That's great Tom, thanks! The main things that we would need to know about any bid is whether there is a suitable venue (ie with a variety of big/small lecture theatres, collective spaces, organising rooms, etc). We would then need to see what the accommodation situation would be - is it close by, or would it require something like shuttle-buses, and how many people would be accommodated (and in what kinds of groupings - single rooms/dorms..)? Would catering be available adjacent to the conference space? And finally, what would all of this cost? :-) (See * below for more.)
I wouldn't say we need to restrain ourselves in terms of a single bid at this stage, or even by what has failed in the past. If this bid can be worked up with sufficient detail, we should submit it - if there's an option in London, we can submit both, or decide which one looks most viable and run with that one. But we would need more details first...
Thanks again, Cormac
* More details at: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2009/Official_requirements_for_bidd...
On 12/19/07, Tom Holden thomas.holden@gmail.com wrote:
I have heard back from the director of the Oxford Internet Institute today and he seemed very positive about the idea, particularly if they could host a parallel more academic conference. (There's got to be an economy of scale since many speaker's would be appropriate for both.)
The OII have fairly limited facilities so may not be of that great a financial benefit to us on their own. The importance of their interest though is in the still close ties they maintain with Balliol college (Jimmy's talk for example was introduced by the master of Balliol at his recent talk) who may be able to properly help us out on accommodation and in the help their endorsement would provide in securing central university facilities. The master of Balliol expressed initial interest and said he would get back to me in the new year.
What do people think to this possibility? We've had several failed London bids in a row, if this came together would people be behind an Oxford one?
Tom _______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l