Liz Lawley of Corante writes about how she chose not to go to e-Tech this week, but to go to sxsw instead; and the relationship b/t those decisions and how diverse the speakers and attendees at each conference are. The piece is worth reading; she says interesting things such as "If you build a place that women love, the men will follow. The reverse is not true," and "There were more conversations than there were pontifications."

http://www.corante.com/many/archives/2005/03/16/why_sxsw.php

Applying similar thoughts to the Wikipedia community, similar comfort zones for certain demographics of users have perhaps as much to do with diversity of philosophy as with diversity of gender and race. But the point about conversations v. pontifications hits home.

I'd like to know what other people think about this; how we might conceive of gatherings and big events like meetups or wikimania in ways that draw out people who will make them warmer, and more varied and interesting.