Thanks Simon - these are great points. I did in fact meet John Dehlin, and he was very enthusiastic about collaborating - particularly with Wikiversity. My major concern with regards Wikimania is with finding a good venue that will be easy to get to for members of our community, and comfortably host about 500 people, keeping accommodation and activity centres within easy reach of each other (as we've had in the past). The next thing would be to find sponsorship - so your ideas are most appreciated. (Are you able/willing to help in this regard? :-)) Finally, remote participation is something we have been working on thus far, but there's much room for improvement. However, I'm not sure about simultaneous conferences, as it could dilute from the diversity that has made each Wikimania so special. :-)
Thanks, Cormac
On 11/6/07, Sandy Dorotheo sandyd@cols.com.au wrote:
Guys,
I'm not trying to be tricky. I'm just incompetent with email lists.
The point I'm trying to make is that you need an institution's support if you want to have a bid grow legs; just like Mido has with the support of the Bibliotech at Alexandria next year. I'm pretty sure that the OU would love to help if they were approached in an open way. It would also assist the Wiki Foundation as the OU is at tone centre of a push (by HP) to get Unis to develop a global learning "cyberinfrastructure" (as the US National Science Foundation call it).
Cormac, yu may have met a John Dehlin from MIT at the conference. He is working on an OpenCourseware Consortia (another $1M from HP) whose aim it is to do exactly this. The Wikipedia Foundation has a role to play here as Wikipedia is the most used virtual library in the world, yet it only allocates 2% of its budget to comms, which explains why it is still using antiquated tools like this mail list and IRC, when the conversations in most unis are about how they bridge the gap between an individual's "presence" and his/her peers with real time tools like the accessgrid. http://www.accessgrid.org/map
If you wanted a person who may be able to help. http://news.kmi.open.ac.uk/rostra/news.php?r=6&t=2&id=940 And he could be contacted here (if you wanted to keep an intro above the radar) http://labspace.open.ac.uk/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=20 Or perhaps start a new thread.
I'll say it again. The one thing which is needed is to consider linking (in real time) between global conference sites. With Atlanta talking about running their "own" conference next year at the same time as Alexandria, you can see how these tools could act to make remote groups feel part of a global initiative. Linking rooms in Alexandria, Atlanta and (say) Milton Keyes would be a productive first step. It would also reinforce the UK's bid as the global conference hub for 2009.
If you wanted a sponsor then it's not hard to see which global IT company might be interested (although there are a few others I could suggest).
Regards, simonfj
-----Original Message----- From: wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Cormac Lawler Sent: Monday, 5 November 2007 9:49 PM To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] People to approach to help?
Gary, is this a general note of pessimism? I can understand that - but I would bear in mind that it really just takes one or two dedicated people to get a serious bid together - people will join as it gathers momentum, and then certainly if/when the bid is selected. For what it's worth, I'm still hopeful for 2009, and I will get working on it soon. (It will be easier for me to concentrate on Manchester, as I know the venue - if you can see a realistic option yourself, focus your energy there.)
Cormac
On 11/4/07, Gary Kirk gary.kirk@gmail.com wrote:
If you are interested, please help. I'll give it a week and then I'm
sorry,
but I give up.
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