is so interested in having a conference there. And there's clearly a very fertile soil in SF as well. From past experience, this conference only happens if there is strong local will to pull it off. But if that exists, there is a good core, international group of volunteers who will help out, and provide insights from past events.

At the same time, it seems to me that the wiki world has evolved since RCC was first held. There are now several similar models, including the WikiConference (the Wikimedia movement's name for regional conferences; one was held last year in San Francisco); WikiSym (an academic conference about online collaboration, which has grown to include an Open Space component like RCC). Also, the PortlandWiki grown up since the last one, and has found some solid allies and beneficiaries in independent groups like Occupy and Portland Afoot.

So, my question is: do people feel like putting together a wiki conference in 2012? And is RCC a good model for doing that?

I'd highly recommend joining the RCC-planning email list and discussing there, so that we don't get separate discussions going. https://groups.google.com/group/rcc-planning

p.s. As an aside, I recently set up an IRC channel : #wikimedia-westcoast. While I know that many of you are more "wiki" people than "Wikimedia" people, I hope this is a useful tool for networking -- if you're an IRC user, please join us and say hi sometime!