· 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).
I believe Frankfurt has better transport links than Berlin. I don't
know much about the other two. The reason for London isn't that it's
the capital or the biggest city, but that is has the best transport
links.
· We have tried London before. Many times.
Even with very active bid
leaders (Alison, Gary) we had no luck.
True, but I'm not sure anywhere else in the UK will fare better in
that respect. Most other suggestions have only one person particularly
interested in them.
· 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 very big, sure, but each small section has everything we
need. It's built up of lots of smaller self-contained (and formally
separate) areas. We can easily find a venue that is near to
accommodation and other facilities.
· 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.
That's true enough, but if is so much more expensive that it would
make up for additional transport costs?
· 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).
That's not a bad point. It doesn't actually have to be London, it
could be somewhere within the London commuter belt. Show me some
numbers, and you might be able to convince me.
The strongest arguments for Oxford in particular are:
I'd say the strongest argument for Oxford is the prestige of Oxford
University - if the event is strongly associated with the Uni, that
would be an excellent selling point.