Without commenting on any other point or expressing any other opinions wrt either bid, I don't think the board has let us down at all (and I'm hardly known for speaking up in defence of the board!). Having to choose between two bids from cities with strong Wikimedia communities, one of which was built by a sitting trustee, would put the board in a very difficult position, and favouring one bid over the other risked creating division in the community (and even the board itself).
Harry
________________________________ From: Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Saturday, 31 March 2012, 22:26 Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] London Bid for Wikimania 2013
On 31 March 2012 22:10, Edward Saperia edsaperia@gmail.com wrote:
Howdy y'all,
Would anyone be interested in helping out with our bid to hold Wikimania in London in 2013?
We've got a couple of weeks to refine the bid page, and there's lots of little areas that need attention... a fuller description of the venue, more accommodation options, more information on travel in London, a section on GLAM in London, things like that, and I'd be very grateful for any time you might be able to put towards it. We have all the main things in place for the conference, just a question of writing it all up now!
The bidding timeline says:
"30 March 2012 (23:59 UTC): Bidding ends; all major information on the bid pages must be final."
Some of the things you describe as still needing to be added sound fairly major to me. Your bid page also says "This bid will lose its draft status over the weekend of the 31st of March." and that it will then be translated.
It sounds like you are a little behind schedule.
I think it is very unfortunate that the chapter has allowed two bids to be developed without any support, rather than picking one and getting behind it. We now have two bids that, to be honest, aren't particularly good (I know there are people that have worked very hard on both bids, but neither is really at the stage it should be by this point or has the team behind it that it needs). If we had concentrated on one bid and had had the support of the chapter, we could have had one bid that was extremely good. I think the board has let us down by failing to provide strong, decisive leadership.
I haven't looked in detail at what the other bids have produced, so it is hard to say what the UK's chances of winning are, but they are certainly lower than they could have been. If one of our bids does win, I'm sure everyone will rally round and make it a success, but we could have done much better.
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