2008/7/7 Tom Holden thomas.holden@gmail.com:
I've moved your page to http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2010/Bids/UK/London to allow for other UK bids till we decide where we want to be. I've also incorporated Gary Kirk's party venue suggestions from http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2009/UK/London. I seem to remember a much more complete London bid existing somewhere but perhaps I'm just thinking of the 08 bid (Gary?). It would be worth copying across still relevant info from http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2008/Bids/London and http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2007/London since these pages have a lot more detail than the 2009 page seems to have.
I've also moved across the Oxford bid from last year to http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2010/Bids/UK/Oxford and updated it slightly. Quite why we didn't go official with one of the two bids last year I'll never know. There is a little bit of a danger that people will think I'm a joke after the somewhat embarrassing "we missed the submission deadline" emails I had to send to various officials last year but, well, fingers crossed for short memories. I know Gary was also rather disenchanted with the process after last year's farce, so anything we could do to avoid that would be great (and Gary, if you have the strength, your help would be much appreciated).
If we're going to make this work though we really need the full support of Wikimedia UK. We have a lot greater chance of getting sponsorship if emails come from the "Director, Wikimedia UK", particularly if that's followed by "Registered charity number ...". It will also significantly increase our chances of winning if we're backed by a mature chapter. We rather seem to be stagnating at the moment, though I accept there's a lot to be done and there may be a lot being done behind the scenes. If it's any use I'm happy to take over any of the executive positions, e.g. treasurer for which I'm reasonably qualified I guess.
Tom
(User:Cfp)
*From:* wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto: wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *Al Tally *Sent:* 07 July 2008 01:25 *To:* wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org *Subject:* [Wikimediauk-l] Wikimania London 2010
Anyone interested in helping work on a Wikimania bid for London in 2010? See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2010/Bids/London
Apparently the odds are on Europe or North America winning, so we have a chance. Let's get Wikimania to the UK!
-- Al Tally (User:Majorly)
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
We also need to decide fast and early where we are going to bid to host, as trying to maintain 2 or 3 bids is highly detrimental to the quality of them. We want one, hard working team working on a single bid.
My personal vote is in for London.
2008/7/7 Paul Williams paul@skenmy.com:
We also need to decide fast and early where we are going to bid to host, as trying to maintain 2 or 3 bids is highly detrimental to the quality of them. We want one, hard working team working on a single bid.
My personal vote is in for London.
Is it realistic to state as part of the bid 'our chapter will be running properly' by 2010 or not? That could be quite important. The current virtual joke that is Wikimedia UK is detrimental to a bid, not positive :-)
I'd say London too due to good airports etc.
Is it realistic to state as part of the bid 'our chapter will be running properly' by 2010 or not?
At this stage, no. As far as I can tell, no progress is actually being made at the moment, so it's impossible to put an estimate on when things will be up and running. Hopefully we'll at least have a timeline by the time the bid has to be in, but that's just a hope.
I'd say London too due to good airports etc.
My vote is for London as well. Most people going to anywhere else will have to go through London anyway.
Is it realistic to state as part of the bid 'our chapter will be running properly' by 2010 or not?
Running properly? Speaks volumes.
Gordo
2008/7/7 Paul Williams paul@skenmy.com:
We also need to decide fast and early where we are going to bid to host, as trying to maintain 2 or 3 bids is highly detrimental to the quality of them. We want one, hard working team working on a single bid.
My personal vote is in for London.
Yes, the page was originally for a Manchester bid (closer to me), but London is what we should go for. We should stick with one, and work on it together. London is the most suitable, as has been said, flights tend to go to London airports more than others.
OK well I'm not going to fight too much for Oxford if I'm the only one who thinks London isn't that great an idea, but before I shut up I'll just make a few points:
. Wikimania has been in cities other than the capital or largest one more often than not (Frankfurt not Berlin, Cambridge not DC or NY, Alexandria not Cairo).
. We have tried London before. Many times. Even with very active bid leaders (Alison, Gary) we had no luck.
. London is spread out over a massive area. This either means significant journeys from accommodation to conferences to restaurants, or doing basically everything in one of the university's campuses, making us very dependent on that university for everything and giving a rather claustrophobic feel.
. London is expensive and is globally perceived as being even more expensive than it actually is. Being firmly rooted in a university campus would ameliorate this, but it's always going to be an issue when it comes to evaluating bids.
. The transport advantages are illusionary. Getting into the centre of London from Heathrow does not take significantly more time than getting into the centre of Oxford (there are shuttle busses). (Oxford is of course not unique in this: Reading, Guildford, Cambridge etc. all have similar services I'd imagine).
The strongest arguments for Oxford in particular are:
. The presence of the Oxford Internet Institute. A ready source of speakers and a unique selling point (would be particularly useful in ensuring serious press coverage).
. Oxford's popularity as a tourist destination.
. Its compact city-centre.
. Fairly high tech population. 3 games companies off the top of my head, major web design companies. Regular "geek nights" meetings.
Do we have any contacts in UCL/LSE/Imperial anymore? If not then my contacts in Oxford university would be another advantage.
Tom
From: wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Al Tally Sent: 07 July 2008 16:18 To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Wikimania London 2010
2008/7/7 Paul Williams paul@skenmy.com:
We also need to decide fast and early where we are going to bid to host, as trying to maintain 2 or 3 bids is highly detrimental to the quality of them. We want one, hard working team working on a single bid.
My personal vote is in for London.
Yes, the page was originally for a Manchester bid (closer to me), but London is what we should go for. We should stick with one, and work on it together. London is the most suitable, as has been said, flights tend to go to London airports more than others.
wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org